20.--Noon 68 deg. 41' S., 179 deg. 28' W. Made good S. 36
W. 58; C. Crozier S. 20 W. 563'.--The good conditions held up to
midnight last night; we went from lead to lead with only occasional
small difficulties. At 9 o'clock we passed along the western edge of
a big stream of very heavy bay ice--such ice as would come out late
in the season from the inner reaches and bays of Victoria Sound,
where the snows drift deeply. For a moment one imagined a return to
our bad conditions, but we passed this heavy stuff in an hour and
came again to the former condition, making our way in leads between
floes of great area.

Bowers reported a floe of 12 square miles in the middle watch. We
made very fair progress during the night, and an excellent run in the
morning watch. Before eight a moderate breeze sprang up from the west
and the ice began to close. We have worked our way a mile or two on
since, but with much difficulty, so that we have now decided to bank
fires and wait for the ice to open again; meanwhile we shall sound
and get a haul with tow nets. I'm afraid we are still a long way from
the open water; the floes are large, and where we have stopped they
seem to be such as must have been formed early last winter. The signs
of pressure have increased again. Bergs were very scarce last night,
but there are several around us to-day. One has a number of big humps
on top. It is curious to think how these big blocks became perched so
high. I imagine the berg must have been calved from a region of hard
pressure ridges. [Later] This is a mistake--on closer inspection it
is quite clear that the berg has tilted and that a great part of the
upper strata, probably 20 feet deep, has slipped off, leaving the
humps as islands on top.

It looks as though we must exercise patience again; progress is more
difficult than in the worst of our experiences yesterday, but the
outlook is very much brighter. This morning there were many dark
shades of open water sky to the south; the westerly wind ruffling
the water makes these cloud shadows very dark.

The barometer has been very steady for several days and we ought to
have fine weather: this morning a lot of low cloud came from the
S.W., at one time low enough to become fog--the clouds are rising
and dissipating, and we have almost a clear blue sky with sunshine.

_Evening_.--The wind has gone from west to W.S.W. and still blows
nearly force 6. We are lying very comfortably alongside a floe with