282 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
above the ships, suddenly broke into violent eruption, 
throwing out a column of smoke between 200 and 300 
feet in diameter to a height of from 1500 to 2000 feet. 
The display commenced about 4 p. m. and continued in 
spasmodic spurts of smoke at intervals of about half an 
hour. 
Not only the officers, but all the crews, were filled with 
admiration at the sights they saw, though the working of 
the ships left little time for contemplation. As the irre- 
pressible Irish blacksmith of the Erebus put it, when 
writing a description of the first-seen land — “ My friend 
if I could only view and study the Sublimity of Nature — • 
but, lo, I had to pull the brails ! ” Nevertheless he had 
time to burst into song: 
“ Awful and sublime, magnificent and rare, 
No other earthly object with the Barrier can compare!” 
For five days the ships worked their way eastward, 
keeping the barrier in sight for the most part, but some- 
times making detours to the north to escape the floating 
ice. Soundings were taken at frequent intervals and 
the depths found to vary between 250 and 500 fathoms. 
At places it would appear that the great Southern Bar- 
rier was resting on the bottom, but at other places it was 
undoubtedly afloat, and the huge flat-topped bergs which 
drifted northward with the current were obviously por- 
tions of the mass that had broken off. The size of 
the bergs may be realised from the remark of a sailor 
that the whole of London might float away on one of 
them. Experienced as Ross was in all the forms of 
Arctic ice the gigantic dimensions of the great Southern 
Barrier were as amazing to him as to anyone on board. 
When, on February 2nd, the ships got close up to the 
