THE NATUEE OF THE BAEEIEE 127 
and the Falklands, between 2000 and 3000 miles away, were 
reached on April 6, 1842, 'the first land of any description 
that has greeted our eyes now for 135 days,' the more grateful 
because here at length they were told ' that our late success (the 
first visit to the ice) caused an immense sensation of triumph 
in England ! These are the first flattering words we have 
received from home ; nor can you conceive how welcome is 
the news, having penetrated beyond even our former Ultima 
TJiule of Latitude.' 
His own views as to the nature of the Barrier, and of the 
pack ice of the Antarctic, especially as bearing on the pros- 
pects of the third voyage to the South, appear in a letter to 
his father, dated November 25, 1842. 
All the Ice in the Antarctic Ocean is formed by the 
gradual accumulation of Snow, on small pieces of Ice which 
only dissolve by being drifted to warmer latitudes. The 
Icebergs are probably the accumulation of centuries. These 
bergs are stranded all along the coast. The Barrier is 
probably only a large solid pack filling up a broad shallow 
bight, like that of Benin or S. Austraha. Some unusual 
severe winter, ages ago, first filled it with a sheet of Ice, and 
as the snow fell it sunk deeper and deeper every year till 
it stranded ; the sun has no power on it now, and so every 
snow shower must add to its height. What atmospheric 
changes the revolutions of centuries may produce we cannot 
know ; but whilst the chmate of the South is so equable 
and the removal of the ice by drifting probably proportioned 
to its slow drifting accumulation to the South of the Packs, 
these vast phenomena must remain comparatively un- 
changed. The Barrier, the bergs several hundred feet high 
and 1-6 miles long, and the Mts. of the great Antarctic 
continent, are too grand to be imagined, and almost 
too stupendous to be carried in the memory. With regard 
to the prospects of this coming cruise, I am anything but 
sanguine of great success. The past winter has been a very 
bad one indeed, and further we know that though the sea 
was clear of ice when Weddell went down, there was ice 
when the two French and the Yankee expeditions attempted 
this Longitude ; whether they tried to get through it boldly 
