SOUTH 
fish beaks, A sounding on the 17th gave 1676 fathoms, 10 
miles west of tlie charted position of Morell Land. No land 
could be seen from the mast-head, and I decided that Morell 
Land must be added to the long list of Antarctic islands and 
continental coasts that on close investigation have resolved 
themselves into icebergs. On clear days we could get an 
extended view in all directions from the mast-head, and the 
line of the pack was broken only by famiUar bergs. About one 
hundred bergs were in view on a fine day, and they seemed prac- 
tically the same as when they started their drift with us nearly 
seven months earlier. The scientists wished to inspect some of 
the neighbouring bergs at close quarters, but sledge travelling 
outside the well-trodden area immediately around the ship 
proved difficult and occasionally dangerous. On August 20, 
for example, Worsley, Hurley, and Greenstreet started off for 
the Rampart Berg and got on to a lead of young ice that 
undulated perilously beneath their feet. A quick turn saved 
them. 
A wonderful mirage of the fata Morgana type was visible 
on August 20. The day Avas clear and bright, with a blue sky 
overhead and some rime aloft. The distant pack is thrown 
up into towering barrier-like cliffs, which are reflected in blue 
lakes and lanes of water at their base. Great white and golden 
cities of Oriental appeaxance at close intervals along these cliff- 
tops indicate distant bergs, some not previously known to us. 
Floating above these are wavering violet and creamy lines of 
still more remote bergs and pack. The lines rise and fall, 
tremble, dissipate, and reappear in an endless transformation 
scene. The southern pack and bergs, catching the sun's 
rays, are golden, but to the north the ice-masses are purple. 
Here the bergs assume changing forms, first a castle, then 
a balloon just clear of the horizon, that changes swiftly 
into an immense mushroom, a mosque, or a cathedral. The 
principal characteristic is the vertical lengthening of the object, 
a small pressure-ridge being given the appearance of a line of 
battlements or towering cUffs. The mirage is produced by 
refraction and is intensified by the columns of comparatively 
warm air rising from several cracks and leads that have opened 
60 
