All about us the ice was very closely packed. There was a seemingly endless sea of ice, waving on the swell of the great restless waters under us. It was the first really good view which we had had of the characteristic ice, which covers the limitless expanse of this circumpolar ocean. Farther northward the true sea-ice was so much melted and weather-worn, and so much mixed with small angular fragments of icebergs and other land-ice, that the pack was a conglomerate mass entirely different from the true pack-ice. Now, as the sun rose and the mist dissolved, we saw pans of ice of an average diameter of one hundred feet, with a thickness of five feet, whose surfaces were raised here and there, by old wind-rasped hummocks or miniature mountains, from one to two yards high. Between these pans there were zones of water covered with closely packed pulverised ice, in which there were some pieces a few feet in diameter. In our efforts to push southward we selected these lanes between the larger pans, but the fine ice so effectually stopped our progress that even by using the full power of the engines we could not make more than two miles in six hours. A long and continuous swell of the Pacific was responsible for the steady pressure and forced continuity of the pack. Here, also, were large numbers of icebergs scattered in the pack, and from a distance they seemed to offer a continuous barrier. While this was not true when the horizon was closely examined, their influence, however, coupled with the power of the great swell of the sea, was an effective bar to farther progress. [Illustration: Penguins on a Sea-worn Iceberg Resembling a Whale.] On the ice we see a number of crab-eating seals, mostly in pairs, but some in groups of five or six. They are in a sleepy mood and evidently enjoy the sharp sunbursts which now and then light up the beds of snow and the projecting icy spires with an electric glow. There are a few penguins about, and also some giant petrels; but the ornithological surprise of the day is the countless thousands of terns resting on, and hovering about, the icebergs. Great rows cover the ridges, and in some places the air is one hustling mass of bird life, all seeming to strive for a place to fly, or fighting for a resting spot on the higher angles of the bergs. During the afternoon we saw a black zone along the northern horizon. It was a water-sky indicating that under it there was open, ice-free water. To the south, to the east, and to the west, however, there was everywhere the dazzling whiteness of the ice-blink on the heavens, offering no hope of advance.