Shackleton.

“Land was in sight to the east and south about sixteen miles distant on the 22nd. The land-ice seemed to be faced with ice-cliffs at most points, but here and there slopes ran down to sea-level. Large crevassed areas in terraces parallel with the coast showed where the ice was moving down over foot-hills. The inland ice appeared for the most part to be undulating, smooth, and easy to march over, but many crevasses might have been concealed from us by the surface snow or by the absence of shadows. I thought that the land probably rose to a height of 5000 ft. forty or fifty miles inland. The accurate estimation of heights and distances in the Antarctic is always difficult, owing to the clear air, the confusing monotony of colouring, and the deceptive effect of mirage and refraction. The land appeared to increase in height to the southward, where we saw a line of land or barrier that must have been seventy miles, and possibly was even more distant.”

— Ernest Shackleton, 22 January 1915, South

“I had been prepared for evil conditions in the Weddell Sea, but had hoped that in December and January, at any rate, the pack would be loose, even if no open water was to be found. What we were actually encountering was a fairly dense pack of a very obstinate character. Pack ice might be described as a gigantic and interminable jigsaw puzzle devised by Nature. The parts of the puzzle in loose pack have floated slightly apart and become disarranged; at numerous places they have pressed together again; as the pack gets close the congested areas grow larger and the parts are jammed harder til finally it becomes “close pack,” when the whole of the jigsaw puzzle becomes jammed to such an extent that with care and labor it can be traversed in every direction on foot. Where the parts do not fit closely there is, of course, open water, which freezes over in a few hours after giving off volumes of “frost-smoke.”

In obedience to renewed pressure this young ice “rafts,” so forming double thicknesses of a toffeelike consistency. Again the opposing edges of heavy floes rear up in slow and almost silent conflict, till high “hedgerows” are formed round each part of the puzzle. At the junction of several floes chaotic areas of piled-up blocks and masses of ice are formed. Sometimes 5-ft to 6t-ft piles of evenly shaped blocks of ice are seen so neatly laid that it seems impossible for them to be Nature’s work. Again, a winding canyon may be traversed between icy walls 6 f to 10 ft high, or a dome may be formed that under renewed pressure bursts upward like a volcano. All through the winter the drifting pack changes — grows by freezing, thickens by rafting, and corrugates by pressure. If, finally, in its drift it impinges upon a coast, such as the western short of the Weddell Sea, terrific pressure is set up and an inferno of ice blocks, ridges, and hedgerows result, extending possibly for 150 or 200 miles off shore. Sections of pressure ice may drift away subsequently and become embedded in new ice.”

“Another point that may require to be explained was the delay caused by wind while we were in the pack. When a strong breeze or moderate gale was blowing the ship could not safely work through any except young ice, up to about 2 feet in thickness. As ice of that nature never extended more than a mile or so, it followed that in a gale in the pack we always had to lie to.”

— Ernest Shackleton, South