hey heard a thundering noise far away to the east. It
sounded like a cannon shot, but probably was only the immense inland ice
"calving." When the ice during its constant but slow motion towards the
coast slides out into the sea, it is lifted up by the water and is
broken up into huge, heavy blocks and icebergs which float about
independently. When these pieces break away the inland ice is said to
"calve."

Shackleton advanced towards the pole at the rate of twelve to eighteen
miles a day. His small party was lost like small specks in the endless
desert of ice and snow. Only to the west was visible a succession of
mountain summits like towers and pinnacles. The men seemed to be
marching towards a white wall which they could never reach.

On November 31 one of the ponies was shot, and its flesh was kept to be
used as food. The sledge he had drawn was set up on end and propped up
as a mark for the return journey. Five days later Shackleton came to
Scott's farthest south, and the lofty mountains with dark, steep, rocky
flanks which he afterwards had by the side of his route had never before
been seen by man.

A couple of days later a second pony was shot, and shortly afterwards a
third, which could go no farther, had to be put out of his misery. The
last pony seemed to miss his comrades, but he still struggled on with
his sledge, while the four men dragged another.

The mountain range which they had hitherto had on their right curved too
much to the east, but fortunately it was cut through by a huge glacier,
the great highway to the Pole. They ascended the glacier and crossed a
small pass between great pillars of granite. Now they were surrounded by
lofty mountains. The ice was intersected by dangerous crevasses, and
only with the greatest caution and loss of time could they go round
them. A bird flew over their heads, probably a gull. What could he be
looking for here in the midst of the eternal ice?

One day three of the explorers were drawing their sledge while the
fourth was guiding the one drawn by the pony. Suddenly they saw the
animal disappear, actually swallowed up by the ice. A snow bridge had
given way under the weight of the pony, and the animal had fallen into a
crevasse 1000 feet deep. When they bent over the edge of the dark chasm
they could not hear a sound below. Fortunately the front cross-piece of
the sledge had come away, so that the sledge and man were left on the
brink of the chasm. If the precio