134 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Jan. 



and throughout the day seemed to be passing from cape to 

 cape of a very indented coastline. When the fog allowed us 

 to see them more clearly, we found that these capes were 

 detached masses of ice of curious shape. Varying from a 

 half to a mile or more across, and surrounded by a steep but 

 low ice-cliff, they rose on all sides to a rounded ridge 200 or 

 300 feet in height. Soundings taken close to these curious 

 ice-masses showed them to be aground, and we were much 

 puzzled to account for them, as, although they were irregular 

 in outline and differed in detail, all had the same feature of 

 gradually rising to a rounded central eminence. It was diffi- 

 cult to imagine that grounded icebergs could have assumed 

 this shape, and almost as difficult to think that under each ice- 

 cap lay some rocky islet. In our then bewildered frame of 

 mind we called them ice islands, and it was not until we had 

 a larger experience and could take a more general view of the 

 glaciation of the whole region that we arrived at any plausible 

 theory to account for their formation. In the fog we headed 

 more than once to pass between and inside these ice islands, 

 but always to run into a deep bay bounded by fast sea-ice, 

 which formed a hummocky junction with the inner end of each 

 island. 



Early in the day we became aware that the pack-ice, which 

 we had so long avoided, lay thick in our offing. Occasionally 

 we had to push through narrow streams which opened out into 

 broader masses on our left. It seemed as though we were 

 threading a narrow channel left along the shore by the effect 

 of the easterly wind on the moving ice. 



At 4 p.m. (January 30) a more promising lift in the fog 

 enabled us to gather information with regard to our surround- 

 ings. Beyond the extensive sheet of fast sea-ice which abutted 

 on the ice islands, we could see the customary ice-cliff of vary- 

 ing height which marked the coastline, but behind this cliff 

 there was now no doubt that the snow surface rose in altitude. 

 The rise in places was gradual, much as we had seen it on the 

 previous night, but in others the slope must have been much 

 steeper, for here the ice-sheet was torn and distorted and 



