SOUTH 
about 25 miles long. We pushed the ship against a small banded 
berg, from which Wordie secured several large lumps of biotite 
granite. While the Efidurmice was being held slow ahead 
against the berg a loud crack was heard, and the geologist had 
to scramble aboard at once. The bands on this berg were 
particularly well defined ; they were due to morainic action 
in the parent glacier. Later in the day the easterly wind 
increased to a gale. Fragments of floe drifted past at about 
two knots, and the pack to leeward began to break up fast. 
A low berg of shallow draught drove down into the grinding pack 
and, smashing against two larger stranded bergs, pushed them 
ofi the bank. 1'he three Avent away together pell-mell. We 
took shielter under the lee of a large stranded berg. 
A blizzard from the east-north-east prevented us leaving 
the shelter of the berg on the following day (Sunday, J anuary 17). 
The weather was clear, but the gale drove dense clouds of snow 
off the land and obscured the coast-hne most of the time. 
The land, seen when the air is clear, appears higher than we 
thought it yesterday ; probably it rises to 3000 ft. above the 
head of the glacier. Caird Coast, as I have named it, connects 
Coats' Land, discovered by Bruce in 1904, with Luitpold Land, 
discovered by Filchner in 1912. The northern part is similar 
in character to Coats' Land. It is fronted by an undulating 
barrier, the van of a mighty ice-sheet that is being forced 
outward from the high interior of the Antarctic Continent and 
apparently is sweeping over low hills, plains, and shallow seas 
as the great Arctic ice-sheet once pressed over Northern 
Europe. The barrier surface, seen from the sea, is of a faint 
golden brown colour. It terminates usually in cliffs ranguig from 
10 to 300 ft. in height, but in a very few places sweeps down 
level with the sea. The cliffs are of dazzhng whiteness, with 
wonderful blue shadows. Far inland higher slopes can be seen, 
appearing like dim blue or faint goldeu fleecy clouds. These 
distant slopes have increased in nearness and clearness as we 
have come to the south-west, while the barrier cliffs here are 
higher and apparently firmer. We are now close to the junction 
with Luitpold Land. At this southern end of the Caird Coast 
the ice-sheet, undulating over the hidden and imprisoned land, 
28 
