ge
glacier which we named the Mertz Glacier.

At 11 P.M. the 'Aurora' entered a bay, ten miles wide, bounded on the
east by the shelf-ice wall and on the west by a steep snow-covered
promontory rising approximately two thousand feet in height, as yet seen
dimly in hazy outline through the mist. No rock was visible, but the
contour of the ridge was clearly that of ice-capped land.

There was much jubilation among the watchers on deck at the prospect.
Every available field-glass and telescope was brought to bear upon it.
It was almost certainly the Antarctic continent, though, at that time,
its extension to the east, west and south remained to be proved. The
shelf-ice was seen to be securely attached to it and, near its point of
junction with the undulating land-ice, we beheld the mountains of this
mysterious land haloed in ghostly mist.

While passing the extremity of the western promontory, we observed an
exposure of rock, jutting out of the ice near sea-level, in the face of
a scar left by an avalanche. Later, when passing within half a cable's
length of several berg-like masses of ice lying off the coast, rock
was again visible in black relief against the water's edge, forming a
pedestal for the ice. The ship was kept farther offshore, after this
warning, for though she was designed to buffet with the ice, we had no
desire to test her resistance to rock.

The bottom was very irregular, and as an extra precaution, soundings
were taken every few minutes. Through a light fog all that could be
seen landwards was a steep, sloping, icy surface descending from the
interior, and terminating abruptly in a seaward cliff fifty to two
hundred feet in height.

The ice-sheet terminating in this wall presented a more broken surface
than the floating shelf-ice. It was riven and distorted by gaping
crevasses; an indication of the rough bed over which it had travelled.

Towards midnight another bay was entered and many rocky islets appeared
on its western side. The engines were stopped for a few hours, and the
voyage was resumed in clearer weather on the following morning.

All day we threaded our way between islands and bergs. Seals and
penguins swam around, the latter squawking and diving in a most amusing
manner.

Cautiously we glided by an iceberg, at least one hundred and fifty feet
high, rising with a faceted, perpendicular face chased with soft, snowy
traceries and ornamented with stalactites. Splits and rents broke int