THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



saturated our socks, which froze as the temperature 

 fell during the night. After proceeding about two 

 and a half miles we observed with the field-glasses 

 that the foot of the Mount Bellingshausen Glacier 

 was not only steep but broken and rugged. We decided 

 to examine what appeared to be a narrow stretch of 

 snow mantling around the base of a granite mountain, 

 one of the offshoots from the Mount Larsen massif. 

 After crossing a good deal of pressure ice and crevasses, 

 and floundering amongst the boulders of old moraines 

 we reached some shallow lakes of thawed snow near 

 the junction between the sea ice and the foot of the 

 snow slope for which we had been steering. In the 

 neighbourhood of the moraines, which here consisted 

 of great blocks of eruptive rock partly or wholly im- 

 bedded in ice, the blocks became so warmed up by the 

 sun's heat that they partially thawed the ice around, 

 and in some cases above them: and so when one stepped 

 near one of these blocks, or over a concealed block, 

 the ice gave way with a crash letting one down a depth 

 of from one to three feet. At one place, before reaching 

 the shallow lakes, we found quite a strong stream 

 of water flowing just under the surface of the ice. This 

 was evidently supplied from thaw water from the slopes 

 near the shore-line. 



After paddling, unwillingly, in the shallow lakes 

 we reached the foot of what proved now to be not a 

 snow slope but a small branch glacier. This was covered 

 with a considerable depth of soft newly drifted snow, 

 and we found the ascent in consequence very tiring 

 as we sunk at each step in the soft snow over our knees. 

 At last we attained an altitude of 1200 ft. above sea- 

 level, and were then high enough to see that the upper 

 part of this branch glacier joined the Mount Bellings- 

 hausen Glacier at about 800 ft. higher and some half 



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