At this same spot, large flocks of silver-grey petrels were seen resting on the ice and skimming the water in search of food. As soon as we had entered the ice-zone, most of our old companions, such as the albatross, had deserted, while a new suite of Antarctic birds had taken their place. These included the beautiful snow petrel, the Antarctic petrel, and the small, lissome Wilson petrel--a link with the bird-life of more temperate seas. On the evening of January 3 the wind was blowing fresh from the south-east and falling snow obscured the horizon. The pack took a decided turn to the north, which fact was particularly disappointing in view of the distance we had already traversed to the west. We were now approaching the longitude of D'Urville's landfall, and still the pack showed no signs of slackening. I was beginning to feel very anxious, and had decided not to pass that longitude without resorting to desperate measures. The change in our fortunes occurred at five o'clock next morning, when the Chief Officer, Toucher, came down from the bridge to report that the atmosphere was clearing and that there appeared to be land-ice near by. Sure enough, on the port side, within a quarter of a mile, rose a massive barrier of ice extending far into the mist and separated from the ship by a little loose pack-ice. The problem to be solved was, whether it was the seaward face of an ice-covered continent, the ice-capping of a low island or only a flat-topped iceberg of immense proportions. By 7 A.M. a corner was reached where the ice-wall trended southward, limned on the horizon in a series of bays and headlands. An El Dorado had opened before us, for the winds coming from the east of south had cleared the pack away from the lee of the ice-wall, so that in the distance a comparatively clear sea was visible, closed by a bar of ice, a few miles in extent. Into this we steered, hugging the ice-wall, and were soon in the open, speeding along in glorious sunshine, bringing new sights into view every moment. The wall, along the northern face, was low--from thirty to seventy feet in height--but the face along which we were now progressing gradually rose in altitude to the south. It was obviously a shelf-ice formation (or a glacier-tongue projection of it), exactly similar in build, for instance, to the Great Ross Barrier so well described by Ross, Scott, and others. At the north-west corner, at half a dozen places within a few miles of each other, the wall was puckered up and surmounted by semi-conical eminences, half as high as the face itself. These peculiar elevations were unlike anything previously recorded and remained unexplained for a while, until closer inspection showed them to be the result of impact with other ice-masses--a curious but conceivable cause. On pieces of broken floe Weddell seals were noted. They were the first seen on the voyage and a sure indication of land, for their habitat ranges over the coastal waters of Antarctic lands.