58 WITH SCOTT : THE SILVER LINING 



our path about a quarter of a mile wide, and broken by lanes 

 of clear water. After a heavy snowstorm at sea one finds the 

 snow collecting into similar belts across the direction of the 

 wind. The floe was here composed of pieces of ice about 

 twenty feet across, and varying in thickness from one to three 

 feet. These have just the appearance of pancakes coated thickly 

 with icing sugar. The rounded outline is caused by the floes 

 rubbing against each other, and as a consequence the edges 

 are often slightly upturned. The contrast of the dark water 

 with the dazzling floes is very striking. Imagine Gargantuan 

 sugared pancakes floating in a sea of Stephens' "blue-black' 

 ink, and you will get an idea of the colour-scheme of a field 

 of young pack-ice. 



As the boat hits this soft stuff there is a hustling and a 

 surging, as one large piece collides with another, or even 

 overrides it. Sheets of water sweep across the floes, and 

 freeze almost immediately. The wake of the ship for a short 

 time remains open, but soon the floes reassemble, and not for 

 weeks do we see a horizon of clear water. Occasionally a 

 floe turns turtle, and these deeply pitted lower surfaces of 

 clear ice are very different from the level snowy surfaces of 

 the undisturbed pack. The spongy floes on the northern 

 edge of the great pack assume queer shapes. Here floats a 

 large hollowed fragment like a waterlogged boat, whose sides 

 project several feet above the water. There is a white cockatoo 

 sitting on a log, with his crest angrily upraised. The crest 

 might readily have been dyed yellow — though veracity com- 

 pels me to admit it was not — for in places patches of 

 intensely yellow ice, stained by microscopic plants (diatoms), 

 are numerous. Again a swan sails proudly by, moulded in 

 snow-white floe ; while another bears the figure of a woman 

 with hands outstretched in mournful supplication. 



We have met the pack some fifty miles north of previous 

 expeditions. We started a month earlier than Shackleton ; 

 but the Morning, only a week later, hardly saw any pack 

 at all ! 



At two o'clock on the 9th there were twenty-seven bergs 

 around us, mostly of tabular form. As we proceeded south 

 the number of bergs steadily decreased until none were 

 visible on some days, though usually three or four were in 

 sight. This is but what one would expect. The greater part 



