130 GLACIOLOGY 



these wide shallow troughs would thus be approximately 40 feet." Ibid., p. 301 : 

 " The undulations run about east by south and west by north, and are at the 

 moment a puzzle to us. I cannot think that the feeding of the glaciers from the 

 adjacent mountains has anything to do with their existence. . . ." This observation 

 was made near lat. 82° 51' S. Reference to the map of the Ross Ice Barrier shows 

 that these undulations commenced at a point about 50 miles E.S.E. of the entrance 

 to Shackle ton Inlet, and about 60 miles N.N.E. of the lower end of the Beardmore 

 Glacier. Later, December 2nd, near lat. 83° 23' S., Shackleton speaks of the 

 undulations being very pronounced, consisting of " enormous pressure-ridges, heavily 

 crevassed and running a long way east, with not the slightest chance of our being 

 able to get southing that way any longer on the Barrier." Obviously these last 

 violent disturbances are directly due to the pressure of the great Beardmore Glacier 

 which forms so important an outlet for the inland neve fields. 



Shape and Height of the Barrier Ice Cliff. For information on this subject we 

 are chiefly indebted to observations made by the Discovery Expedition of 1901-4, 

 and to Ross' observations in 1841-2. There are also a few observations near 

 the Bay of Whales by C. E. Borchgrevink, as well as by our own expedition 

 when cruising between Western Inlet and a short distance to the east of the Bay 

 of Whales in January 1908. 



The headland of Western Inlet in the middle of the above photograph is over 

 100 feet high. At the head of Western Inlet, behind the above headland, the 

 height of the Barrier cliff is only 20 feet. Thus the inlet, which trends nearly 

 east to west, is evideiitly situated on a trough in the surfaces of the Barrier. 



Fig. 2 of Plate XXXV. shows another low portion of the Barrier at the 

 farthest point east, along the Barrier face, reached by the Nimrod on January 24, 

 1908, in lat. 78° 41' S., long. 164° 30' W. 



On the other hand, in the next photograph is a view of a lofty slice about to 

 detach itself from the Barrier about 200 feet above sea-level. 



We named this slice " The Dreadnought." It lay to the west of the Bay of 

 Whales. 



According to the heights obtained by Captain Scott, the height of the Barrier 

 cliff varies from 20 feet to 240 feet, and, according to the fewer measurements 

 taken by us, from 20 feet to 200 feet.* 



As regards outline, reference to the map (Fig. 46) shows that the Barrier 

 in Ross' time jarojected northwards in a well-marked lobe between the meridians 

 of 165° and 169° W. The sharp western boundary of this lobe was formed 

 by a sheer clift' trending N.N.W. and S.S.E., while to the east it was bounded 

 by a deep indent. These two features appear to repeat themselves to-day, re- 



• According to Commander E. R. G. R. Evans, R.N., now in command of the late Captain Scott's 

 Expedition, no spot higher than 150 feet was seen by them when the Terra Nova visited the region 

 early in 1911. 



