n it was a berg,
and it proved to be so; only of a very curious dome shape with very
low cliffs all about.

Fires were ordered for 12, and at 11.30 we started steaming with plain
sail set. We made, and are making fair progress on the whole, but it
is very uneven. We escaped from the heavy floes about us into much
thinner pack, then through two water holes, then back to the thinner
pack consisting of thin floes of large area fairly easily broken. All
went well till we struck heavy floes again, then for half an hour we
stopped dead. Then on again, and since alternately bad and good--that
is, thin young floes and hoary older ones, occasionally a pressed up
berg, very heavy.

The best news of yesterday was that we drifted 15 miles to the S.E.,
so that we have not really stopped our progress at all, though it has,
of course, been pretty slow.

I really don't know what to think of the pack, or when to hope for
open water.

We tried Atkinson's blubber stove this afternoon with great
success. The interior of the stove holds a pipe in a single coil
pierced with holes on the under side. These holes drip oil on to an
asbestos burner. The blubber is placed in a tank suitably built around
the chimney; the overflow of oil from this tank leads to the feed pipe
in the stove, with a cock to regulate the flow. A very simple device,
but as has been shown a very effective one; the stove gives great heat,
but, of course, some blubber smell. However, with such stoves in the
south one would never lack cooked food or warm hut.

Discussed with Wright the fact that the hummocks on sea ice always
yield fresh water. We agreed that the brine must simply run down
out of the ice. It will be interesting to bring up a piece of sea
ice and watch this process. But the fact itself is interesting as
showing that the process producing the hummock is really producing
fresh water. It may also be noted as phenomenon which makes _all_
the difference to the ice navigator._5_

Truly the getting to our winter quarters is no light task; at first the
gales and heavy seas, and now this continuous fight with the pack ice.

8 P.M.--We are getting on with much bumping and occasional 'hold ups.'

_Tuesday, December_ 13.--I was up most of the night. Never have I
experienced such rapid and complete changes of prospect. Cheetham
in the last dog watch was running the ship through sludgy new ice,
making with all sail set four or five knots. Bruce, in the first,
too