AN OPEN ROAD SOUTH 



just nicely balanced on smaller pieces, so that one could 

 almost push them over by a touch. With great diffi- 

 culty we clambered up this rock face, and then ascended 

 a gentle snow slope to another rocky bit, but not so 

 difficult to climb. From the top of this ridge there 

 burst upon our view an open road to the South, for there 

 stretched before us a great glacier running almost south 

 and north between two huge mountain ranges. As 

 far as we could see, except towards the mouth, the 

 glacier appeared to be smooth, yet this was not a 

 certainty, for the distance was so great. Eagerly we 

 clambered up the remaining ridges and over a snow- 

 slope, and found ourselves at the top of the mountain, 

 the height being 3350 ft. according to aneroid and 

 hypsometer. From the summit we could see the 

 glacier stretching away south inland till at last it seemed 

 to merge in high inland ice. Where the glacier fell into 

 the Barrier about north-east bearing, the pressure 

 waves were enormous, and for miles the surface of the 

 Barrier was broken up. This was what we had seen 

 ahead of us the last few days, and we now understood 

 the reason of the commotion on the Barrier surface. 

 To the south-east we could see the lofty range of moun- 

 tains we had been following still stretching away in the 

 same direction, and we can safely say that the Barrier 

 is bounded by a chain of mountains extending in a 

 south-easterly direction as far as the 86th parallel 

 South. The mountains to the west appear to be more 

 heavily glaciated than the ones to the eastward. There 

 are some huge granite faces on the southern sides of 

 the mountains, and these faces are joined up by cliffs of 

 a very dark hue. To the south-south-east, towards what 

 is apparently the head of the glacier, there are several 

 sharp cones of very black rock, eight or nine in all. 

 Beyond these are red granite faces, with sharp, needle- 



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