THE TERRA NOVA GOES SOUTH 



81 



interest. At noon we had approached near enough to Mount 

 Terror to see the details of its surface. Erebus lay twenty- 

 miles to the west, and was shrouded in clouds and somewhat 

 behind Terror. As we steamed in toward Cape Crozier we 

 could see the great Ice Barrier extending indefinitely to the 

 east. Owing to the numerous fragments of the Barrier we 

 had met to northward, and to the pictures we had studied, 

 this giant wall seemed like a familiar old friend. As one 

 of the men remarked, we seemed to have been seeing it all 

 our lives ! At this point it was about sixty feet high, and 

 gave rise to a curious meteorological effect. 



In the far east, where the lessening ribbon of the ice front 

 reached the horizon, there was a distinct difference in the sky 

 to north and south respectively. To the north it was a dark 

 grey, with heavy cumulus, but in a definite arc over the Barrier 



a o s s 



ft 



C.Bird "S\^ 



Coasting Ross Island, January, 19 11. 



this was changed to pearly grey, and the clouds were almost 

 white. This was, of course, a gigantic form of ice-blink, but 

 I saw nothing approaching it in size or intensity in our passage 

 through the pack. 



Near at hand were bands of brash ice, forming a sort of 

 miniature pack just under the Great Barrier. On this bobbing 

 and rotating surface sported flocks of penguins, performino- 

 marvellous feats of equilibrium, and nowise disturbed by the 

 huge bulk of the ship towering above them. The Barrier 

 front is deeply undercut by the waves at the water-level, and 



