THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



us on to the land ice, and on to the Pole if all goes well. 

 It is an anxious thing for us, for time is precious and 

 food more so; we will be greatly relieved if we find a 

 good route through the mountains. Now that we are 

 close to the land we can see more clearly the nature of 

 the mountains. From Mount Long-staff in a south- 

 east direction, the land appears to be far more glaciated 

 than further north, and since the valleys are very steep, 

 the glaciers that they contain are heavily crevassed. 

 These glaciers bear out in a north-east direction into 

 the Barrier. Immediately opposite our camp the snow 

 seems to have been blown off the steep mountain sides. 

 The mountain ahead of us, which we are going to climb 

 to-morrow, is undoubtedly granite, but very much 

 weathered. In the distance it looked like volcanic 

 rock, but now there can be no doubt that it consists 

 of granite. Evidently the great ice sheet has passed 

 over this part of the land, for the rounded forms could 

 not have been caused by ordinary weathering. Enor- 

 mous pressure ridges that run out from the south of 

 the mountain ahead must be due to a glacier far greater 

 in extent than any we have yet met. The glacier that 

 comes out of Shackleton Inlet makes a disturbance in 

 the Barrier ice, but not nearly as great as the disturbance 

 in our immediate neighbourhood at the present time. 

 The glacier at Shackleton Inlet is quite a short one. 

 We have now closed in to the land, but before we did 

 so we could see the rounded tops of great mountains 

 extending in a south-easterly direction. If we are 

 fortunate enough to reach the summit of the mountain 

 to-morrow, we should be able to see more clearly the 

 line of these mountains to the south-east. It would 

 be very interesting to follow along the Barrier to the 

 south-east, and see the trend of the mountains, but 

 that does not enter into our programme. Our way 



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