96 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



sponges, and pieces of kenyte caught up in a later flow of 

 lava, and burnt just to the tint of a red brick. Just before 

 midnight we returned to the ship, and labelled our specimens 

 in broad sunlight, before turning in. 



There are two icebergs stranded off Cape Evans, and 

 Captain Scott arranged that Wright and myself should have 

 some time free to study their structure while the sea-ice was 

 firm around them. He came along himself to have a close 

 view, and Ponting brought a sledge, filled with cameras, to 

 collect photographs. They were both pyramidal, and pro- 

 jected a hundred feet or so above water. Most probably they 

 had been much tilted, for a very prominent layer of snow — 

 which from its included air melted slowly — was now almost 

 vertical. It was obvious that they were affected by the tide, 

 for a pool filled with brash ice almost surrounded them, and 

 we could hear the ice fragments creaking as they rubbed 

 together. 



A unique feature occupied our attention most of the time. 

 Traversing the berg from end to end was an oval tunnel, forty 

 feet high and fifteen feet wide, so regular in its outline that it 

 looked as though a red-hot bar had been pushed right through 

 (a distance of 1 50 feet). The scenic possibilities of this mass 

 of shadow in the midst of the dazzling white of the berg were, 

 of course, fully appreciated by Ponting, and I doubt if any 

 mass of ice has ever been photographed so thoroughly, from 

 the right, from the left, from above, below, outside and from 

 inside, and right through it ! By a stroke of almost unbe- 

 lievable luck the view back through the tunnel just framed 

 the ship at a mile distance. Next day the berg had swung 

 through 180 , the ship had steamed away, and the sea-ice had 

 moved out, so that Ponting was rightly overjoyed at the " for- 

 tuitous concourse of atoms," which has given rise to one of 

 the most interesting of his studies. 



We were equipped with rope and axes, and cut steps some 

 sixty feet up the berg until we were well over the tunnel. 1 

 was much surprised when one of the blows of the ice-axe 

 seemed to set free a strip of orange-peel ! Visions of a 

 Japanese hut far to the south floated through my mind, but 

 on examining the object it was found to be a small fossilized 

 fish. I dug it out six inches below the surface, and as the 

 sun melts off quite an appreciable layer every day, this fish 



