to the west of south, but so little that the digression was of no
account. The semicircle we saw to the south made a more disquieting
impression, and looked as if it would offer great irregularities. On
the following day the character of the surface began to change;
great wave-like formations seemed to roll higher and higher as they
approached the land, and in one of the troughs of these we found
the surface greatly disturbed. At some bygone time immense fissures
and chasms would have rendered its passage practically impossible,
but now they were all drifted up, and we had no difficulty in crossing.

That day -- November 15 -- we reached 85deg. S., and camped at the top of
one of these swelling waves. The valley we were to cross next day was
fairly broad, and rose considerably on the other side. On the west,
in the direction of the nearest land, the undulation rose to such
a height that it concealed a great part of the land from us. During
the afternoon we built the usual depot, and continued our journey on
the following day. As we had seen from our camping-ground, it was
an immense undulation that we had to traverse; the ascent on the
other side felt uncomfortably warm in the powerful sun, but it was
no higher than 300 feet by the aneroid. From the top of this wave
the Barrier stretched away before us, flat at first, but we could see
disturbances of the surface in the distance. Now we are going to have
some fun in getting to land, I thought, for it seemed very natural that
the Barrier, hemmed in as it was here, would be much broken up. The
disturbances we had seen consisted of some big, old crevasses, which
were partly filled up; we avoided them easily. Now there was another
deep depression before us; with a correspondingly high rise on the
other side. We went over it capitally; the surface was absolutely
smooth, without a sign of fissure or hole anywhere. Then we shall
get them when we are on the top, I thought. It was rather stiff work