containing the latest report of the voyage with them, and were told
to place it in some conspicuous part of the hut. In the following
year this cylinder was found by the _Morning_,[1] and so the first
information was given that the _Discovery_ had succeeded in reaching
these southern regions.

[Footnote 1: The relief ship.]

On January 10, when the weather was still calm and bright, the ship
again stood out to sea, and was steered close around Cape Adare
in the hope of finding
[Page 44]
a clear channel near at hand. Very soon, however, the tidal stream
began to make from the south, and the whole aspect of the streams
of heavy pack-ice rapidly changed. Almost immediately the pack was
about the ship, and she was being rapidly borne along with it.
Across the entrance to the bay was a chain of grounded icebergs,
and it was in this direction that she was being carried. For the
first time they faced the dangers of the pack, and realized its
mighty powers. Little or nothing could be done, for the floes around
them were heavier than anything they had yet encountered. Twist and
turn as they would no appreciable advance could be made, and in
front of one colossal floe the ship was brought to a standstill for
nearly half an hour. But they still battled on; Armitage remained
aloft, working the ship with admirable patience; the engine-room, as
usual, answered nobly to the call for more steam, and the _Discovery_
exerted all her powers in the struggle; but, in spite of these
efforts, progress was so slow that it looked almost certain that
she would be carried down among the bergs. 'It was one of those
hours,' Scott says, 'which impress themselves for ever on the memory.