EXPEDITION OF 1898- 1902 331 



Once free of the fog off Mary Murray Island we made 

 rapid progress, reaching Cape North in four marches 

 from Cape Washington. Clear weather showed us the 

 existence of open water a few miles off the shore, ex- 

 tending from Dome Cape to Cape Washington. At 

 Black Cape there was a large open water reaching from 

 the shore northward. Everywhere along this coast 

 I was impressed by the startling evidence of the vio- 

 lence of the blizzard of a few days before. The polar 

 pack had been driven resistlessly in against the iron 

 coast, and at every projecting point had risen to the 

 crest of the ridge of old ice, along the outer edge of the 

 ice-foot, in a terrific cataract of huge blocks. In 

 places these mountains of shattered ice were 100 feet 

 or more in height. The old ice in the bays and fiords 

 had had its outer edge loaded with a great ridge of ice 

 fragments, and was itself cracked and crumpled into 

 huge swells by the resistless pressure. All the young 

 ice which had helped us on our onward passage had 

 been crushed into countless fragments and swallowed 

 up in the general chaos. 



Though hampered by fog, the passage from Cape 

 North to Cape Br^^ant was made in twenty-five and 

 one-half marching hours. At 7 a. m. of the 6th 

 of June we camped on the end of the ice-foot, at the 

 eastern end of Black Horn Cliffs. A point a few hun- 

 dred feet up the bluffs, commanding the region in front 

 of the cliffs, showed it to be filled by small pieces of 

 old ice, held in place against the shore by pressure of 

 the outside pack. It promised at best the heaviest 

 kind of work, with the certainty that it would run 

 abroad at the first release of pressure. 



