Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/322

228 contact with the extreme cold of the atmosphere. In those regions we have also witnessed the almost magical power of the sea in breaking up land-ice or extensive floes of from twenty to thirty feet thick, which have in a few minutes after the swell reached them, been broken up into small fragments by the power of the waves.

But this extraordinary barrier of ice, of probably more than a thousand feet in thickness, crushes the undulations of the waves, and disregards their violence: it is a mighty and wonderful object, far beyond any thing we could have thought or conceived.

Thick squally weather, with constant snow prevailing, we stood away to the E.N.E. all day, without meeting either land or ice until 8, when, the snow clearing off, we could discover the strong iceblink of the barrier to the southward, and soon afterwards several icebergs were seen ahead of us: they were chiefly of the tabular form, perfectly flat on the top, precipitous in every part, and from 150 to 200 feet high: they had evidently at one time formed a part of the barrier, and I felt convinced, from finding them at this season so near the point of their formation, that they were resting on the ground. The lines were immediately prepared, and when we got amongst them at 3 the next morning we hove to, and obtained soundings in two hundred and sixty fathoms, on a bottom of stiff green mud, leaving no doubt on our minds that all the bergs about us,