A General History & Collection of Voyages and Travels ... - Nauticus

place where they are formed.[3][3] "Our friend Mahine had already expressed his surprise at several little snow and hail showers onthe preceding days, this phenomenon being utterly unknown in his country. The appearances of"white stones," which melted in his hand, was altogether miraculous in his eyes, and though weendeavoured to explain to him that cold was the cause of their formation, yet I believe his ideas onthat subject were never very clear. A heavy fall of snow surprised him more than what he had seenbefore, and after a long consideration of its singular qualities, he told us he would call it the whiterain when be came back to his country. He did not see the first ice, on account of the early hour inthe morning; but two days after, in about 65° S., he was struck with astonishment upon seeing one ofthe largest pieces, and the day following presented him with an extensive field of ice, which blockedup our farther progress to the south, and gave him great pleasure, supposing it to be land, We toldhim that so far from being land, it was nothing but fresh water, which we found some difficulty toconvince him of at first, till we shewed him the ice which was formed in the scuttled cask on thedeck. He assured us, however, that he would, at all events, call this the white land, by way ofdistinguishing it from all the rest."--G.F.We had not stood long to the N.E. before we found ourselves embayed by the ice, and were obliged to tackand stretch to the S.W., having the field, or loose ice, to the south, and many huge islands to the north.After standing two hours on this tack, the wind very luckily veering to the westward, we tacked, stretchedto the north, and soon got clear of the loose ice; but not before we had received several hard knocks fromthe larger pieces, which, with all our care, we could not avoid. After clearing one danger we still hadanother to encounter; the weather remained foggy, and many large islands lay in our way; so that we had toluff for one, and bear up for another. One we were very near falling aboard of, and, if it had happened, thiscircumstance would never have been related.[4] These difficulties, together with the improbability offinding land farther south, and the impossibility of exploring it, on account of the ice, if we should findany, determined me to get more to the north. At the time we last tacked, we were in the longitude of 159°20' W., and in the latitude of 66° 0' S. Several penguins were seen on some of these islands, and a fewantarctic peterels on the wing.[4] "About one o'clock, whilst the people were at dinner, we were alarmed by the sudden appearanceof a large island of ice just a-head of us. It was absolutely impossible either to wear or tack the ship,on account of its proximity, and our only resource was to keep as near the wind as possible, and totry to weather the danger. We were in the most dreadful suspension for a few minutes, and thoughwe fortunately succeeded, yet the ship passed within her own length to windward of it,"--G.F.We continued to stand to the north, with a fresh gale at west, attended with thick snow showers, till eighto'clock in the evening, when the wind abated, the sky began to clear up, and at six o'clock in the morningof the 16th it fell calm. Four hours after, it was succeeded by a breeze at N.E. with which we stretched tothe S.E., having thick hazy weather, with snow showers, and all our rigging coated with ice. In the evening,we attempted to take some up out of the sea, but were obliged to desist; the sea running too high, and thepieces being so large, that it was dangerous for the boat to come near them.The next morning, being the 17th, we succeeded better; for, falling in with a quantity of loose ice, wehoisted out two boats; and by noon got on board as much as we could manage. We then made sail for theeast, with a gentle breeze northerly, attended with snow and sleet, which froze to the rigging as it fell. Atthis time we were in the latitude of 64° 41' south, longitude 155° 44' west. The ice we took up proved to benone of the best, being chiefly composed of frozen snow; on which account it was porous, and had imbibeda good deal of salt water; but this drained off, after lying a while on deck, and the water then yielded was