THE GREAT BARRIER 311 



The sign shown in the second column indicates the 

 manner in which the difference must be appUed to the ship 

 readings to produce equality. 



It must be remembered, of course, that this comparison of 

 pressures cannot be an exact method of determining levels in 

 such circumstances. A small difference in pressure may be 

 due to the normal barometric gradient or to local disturbance, 

 as well as to a small difference of level, yet I do not think that 

 anyone studying these figures can come to any conclusion but 

 that we travelled over a level plain, except perhaps for a slight 

 rise where the last two readings were taken, and this is easily 

 explained by our exceptional nearness to the coastline at the 

 time. 



As this great ice-sheet moves along the coast of Victoria 

 Land, the thrust of the immense glaciers in the Shackleton 

 and Barne Inlets tends to push it from the land, and thus the 

 vast chasms of which I have given some account are formed. 

 For many miles from the entrances of these inlets the ice is 

 waved into long undulations, and as one approaches them the 

 waves become more marked, the confusion increases, and the 

 cracks and crevasses grow numerous. Within ten miles of the 

 coastHne at any place there are signs of disturbance, and, as 

 my story showed, such a region is ill adapted for the sledge 

 traveller. But without the region of these disturbances, or 

 some ten or fifteen miles from the land (except immediately 

 off the mouths of the inlets, where the confusion is wider 

 spread), the Barrier moves with tranquillity, no ridge or 

 crevasse or other irregularity is met with, and the surface 

 presents one monotonous, even plain of snow. Although it 

 may be possible, it seems to me highly improbable, that a mass 

 of ice could be travelling over the land in such an even, 

 undisturbed fashion. Where the ice-sheet is pushing past the 

 Minna Bluff and around the north and south ends of the 

 White Island, it is starred into long radial crevasses, running 

 from ten to twenty miles from the land. The rifts are so 

 straight and close so gradually that on crossing them the sides 

 appear to be mathematically ruled straight parallel lines. It is 



