Heaving hills of pack and floe were sweeping towards us in long undulations, later to be broken here and there by the dark lines that indicated open water.

As each swell lifted around our rapidly dissolving berg it drove floe-ice on to the ice- foot, shearing off more of the top snow-covering and reducing the size of our camp.

When the floes retreated to attack again the water swirled over the ice-foot, which was rapidly increasing in width.

The launching of the boats under such conditions would be difficult.

Time after time, so often that a track was formed, Worsley, Wild, and I, climbed to the highest point of the berg and stared out to the horizon in search of a break in the pack.