284 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Aug. 



coastline, and extend for a considerable distance along it. 

 From the heights above they look like heavy, round-crested 

 rollers of the sea that are preparing to fling themselves on the 

 shore, so smooth and regular do their undulations appear, and 

 so gradually are they lost in the plain beyond ; and from the 

 same heights also they have frequently been counted, and 

 I think most of us have made their number to be seventeen. 

 But amongst the ridges it is possible to see that their summits 

 are cracked in an irregular fashion, and that they are by no 

 means regular in height. This may well be accounted for by the 

 varying amount of snow which has fallen in the hollows. To- 

 day I measured two of these ridges from crest to hollow, and 

 found one to be i8 feet, whilst another nearer the shore was 

 14 feet. There can be little doubt that this formation is due 

 to the ice-sheet pressing up from the south ; and, large as the 

 disturbance is, when the mighty nature of the cause is con- 

 sidered, it vanishes into insignificance. 



' Whatever the cause may be, it is still active, for the 

 freshly formed ice to the southward is gradually being waved 

 up in the same fashion. The whole thing is puzzling, because 

 one is at a loss to account for the absence of ridges further to 

 the north, and because, if this is a measure of the movement 

 of the great ice-sheet, that movement must be extremely small, 

 as the whole extent of the pressing-up of the new sea-ice cannot 

 be more than a collapse of twenty or thirty yards at the outside. 

 In any case it will be an interesting thing to watch for further 

 developments in this movement, and to see whether there is 

 any difference in its rate in summer.' 



What was at this time comparatively new sea-ice remained 

 fast throughout the following winter, and we saw the ridges in 

 it gradually rising in a slow, silent, uncanny fashion, until they 

 presented a huge confusion of upreared ice-blocks. 



^ August 16. — . . . We have now three litters of puppies in 

 various stages of development. *' Vincka," Armitage's pet 

 Samoyede, has four which were born a month ago and are 

 now capable of snarling and snapping on their own account. 

 " Blanco " produced five on the nth. She has since succeeded 



