By midnight of the 3rd we had made 11 miles to the south, and then came to a full stop in weather so thick with snow that we could not learn if the leads and lanes were worth entering.  The ice was hummocky, but, fortunately, the gale was decreasing, and after we had scanned all the leads and pools within our reach we turned back to the north-east.  Two sperm and two large blue whales were sighted, the first we had seen for 260 miles.  We saw also petrels, numerous adelies, emperors, crab-eaters, and sea-leopards.  The clearer weather of the morning showed us that the pack was solid and impassable from the south-east to the south-west, and at 10 a.m. on the 4th we again passed within five yards of the small berg that we had passed twice on the previous day.  We had been steaming and dodging about over an area of twenty square miles for fifty hours, trying to find an opening to the south, south-east, or south-west, but all the leads ran north, north-east, or north-west.  It was as though the spirits of the Antarctic were pointing us to the backward track—­the track we were determined not to follow.  Our desire was to make easting as well as southing so as to reach the land, if possible, east of Ross’s farthest South and well east of Coats’ Land.  This was more important as the prevailing winds appeared to be to easterly, and every mile of easting would count.  In the afternoon we went west in some open water, and by 4 p.m. we were making west-south-west with more water opening up ahead.  The sun was shining brightly, over three degrees high at midnight, and we were able to maintain this direction in fine weather till the following noon.  The position then was lat. 70° 28´ S., long. 20° 16´ W., and the run had been 62 miles S. 62° W. At 8 a.m. there had been open water from north round by west to south-west, but impenetrable pack to the south and east.  At 3 p.m. the way to the south-west and west-north-west was absolutely blocked, and as we experienced a set to the west, I did not feel justified in burning more of the reduced stock of coal to go west or north.  I took the ship back over our course for four miles, to a point where some looser pack gave faint promise of a way through; but, after battling for three hours with very heavy hummocked ice and making four miles to the south, we were brought up by huge blocks and floes of very old pack.  Further effort seemed useless at that time, and I gave the order to bank fires after we had moored the ‘Endurance’ to a solid floe.  The weather was clear, and some enthusiastic football-players had a game on the floe until, about midnight, Worsley dropped through a hole in rotten ice while retrieving the ball.  He had to be retrieved himself.