I9II] THE 'BARRIER SHUDDER' 259 
they may have been subglacial streams. We heard 
here the eerie ' Barrier Shudder,' as the surface fell in 
around us, but familiarity made us disregard this. 
There was a wonderful series of peaks to the south, 
rising about 5000 feet high and separated by the snow- 
fiUed bowls which are technically called cwms. Mount 
England was a very prominent object to the south-east, 
confronting us with a giant wall of granite 4000 feet 
high. This was seamed by couloirs and gullies, down 
which small snow avalanches formed white tongues 
leading to the crevassed slopes of the New glacier below. 
About four o'clock we deviated to the south so as to 
camp on the RedclifF Nunakol. We descended a little 
the last mile and finally crossed a large frozen lake and 
reached a gravelly point on the nunakol. Here we 
pitched a comfortable camp about 30 feet above the 
glacier. Alongside was a little waterfall flowing from a 
marshy flat on which some moss was growing. 
We spent December 29 surveying this island in the 
glacier. It was about 1000 feet above the glacier, but 
its rounded contours showed that it had been over- 
whelmed by the ice flood, fairly recently in geological 
time. About 5 miles farther west was Gondola Mountain 
(Mount Suess). This was a true nunatak or ' lonely 
peak ' ; for it towered 3000 feet above the glacier and 
its jagged summit had not been planed by the Mackay 
Glacier at its period of maximum flood. 
Forde carried the theodolite up for me, and I managed 
to sketch the panorama. It extended over sixteen pages 
of my notebook, and under the circumstances was a work 
