r you may sometimes hear the silence broken by the sharp
reports as the cold contracts it or its own weight splits it. Nature is
tearing up that ice as human beings tear paper.

The sea-cliff is not so high here, and is more broken up by crevasses and
caves, and more covered with snow. Some five miles along the coast the
white line is broken by a bluff and black outcrop of rock; this is Turk's
Head, and beyond it is the low white line of Glacier Tongue, jutting out
for miles into the sea. We know, for we have already crossed it, that
there is a small frozen bay of sea-ice beyond, but all we can see from
Cape Evans is the base of the Hut Point Peninsula, with a rock outcrop
just showing where the Hutton Cliffs lie. The Peninsula prevents us from
seeing the Barrier, though the Barrier wind is constantly flowing over
it, as the clouds of drift now smoking over the Cliffs bear witness.
Farther to the right still, the land is clear: Castle Rock stands up like
a sentinel, and beyond are Arrival Heights and the old craters we have
got to know so well during our stay at Hut Point. The Discovery hut,
which would, in any case, be invisible at fifteen miles, is round that
steep rocky corner which ends the Peninsula, due south from where we
stand.

There remains undescribed the quadrant which stretches to our right front
from south to west. Just as we have previously seen the line of the
Western Mountains disappearing to the north miraged up in the light of
the mid-day sun, so now we see the same line of mountains running south,
with many miles of sea or Barrier between us and them. On the far
southern horizon, almost in transit with Hut Point, stands Minna Bluff,
some ninety miles away, beyond which we have laid the One Ton Depot, and
from this point, as our eyes move round to the right, we see peak after
peak of these great mountain ranges--Discovery, Morning, Lister, Hooker,
and the glaciers which divide them one from another. They rise almost
without a break to a height of thirteen thousand feet. Between us and
them is the Barrier to the south, and the sea to the north. Unless a
blizzard is impending or blowing, they are clearly visible, a gigantic
wall of snow and ice and rock, which bounds our view to the west,
constantly varied by the ever-changing colour of the Antarctic. Beyond is
the plateau.

We have not yet mentioned four islands which lie within a radius of about
three miles from where we stand. The most important is