478 THE ANTARCTIC MANUAL. 
wonderful play of shadow. Photographs can say nothing as to the com- 
plex tints, while painting often exaggerates them ; only an exceptionally 
good colourist could record the delicacy of the tones. My Russian friend, 
Pokhitonow, would make an admirable picture of this landscape, so 
imposing by its severity. The sea was very dark, slightly greenish 
in the foreground; the horizon loaded with black and grey stratified 
clouds, and in the whiteness of the stratus above there was a yellowish 
tinge. The snow was very white, and the glaciers of a white just 
faintly bluish towards the base, and in the cracks and below there was 
the blue of the water; the rock was black, in places touched with 
brown, and lines of yellowish grey; the clouds, merely elevated fogs, 
encroached upon the summits of the mountains, gradually thickening 
upwards. 
In the afternoon, while waiting for the sun and a wider view, we 
landed on a floating cake of ice in order to obtain a supply of fresh 
water. 
At 5 o'clock we landed for the ninth time at the foot of a per- 
pendicular rock; elsewhere a high cliff of stratified snow passing 
gradually into ice in its lower part, made landing impossible (IX on 
map, Fig. 2). The crevasses, which form parallel to the shore, cut 
this wall of ice into sections. The head of the little bay which we had 
entered was occupied by the front of a large glacier, which terminated 
in a mer de glace; and here we were happy enough to be present at 
the formation of a very little iceberg—a great block of ice which 
tumbled into the water with much noise, raising a cloud of dust from 
the ice, and starting a series of waves across the bay not large enough 
to hurt our boat. This glacier rises slowly towards the south, and its 
mountainous border runs north and south. A very characteristic 
island resembling Two Hummocks lay in front of us. In the evening, 
as we were still in the same neighbourhood, I made a drawing to show 
some large curved crevasses which were very sharply marked, and 
proved that the ice flowed most readily in a direction at right angles 
to them. xcept for two mountain peaks, the island is completely 
buried under a thick layer of ice, which is undoubtedly a glacier, and, 
though differing in appearance from valley glaciers or suspended glaciers, 
is nevertheless subject to the same laws (Fig. 6). 
The night was fine, and the Belgica remained in the same position 
in order to get her bearings next day. The sea extended to a distance 
towards the south and east of the prominent headland, where our ninth 
landing was made; there was evidently a great. bay, and possibly a 
passage, but the way seemed to be closed by lofty mountains with 
mnajestic peaks. Towards the north-east was the channel which we had 
undoubtedly entered in too great a hurry, and we had to return on our 
track in order to make a connection with the land previously dis- 
covered. There was also a passage in the north-west, but my attention 
