On March 5th we passed within sight of several large and beautiful bergs emerging from the Weddell Sea, the mouth of which we were now crossing, and met with heavier floes than we had hitherto encountered. On the 9th we ran into broad belts of heavy ice. I took this chance of “watering” ship, placing her alongside a floe with some solid pieces of blue ice. Owing to the swell the ship would not lie comfortably, and so, taking with me Macklin, Carr and Douglas, I went off to secure her fore and aft. We broke up and passed aboard a considerable quantity of fresh ice. The men thoroughly enjoy a job of this nature and make a great joke of it. On this occasion they broke the ice into fragments of convenient weight and threw them at Jeffrey, who had undertaken to catch them all, subjecting him to a regular fusillade from which it was all he could do to defend himself. On the floe there was a seal which had come up to sleep, and we took this also. While this work was going on, Worsley took a sounding, finding in position lat. 66° 5´ S. and 38° 16´ W. long., 2,521 fathoms. Query came on to the floe, where he took a tremendous interest in a killer which was swimming about. The killer rose close to the floe and “blew” with such a blast that Query tucked in his tail and ran for dear life—much to our amusement. On Friday, March 10th, we encountered still heavier belts, and were compelled to take a north-easterly direction. In the evening it turned much colder, the temperature dropping to 17° Fahr. A number of Adelie penguins were seen on the floe. Seals were scarce, only one being seen. Snow and Antarctic petrels flew about the ship in considerable numbers. During the night we continued to push in a north-easterly direction, meeting very heavy broken-up old Weddell Sea floe. The temperature rose again to 24° Fahr. A strong easterly wind was blowing, with snow, which made it difficult to see far in any direction. Water was again reported in the hold to the level of the kelson, and required three hours’ additional pumping to reduce.