ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH 



great Ross Ice Barrier ^ near Cape Crozier. In the 

 far east where the *'ribbon" of the ice wall reached the 

 horizon, there was a marked difference in the sky to 

 north and south respectively. To the north it was 

 dark gray with heavy cumulus, but southward in a 

 definite arc over the great Ross Ice Shelf this was 

 changed to a pearly gray and the clouds were almost 

 white. I saw nothing so striking as this "Ice-Blink" 

 on any other occasion on our journeys. Just below 

 the great wall of ice, here sixty feet high, were bands 

 of brash ice. On this bobbing and rotating surface 

 sported flocks of penguins, performing marvelous feats 

 of equilibrium and nowise disturbed by the huge bulk 

 of the ship towering over them. The Barrier front 

 was deeply undercut by the waves at the water level 

 and small berglets were constantly dropping off above 

 this line of weakness. 



At the end of January we were gaining our first 

 experience of sledging up one of the giant glaciers 

 which carry the ice from the Plateau down to the Ross 

 Sea. Let us compare this glacier valley with a valley 

 in more familiar lands. There is no vestige of green 

 anywhere, no sign of life present or past. Owing to 

 the absence of men, trees, or houses it is impossible 

 to estimate distances, for there are no familiar stand- 

 ards. Time and again explorers have decided that a 

 point for which they are making is only a mile or so 

 away, to find that they have underestimated the distance 



- This structure is a barrier to a ship, but morphologically is an 

 ice shelf. The latter term is preferable and should replace the 

 older term. 



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