Scott's Last Expedition Volume I by Robert Falcon Scott
page 66 of 632 (10%)
page 66 of 632 (10%)
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but they are not much hummocked; there are pools of water on their
surface, and the lanes between are filled with light brash and only an occasional heavy floe. The difference is wonderful. The heavy floes and gigantic pressure ice struck one most alarmingly--it seemed impossible that the ship could win her way through them, and led one to imagine all sorts of possibilities, such as remaining to be drifted north and freed later in the season, and the contrast now that the ice all around is little more than 2 or 3 feet thick is an immense relief. It seems like release from a horrid captivity. Evans has twice suggested stopping and waiting to-day, and on three occasions I have felt my own decision trembling in the balance. If this condition holds I need not say how glad we shall be that we doggedly pushed on in spite of the apparently hopeless outlook. In any case, if it holds or not, it will be a great relief to feel that there is this plain of negotiable ice behind one. Saw two sea leopards this evening, one in the water making short, lazy dives under the floes. It had a beautiful sinuous movement. I have asked Pennell to prepare a map of the pack; it ought to give some idea of the origin of the various forms of floes, and their general drift. I am much inclined to think that most of the pressure ridges are formed by the passage of bergs through the comparatively young ice. I imagine that when the sea freezes very solid it carries bergs with it, but obviously the enormous mass of a berg would need a great deal of stopping. In support of this view I notice that most of the pressure ridges are formed by pieces of a sheet which did not exceed one or two feet in thickness--also it seems that the screwed ice which we have passed has occurred mostly in the regions |
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