THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



Towards evening we fetched up against some high 

 ice-pressure cracks with the ice ridged up six to eight 

 feet high in huge tumbled blocks. We seemed to have 

 got into a labyrinth of these pressure ridges from which 

 there was no outlet. At last, after several capsizes of 

 the sledges and some chopping through the ice ridges 

 by Mackay, we got the sledges through, and camped on 

 a level piece of ice. We were much helped in crossing 

 the ridges by the long steep sastrugi of hardened snow. 

 In places these ran like ramps up to the top of the 

 pressure ridges, and were just wide enough and strong 

 enough to bear our sledges. Mawson and I at this 

 time were still wearing finnesko, while Mackay had taken 

 to ski boots. 



The following day, October 28, the sledging was 

 again very heavy over sticky, soft snow alternating 

 with hard sastrugi and patches of consolidated brash 

 ice. Shavings of wood were being constantly rasped off 

 the runners of our sledges. Mackay lost one of his 

 finnesko off the sledge, but walked back a couple of 

 miles in the evening and recovered it. Our course had 

 taken us past a number of snowbergs ; these were mostly 

 about forty feet in height and from a quarter to half a 

 mile in length. They were rigidly embedded in the sea 

 ice. Occasionally we met with a true iceberg of blue ice 

 amongst the snowbergs. 



After our evening hoosh, Mawson and I went over 

 to the shore, rather more than half a mile distant, in 

 order to study the rocks. These we found were com- 

 posed of coarse red granite; the top of the granite 

 was much smoothed by glacier ice, and strewn with 

 large erratic blocks. In places the granite was inter- 

 sected by black dykes of basic rocks. One could see 

 that the glacier ice, about a quarter of a mile inland from 

 this rocky shore, had only recently retreated and laid bare 



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