INTO THE WEDDELL SEA 
over and 9 ft. 3 in, long ; he weighed 600 lb. Shortly before 
noon further progress was barred by heavy pack, and we put 
an ice-anchor on the floe and banked the fires. I had been 
prepared for evil conditions in the Weddell Sea, but had hoped 
that in December and January, at any rate, the pack would 
be loose, even if no open water was to be found. What we 
were actually encountering was fairly dense pack of a very 
obstinate character. Pack-ice might be described as a gigantic 
and interminable jigsaw-puzzle devised by nature. The parts 
of the puzzle in loose pack have floated slightly apart and 
become disarranged ; at numerous places they have pressed 
together again ; as the pack gets closer the congested areas 
grow larger and the parts are jammed harder till finally it 
becomes close pack/' when the whole of the jigsaw-puzzle 
becomes jammed to such an extent that with care and labour 
it can be traversed in every direction on foot. Where the parts 
do not fit closely there is, of course, open water, which freezes 
over in a few hours after giving off volumes of frost-smoke." 
In obedience to renewed pressure this young ice rafts," so 
forming double thicknesses of a toffee-like consistency. Again 
the opposuig edges of heavy floes rear up in slow and almost 
silent conflict, till high hedgerows " are formed round each 
part of the puzzle. At the junction of several floes chaotic 
areas of piled-up blocks and masses of ice are formed. Some- 
times 5-ft. to 6-ft. piles of evenly shaped blocks of ice are seen 
so neatly laid that it seems impossible for them to be Nature's 
work. Again, a winding canyon may be traversed between 
icy waUs 6 ft. to 10 ft. high, or a dome may be formed that 
under renewed pressure bursts upward like a volcano. AU 
through the winter the drifting pack changes — grows by freezing, 
thickens by raftmg, and corrugates by pressure. If, finally, in 
its drift it impmges on a coast, such as the western shore of 
the Weddell Sea, terrific pressure is set up and an hiferno of 
ice-blocks, ridges, and hedgerows results, extendmg possibly for 
160 or 200 miles off shore. Sections of pressure ice may drift 
away subsequently and become embedded in new ice. 
I have given this brief exj)lanation here in order that the 
reader may understand the nature of the ice through which we 
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