So far as the leader of the expedition was concerned, there was another circumstance in connection with the position in which the ships were that appealed to him very particularly. He had, a few years earlier, succeeded in locating the North Magnetic Pole. Bearings, taken in the neighbourhood of the two volcanoes, revealed the fact that the South Magnetic Pole was only about 170 miles distant. An effort was made to penetrate to the South so as to sail over, or otherwise locate, the exact position of the magnetic pole; but the weather conditions, which had been so favourable to them up to that point, now told severely against them. The thermometer fell rapidly, and the temperature went so low that the spray, flung up by the ships, froze, as it fell, into solid ice on the bows. Men were kept constantly breaking it away, but still it accumulated, considerably interfering with the speed of the ships. Then they found in front of them a great wall of ice rising out of the sea, without a break or opening, to a height of some hundreds of feet. They sailed along it for miles, but the only change was that it increased in height until it towered a thousand feet above the level of the ocean. Although it was then midsummer, and the warmest part of the year, the highest temperature during the day was never above twenty degrees below freezing. At the corresponding period of the season in the Arctic, every iceberg gives evidence of the warmer weather by commencing to melt, so that from all of them streams of water are to be seen pouring down the sides. But the bergs in the Antarctic showed no such streams of water. All were solid, and the heat of the sun at midday was not able to cause even the surface to thaw. During a gale, encountered in this locality, the waves, as they broke over the sides, covered the rigging and sails with hard, clear ice until it was almost impossible to handle the ropes or furl the sails. As February went by and they were still unable to work nearer the site of the magnetic pole, the leader sought for a haven where the ships could pass the winter, so as to be ready to recommence the work directly the weather moderated with the approach of spring. But no such place was to be found, the mighty barrier of ice stretching away to the horizon with never a break in its massive towering front. Nothing was to be done except turn the vessels to the North and make the best of their way into milder latitudes until the winter had passed.