470 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



platform of ice stretching out 3 to 4 kilometers in width, guarded 

 by hummocks, with irregular crevasses, overturned during storms by 

 frightful pressures, like that which swallowed the Antarctic. In 

 the regions where the Scotia drifted (Weddell Sea), and also south- 

 west of Alexander I Land, w^here the Belgica drifted many months, 

 the ice bank is an immense plain with a thousand rugged hummocks 

 as far as the eye can see. During winter and generally from May 

 on the sea begins to flood beyond the borders of the ice and to rise 

 on the shores that it waters, whether exposed or ice covered. M. 

 Gourdon, of the Charcot expedition, observed the formation of this 

 temporary ice bank, consisting chiefly of thin, sharp, angled 

 blades, called "pancake ice," and of an uneven crackling crust of 

 young ice. He believes that its thickness is due, not to freezing 

 underneath, but rather to snowfall on the surface." The moment 

 that the temperature shows a sudden and prolonged rise, occurring 

 even in winter, the ice bank partly melts and forms what is known 

 as the " rotten pack," in which layers of soft and of solid ice lie one 

 upon the other. Neither Andersson, of the Antarctic^ on his trip 

 from I'Esperance Bay to meet O. Nordenskjold at Snow Hill, nor M. 

 Charcot, on one of his journeys to the west of Graham Land, were 

 able to traverse this " rotten pack." 



The coast ice has a formation intermediate between that of the ice 

 bank and of the fresh-water glaciers. This ice sometimes stretches in 

 extensive sheets behind the pack to which it is held by an irregular 

 edge; but nearly always it clings with very jagged outline to the high 

 and rocky walled coast or crowds against the foot of the glaciers 

 along the shore. In the midst of a body of sea ice, incessantly thick- 

 ened by the falling snow, are incased stranded or capsized icebergs 

 standing in bold fantastic relief, also debris, the whole cut by extensive 

 crevasses. The gray-green tint of the sea ice farthest out, heightened 

 by the layers of snow, as well as the tones of deeper hue, are caused 

 by diatoms. Sledge journeys along this coast are very trying 

 and exceedingly dangerous. Norclenskjold on Ross Island and on 

 King Oscar Land, Charcot in Flanders Bay, and Scott along Victoria 

 Land, observed and described this formation.^ Off Mount Gauss it is 

 particularly remarkable because of its extent (35 km.) ; far out it 

 becomes confused with the ice bank, while toward the shore it is 

 separated from the continental glacier by a lofty slope of even descent 

 down which the icebergs slowly slide and which seems to mark the 

 shore line; above all in solitary grandeur towers the mass of fresh 

 blue ice.^ 



° Doctor Charcot: Op. cit, pp. 140, 455. Nordeuskjolcl : Op. cit., p. 223. 



& Doctor Charcot : Op. cit, p. 32. O. Nordeuskjolcl : Op. cit., p. 122. 



''Von Drygalski: Op. cit, p. 302. A chai't accompanying this account (p. 440) 

 indicates the course of the ice from the bank pack to the inland ice, ice fields 

 or icebergs, a conglomerate of fresh-water ice blocks, and the edge of the ice cap. 



