There was no time to be lost; winter was fast approaching; day and night had again returned. The sun’s dip below the icy horizon to the north was longer and longer every night, and during the day he skirted so low above the southern land that even at noon it was already dusk in our wardroom and between decks. Light fleecy snow fell frequently, and day by day the temperature declined nearer and nearer to zero; but nevertheless, no change took place in the outside pack—it still roared and grated in constant motion. The idea of travelling over it could not be entertained for a moment, and it was necessary to wait till the snow of the shores and the new ice of the inlets and narrow spaces between the pack and shore were hard enough to bear the loaded sledges. On 22nd September the dog-sledges again started for the north to ascertain whether Cape Joseph Henry could be crossed or rounded. And two days later, three eight-man sledges, under Commander Markham, with Lieutenants Parr and May, left the ship with a heavy load of provisions and stores, to be deposited at the most northern suitable fixed point in readiness for the spring campaign. Lieutenant Aldrich and his dog-sledges returned in fourteen days. He had reached the Cape, crossing on his way the ring of latitude from which Sir Edward Parry, the most poleward of our predecessors, had turned back 48 years before. From a cliff two thousand feet above the polar floes, he had seen nothing but ice to the northward; but far westward, seventy miles or more distant, snowy headlands, one beyond the other, extended slightly northward of the land on which he stood. This was the worst news we had anticipated. It left the future undecided. If his telescope had detected the loom of land to the north, our duty would have been plain, and success at least probable. If, on the other hand, the coast beyond the Cape ran definitely south, the clear negative would have allowed us to turn every energy into a new channel. But now this new-found land must be tracked westward for many a weary mile, and those distant headlands must be rounded one by one before we could be certain that the coast-line did not finally turn polewards, and afford a route which might be followed, if not next year, at least in the following season.