This morning, the thirteenth, opened with a brilliant rosy sunburst over the icy alabaster walls of Grahamland: but this charm soon gave way to a black mist which quickly suppressed the glory in which we had rested during the few hours of midnight twilight. We are steaming slowly westward, but the obscurity and the threatening character of the weather prevents material progress. There is a light breeze from the north-east, and a heavy swell from the north-west. The temperature remains steadily at .08°C.(33.44°F.). We encounter small ice loosely strewn in the waters in considerable quantities as we advance, but owing to its diminutive size it does not offer any difficulties to our progress. This ice differs greatly from any which I have seen floating upon the sea either before or since. There is no ice of the same character in the arctic. It is a form seen only along the outer edges of the antarctic lands. There are three varieties of ice which are held here close to the land by the huge swell of the South Pacific. The kind in greatest abundance, giving the entire collection an appearance different from all other packs of ice, is mostly from two to five feet in diameter, with irregular glassy angles. It consists of fragments of fresh-water ice from the glacial wall which everywhere fronts the antarctic lands. Some, too, are the product of iceberg disruption. Mixed with these hard, blue crystalline masses, are some spongy pieces of salt-water ice, which are the product of pan-ice disruption. Everywhere the white spires and table-tops of the colossal icebergs are seen to rise over the restless icy water. At about three o’clock the sun burst through the dark curtain of mist which hung over us, and the dull, ice-strewn sea, which had been dreary and cheerless and full of hidden dangers, became a most charming array of glittering brightness. This is our first view of any considerable quantity of the sea-ice of the antarctic, and as it rises and falls on the breast of the new polar ocean it offers a dazzling glow, and a life which fill us with a healthful enthusiasm. Steam is now quickly increased, the sails are set, and the officers take their positions to push the _Belgica_ southward, farther into the unknown. The scientific men are scattered about, some in the masts, some on the bridge, and others on the poop; all looking anxiously for surprises in the new life and scenes about us. Even the sailors cannot resist the temptation to stand still and drink, with awe-inspiring amazement, the strange wine of action which hangs over the mysterious whiteness of the new world of ice.