CHAPTER XVII 
THROUGH THE PRESSURE RIDGE 
At dawn the next morning, February 28, leaving 
at this sixth camp some cases of biscuits, with alco¬ 
hol and coal oil, we started again landward, going 
over the trail made by the advance party. At one 
p. m. we came up with them. They were halted 
by a huge conglomeration of raftered ice tossed up 
by the storm which had delayed us at Shipwreck 
Camp. The rafters were from twenty-five to a 
hundred feet high and ran directly across our path, 
parallel to the land, and extending in either direc¬ 
tion as far as the eye could reach. Viewed from 
an ice pinnacle high enough to give a clear sight 
across in the direction of the land the mass of 
broken ice looked to be at least three miles wide. 
To get around it was clearly out of the question; 
an attempt to do so might lead us no one knew 
whither. Clearly it was a case for hard labor, to 
build a road across it practicable for sledging; I 
had seen similar apparently impassible ice on our 
polar trips but never anything worse. At, three 
o’clock, therefore, I told all hands to set to work 
building igloos and said that to-morrow we would 
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