CH. II] 
Ice and Icebergs 
ii 
veritable fairy land. Some are raised up into lofty 
pillars. Again a whole chain of them will assume the 
appearance of a long bridge or aqueduct, and as quickly 
change into a succession of beautiful palaces and temples 
of dazzling whiteness, metamorphosed by the fantastic 
wand of Nature. When the ice breaks up in summer, 
the current takes many of the icebergs into the Atlantic. 
"Like a scarlet fleece the snowfield spreads 
And the icy fount runs free, 
And the bergs begin to bow their heads 
And plunge and sail in the sea." 
Antarctic Ice. 
The difference between the two polar areas — the 
Arctic an ocean surrounded by continental lands, the 
Antarctic a continental land surrounded by oceans — 
causes the differences in the character of the ice with 
which the sea is laden. 
The Antarctic continent is covered with an ice-cap, 
which along some coasts is buttressed by ice cliffs 
terminating in the sea, and on coasts facing east is 
bordered with lofty mountains through which glaciers 
have forced their way. Throughout the Antarctic regions 
there is evidence of much more extensive glaciation in 
former ages. The glaciers are for the most part receding, 
although there are proofs that some are still moving 
down to the sea. But there are fixed masses of ice on the 
sea coast, in the form of cliffs : tongues which could not 
have been deposited or fed by existing glaciers. At the 
period of maximum glaciation the climate was much 
milder, and as the severity of the temperature, due to 
less precipitation, increased, there must have been sterile 
ice conditions, and consequent retirement of glaciers and 
ice-fields. These receding glaciers do not supply bergs; 
and as the Antarctic icebergs are by far the largest in 
the world, their origin must be from some other source. 
The great ice barrier of Ross fills a vast bay 400 miles 
across, and at least 300 miles deep, with soundings of 
about 600 ft. There is no reason why other such barriers 
should not exist in other parts of the Antarctic regions 
as yet unknown. These barriers must be the sources of 
