THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



that day was not quite so heavy; the ice undulations were 

 less formidable, and the belts of snow between became 

 wider and firmer. Just after lunch a beautiful Wilson's 

 petrel flew around us. 



December 10 saw us still struggling to cross the 

 Drygalski Glacier. We could see that we were now on 

 a pretty high ridge, but the highest part of the glacier 

 now lay to the south and therefore behind us. We 

 were much rejoiced towards the end of the day's 

 sledging to find ourselves at last off the true glacier 

 type of surface, and on to what may be described as 

 an undulating barrier type. This improvement of 

 the surface to our west enabled us to do what we had 

 been longing to do for the last six days, turn our sledge 

 westwards. At first we had to incline somewhat to 

 the north-west in order to skirt round some high ice 

 ridges. Then, after making some northing, we were 

 able to go nearly due west. The snow surface was largely 

 of the pie-crust type; our ski-boots broke through it at 

 every step and we sank in up to our ankles. At inter- 

 vals we still crossed low ridges of solid glacier ice, 

 traversed by crevasses. All the crevasses were more 

 or less roofed over with tough snow lids. These lids 

 sometimes were slightly in relief, or sometimes showed 

 slight depressions in the general surface. In such 

 areas the snow lids rung hollow as the sledges travelled 

 over them. We found the snow lids always most 

 treacherous close to either wall of the crevasse, and 

 we frequently fell partially through at such spots, but 

 had no very bad falls in this part of the glacier. 



The following day, December 11, we had a fine view 

 of " Terra Nova " Bay, and as far as could be judged 

 the edge of the Drygalski Ice Barrier on the north was 

 now scarcely a mile distant. We were much surprised 



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