THE FIRST WINTER 187 
South Bay, were most useful as well as being interesting 
and beautiful. For two years we watched the weathering 
of these great towers and bastions of ice by sea and sun and 
wind, and left them still lying in the same positions, but 
mere tumbled ruins of their former selves. 
Many places in the panorama we have examined show 
black rock, and the cape on which we stand exposes at 
times more black than white. This fact always puzzles 
those who naturally conclude that all the Antarctic is 
covered with ice and snow. The explanation is simple, 
that winds of the great velocity which prevails in this region 
will not only prevent snow resting to windward of out- 
cropping rocks and cliffs, but will even wear away the rocks 
themselves. The fact that these winds always blow from 
the south, or southerly, causes a tendency for this aspect of 
any projecting rock to be blown free from snow, while the 
north or lee side is drifted up by a marbled and extremely 
hard tongue of snow, which disappears into a point at a 
distance which depends upon the size of the rock. 
Of course for the most part the land is covered to sucha 
depth by glaciers and snow that no wind will do more than 
pack the snow or expose the ice beneath. At the same time, 
to visualize the Antarctic as a white land is a mistake, for, 
not only is there much rock projecting wherever mountains 
or rocky capes and islands rise, but the snow seldom looks 
white, and if carefully looked at will be found to be shaded 
with many colours, but chiefly with cobalt blue or rose- 
madder, and all the gradations of lilac and mauve which 
the mixture of these colours will produce. A White Day 
is so rare that I have recollections of going out from the 
hut or the tent and being impressed by the fact that the 
snow really looked white. When to the beautiful tints in 
the sky and the delicate shading on the snow are added 
perhaps the deep colours of the open sea, with reflections 
from the ice foot and ice-cliffs in it, all brilliant blues and 
emerald greens, then indeed a man may realize how beauti- 
ful this world can be, and how clean. 
Though I may struggle with inadequate expression to 
show the reader that this pure Land of the South has many 
