THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



sure ridge. Maekay reconnoitred ahead, and found that 

 the large-pressure ridge, which appeared to bar our pro- 

 gress towards our depot, gradually came nearer and nearer 

 in to the granite cliff, until it pressed hard against the 

 cHfF face. Obviously, then, we were impounded by 

 this huge pressure ridge, and would have to devise some 

 mean of getting over it. Taking our ice-axes we 

 smoothed a passage across part of the ridge. This 

 proved a very tough piece of work. We then unloaded 

 the sledge and passed each one of our packages over by 

 hand. Finally we dragged the sledge up and hoisted 

 it over and lowered it down safely on the other side. 

 After this we reloaded the sledge and dragged it for 

 some considerable distance over more of the leafy ice- 

 surface alternating with flattish depressions of rotten ice 

 and snow, with water just beneath. We were now 

 troubled, not only by the tile-ice surface, but also by 

 small channels with steep banks, apparently eroded 

 by glacial streams which had been flowing as the result 

 of the thaw while we were on the Magnetic Pole plateau. 

 We were also worried from time to time as to how to 

 get over the vast number of intersecting crevasses which 

 lay in our path. 



Little by little the surface improved as we sledged 

 towards our depot. The platy structure on the ice 

 became less and less pronounced, giving place to a 

 surface like that of innumerable frozen wavelets with 

 sharp crests. By lunch-time we arrived at a grand old 

 glacial moraine. Amongst its boulders was a hand- 

 some coarsely crystalline red granite of which Mackay 

 secured a good specimen. Numbers of boulders pro- 

 jected a few feet above the surface of the ice, but most 

 of them were wholly encased in ice. After lunch, the 

 sledging surface, though still heavy, owing to the newly 

 fallen snow, improved a httle, but we soon found our 



19.8 



