THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



over about two miles to a cliff face, about six miles 

 south of Cape Irizar. The rocks all along this part 

 of the shore were formed of coarse gneissic granite, of 

 which I was able to collect some specimens. The cliff 

 was about one hundred feet high where it was formed 

 of the gneiss, and above this rose a capping of from 

 seventy to eighty feet in thickness of heavily crevassed 

 blue glacier ice. There were here wide tide-cracks be- 

 tween the sea ice and the foot of the sea cliff. These were 

 so wide that it was difficult to cross them. The whole 

 shore line was hterally alive with seals and seal calves; 

 there were over fifty of them in a stretch of about three 

 hundred yards. At a distance of two miles our tent was, 

 of course, quite out of sight, and one had to be guided 

 back, on this as on other similiar occasions, chiefly by 

 one's footprints. 



The following day, November 21, the sledging was 

 painfully heavy over thawing saline snow surface, and 

 sticky sea ice. We were only able to do two and two-thirds 

 miles. 



On November 22, on rounding the point of the low 

 ice barrier, thirty to forty feet high, we obtained a 

 good view of Cape Irizar, and also of the Drygalski Ice 

 Barrier. 



On November 23 we found that a mild blizzard was 

 blowing, but we travelled on through it as we could 

 not afford to lose any time. The blizzard died down 

 altogether about 3 a.m., and was succeeded by a gentle 

 westerly wind off the plateau. That evening, after 

 our tent had been put up and we had finished the 

 day's meal, I walked over a mile to the shore. The 

 prevailing rock was still gneissic granite with large 

 whitish veins of aplitic granite. A little bright green 

 moss was growing on tiny patches of sand and gravel, 

 and in some of the cracks in the granite. The top 



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