THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



We slowly steamed along, noting the various struct- 

 ures of the ice, and were thankful that the weather prom- 

 ised to keep fine, for the inlet to which we were 

 bound could not easily have been picked up in thick 

 weather. The height of the Barrier about this point 

 ranged from a hundred and fifty feet to two hundred feet. 

 In the afternoon, about half past one, we passed an open- 

 ing in the Barrier trending in a south-easterly direc- 

 tion, but its depth was only about three-quarters of 

 a mile. The eastern point had the form of the bows of 

 a gigantic man-of-war, and reached a height of about 

 two hundred and thirty feet. It was appropriately called 

 " The Dreadnought." 



As we steamed close in to the Barrier, watching care- 

 fully for any sign of an opening, we were able to observe 

 accurately the various change:; in the ice- face. In places 

 the wall was perfectly smooth, clean cut from the top 

 to the water-line, in other places it showed signs of 

 vertical cracks, and sometimes deep caverns appeared, 

 which, illuminated by the reflected light, merged from 

 light translucent blue into the deepest sapphire. At 

 times great black patches appeared on the sides of the 

 Barrier in the distance, but as we neared them they were 

 resolved into huge caverns, some of which cut the water- 

 line. One was so large that it would have been possible 

 to have steamed the Nimrod through its entrance without 

 touching either side or its top by mast or yard. Looking 

 at the Barrier from some little distance, one would imag- 

 ine it to be a perfectly even wall of ice; when steaming 

 along parallel with it, however, the impression it gave 

 was that of a series of points, each of which looked as 

 though it might be the horn of a bay. Then when the 

 ship came abeam of it, one would see that the wall only 

 receded for a few hundred yards, and then new points 



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