A glance at the map which illustrates the work done by the Western Party affords the best idea of the great ice-formation which stretches away to the north of Queen Mary Land. It is very similar in character to the well-known Ross Barrier over which lay part of Scott's and Amundsen's journeys to the South Pole. Its height is remarkably uniform, ranging from sixty to one hundred feet above the water-level. When allowance has been made for average specific gravity, its average total thickness should approximate to six hundred feet. From east to west the formation was proved to be as much as two hundred miles, with one hundred and eighty miles between its northern and southern limits.
This vast block of ice originates fundamentally from the glacial flow over the southern hinterland. Every year an additional layer of consolidated snow is added to its surface by the frequent blizzards. These annual additions are clearly marked in the section exposed on the dazzling white face near the brink of the ice-cliff. There is a limit, however, to the increase in thickness, for the whole mass is ever moving slowly to the north, driven by the irresistible pressure of the land-ice behind it. Thus the northern face crumbles down into brash or floats away as part of a berg severed from the main body of the shelf-ice.
On the morning of January 30 we had the unique experience of witnessing this crumbling action at work—a cataclysm of snow, ice and water! The ship was steaming along within three hundred yards of a cliff, when some loose drifts slid off from its edge, followed by a slice of the face extending for many hundreds of feet and weighing perhaps one million tons. It plunged into the sea with a deep booming roar and then rose majestically, shedding great masses of snow, to roll onwards exposing its blue, swaying bulk shivering into lumpy masses which pushed towards the ship in an ever-widening field of ice. It was a grand scene enacted in the subdued limelight of an overcast day.
During the afternoon the 'Aurora' changed her north-westerly course round to north-east, winding through a wonderful sea of bergs grounded in about one hundred and twenty fathoms of water. At times we would pass through narrow lanes between towering walls and emerge into a straight wide avenue along which these mountains of ice were ranged. Several were rather remarkable; one for its exquisite series of stratification lines, another for its facade in stucco, and a third for its overhanging cornice fringed with slender icicles.
On January 31 a trawling was made in one hundred and twelve fathoms. Half a ton of life emptied on the deck gave the biologists occupation for several days. Included in the catch were a large number of monstrous gelatinous ascidians or "sea-squirts." Fragments of coal were once more found; an indication that coaly strata must be very widely distributed in the Antarctic.
The pack was dense and in massive array at the extremity of Termination Ice-Tongue. Davis drove the ship through some of it and entered an open lead which ran like a dark streak away to the east amid ice which grew heavier and more marked by the stress of pressure.
Our time was now limited and it seemed to me that there was little chance of reaching open water by forcing a passage either to the east or north. We therefore turned on our tracks and broke south-west back into the Davis Sea, intending to steam westward to the spot where we had so easily entered two weeks previously.
On February 4 the pack to the north was beginning to thin out and to look navigable. Several short-cuts were taken across projecting "capes," and then on February 5 the 'Aurora' entered a zone of bergs and broken floe. No one slept well during that night as the ship bumped and ground into the ice which crashed and grated along her stout sides. Davis was on watch for long hours, directing in the crow's nest or down on the bridge, and throughout the next day we pushed on northwards towards the goal which now meant so much to us—Australia—Home!
At four o'clock the sun was glittering on the great ocean outside the pack-ice. Many of us climbed up in the rigging to see the fair sight—a prevision of blue skies and the calm delights of a land of eternal summer. Our work was finished, and the good ship was rising at last to the long swell of the southern seas.
On February 12, in latitude 55 degrees S, a strong south-wester drove behind, and, with all sails set, the 'Aurora' made eight knots an hour. The last iceberg was seen far away on the eastern horizon. Albatrosses followed in our wake, accompanied by their smaller satellites—Cape hens, priors, Lesson's and Wilson petrels.