at such an early season. It is difficult to know when to try and push
on again.

_Monday, December_ 12.--The pack was a little looser this morning;
there was a distinct long swell apparently from N.W. The floes were
not apart but barely touching the edges, which were hard pressed
yesterday; the wind still holds from N.W., but lighter. Gran, Oates,
and Bowers went on ski towards a reported island about which there
had been some difference of opinion. I felt certain 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