From Harbourton we steamed eastward to the storm-washed shores of Staten Island, where we took our last water-supply, and bade our friends and the known world a final adieu. From the time we left Staten Island, on January 13, 1898, until our return to Punta Arenas, on March 28, 1899, we were in another world--a new icy world, where communication with home regions was impossible. We had troubles of our own, and a little warfare, too--but we were totally ignorant of the Spanish-American War, the Dreyfus case, and the other great national and international troubles which had made history in our absence. Our first large task was the seemingly impossible work of making a map of the sea bottom and a study of the waters south of Cape Horn. This is a belt of ocean famous as being swept by the most destructive storms on the globe. It is difficult enough for ordinary navigation, but to attempt to remain stationary for three or four hours daily, and sink a wire two miles, with delicate instruments attached, was a venture which did not appeal to us with much promise of success. We were favoured, however, with good weather until we got a glimpse of the South Shetland Islands, and were thus able to make a line of soundings across the previously unfathomed sea. The general depth here was considerable. After passing over a narrow submarine shelf south of Staten Island, the lead dropped suddenly to 13,300 feet. The ocean-bed then rose gradually in an easy slope to the South Shetland Islands, thus proving a rather sharp disconnection between the mountain-ranges of southern South America and those of the imperfectly known antarctic lands. The first iceberg was met the day before we saw the snowy outline of the South Shetlands. It appeared a long way off, over our port bow, at about 8 o’clock in the evening of January 19th. We all went on deck to get a glimpse of our first antarctic berg, but we made no efforts to get nearer. The sky was sooty, and the air so heavy that the coming twilight was lost in a gloomy mist. Around the dull white mass there was a cloud of vapour which rose and fell, now offering a peep at the strange block of ice, and again veiling it from view. Half sorry to leave it without further observation, we steamed onward until it sank into the stormy sea over our port quarter.