NORDENSKJOLD ICE-BARRIERS 



taining iron several hundred yards away from the tent, 

 leaving Mawson alone inside it in company with the 

 dip circle. We found that the ascent from the sea ice 

 to the Nordenskjold Ice Barrier was a comparatively 

 easy one. The surface was formed chiefly of hard 

 snow glazed in places, partly through thawing and 

 re-freezing, partly through the polishing of this wind- 

 ward surface by particles of fresh snow driven over it 

 by the blizzards. Hummocky masses, apparently of 

 the nature of large sastrugi, projected here and there to 

 a height of six feet above the general level. The latter 

 were something hke elongated white ants' nests. In 

 places the snow surface showed pie-crust structure, a 

 bad surface for sledging. On the whole this Barrier 

 was fairly free from crevasses, although Mackay and 

 I crossed a few in our short pioneering excursion. 



The surface ascended gradually to a little over one 

 hundred feet above the level of the sea ice, passing into 

 a wide undulating plain which stretched away to the north 

 as far as the eye could see. 



We returned to Mawson with the good news that 

 the Nordenskjold Ice Barrier was quite practicable for 

 sledging, and would probably afford us a much more 

 easy surface than the sea ice over which we had pre- 

 viously been passing. Mawson informed us, as the 

 result of his observations with the dip circle, that the 

 Magnetic Pole was probably about forty miles further 

 inland than the theoretical mean position calculated for 

 it from the magnetic observations of the Discovery 

 expedition seven years ago. 



Early on the morning of November 12 we packed 

 up, and started to cross the Nordenskjold Ice Barrier. 

 We noticed here that there were two well-marked sets 

 of sastrugi, one set, nearly due north and south, formed 

 by the strong southerly blizzards, the other set, crossing 



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