GLOSSARY 



Blizzard. An Antarctic blizzard is a high southerly wind generally 

 accompanied by clouds of drifting snow, partly falling from above, 

 partly picked up from the surface. In the daylight of summer a tent 

 cannot be seen a few yards off : in the darkness of winter it is easy to be 

 lost within a few feet of a hut. There is no doubt that a blizzard has 

 a bewildering and numbing effect upon the brain of any one exposed 

 to it. 



Brash. Small ice fragments from a floe which is breaking up. 



Cloud. The commonest form of cloud, and also that typical of blizzard 

 conditions, was a uniform pall stretching all over the sky without dis- 

 tinction. This was logged by us as stratus. Cumulus clouds are the 

 woolly billows, flat below and rounded on top, which are formed by 

 local ascending currents of air. They were rare in the south and only 

 formed over open water or mountains. Cirrus are the " mare's tails " 

 and similar wispy clouds which float high in the atmosphere. These 

 and their allied forms were common. Generally speaking, the clouds 

 were due to stratification of the air into layers rather than to ascending 

 currents. 



Crusts. Layers of snow in a snow-field with air space between them. 



Finnesko. Boots made entirely of fur, soles and all. 



Frost Smoke. Condensed water vapour which forms a mist over open sea 

 in cold weather. 



Ice-foot. Fringes of ice which skirt many parts of the Antarctic shores : 

 many of them have been formed by sea-spray. 



Nunatak. An island of land in a snow-field. Buckley Island is the top of 

 a mountain sticking out of the top of the Beardmore Glacier. 



Piedmont. Stretches of ancient ice which remain along the Antarctic 

 coasts. 



Pram. A Norwegian skiff, with a spoon bow. 



Saennegrass. A kind of Norwegian hay used as packing in finnesko. 



Sastrugi are the furrows or irregularities formed on a snow plain by the 

 wind. They may be a foot or more deep and as hard and as slippery 



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