that as the region of Queen Mary Land approached, heavy
pack extended to the north. While skirting this obstacle, we disclosed
by soundings a steep rise in the ocean's floor from a depth of about
fifteen hundred fathoms to within seven hundred fathoms of the surface,
south of which there was deep water. It was named "Bruce Rise" in
recognition of the oceanographical work of the Scottish Expedition in
Antarctic seas.

On the 17th, in latitude 62 degrees 21' S., longitude 95 degrees 9' E.,
the course ran due south for more than seven hours. For the two ensuing
days the ship was able to steer approximately south-west through
slackening ice, until on the 19th at midday we were in latitude 64
degrees 59' S., longitude 90 degrees 8' E. At length it appeared that
land was approaching, after a westward run of more than twelve hundred
miles. Attempts to reach the charted position of Totten's Land, North's
Land, Budd Land and Knox Land had been successively abandoned when it
became evident that the pack occupied a more northerly situation than
that of the two previous years, and was in most instances thick and
impenetrable.

At 10 P.M. on the 19th, the ice fields still remaining loose and
navigable, a dark line of open water was observed ahead. From the
crow's-nest it was seen to the south stretching east and west within
the belt of pack-ice--the Davis Sea. We had broken through the pack less
than twenty-five miles north of where the 'Gauss' (German Expedition,
1902) had wintered.

All next day the 'Aurora' steamed into the eye of an easterly wind
towards a low white island, the higher positions of which had been seen
by the German Expedition of 1902, and charted as Drygalski's High Land.
Dr. Jones' party had, the year before, obtained a distant view of it
and regarded it as an island, which proved to be correct, so we named
it Drygalski Island. To the south there was the dim outline of the
mainland. Soundings varied between two hundred and three hundred
fathoms.

On January 21, Drygalski Island was close at hand, and a series of
soundings which showed from sixty to seventy fathoms of water deepening
towards the mainland proved beyond doubt that it was an island. In shape
it is like a flattened dome about nine miles in diameter and twelve
hundred feet in height, bounded by perpendicular cliffs of ice, and with
no visible evidence of outcropping rock.

The dredge was lowered in sixty fathoms, and a rich assortment of life
w