Part 73 (2/2)
Glossary
Oceanography. The study of the ocean, including the shape and character of its bed, the temperature and salinity of the water at various depths, the force and set of its currents, and the nature of the creatures and plants which haunt its successive zones.
Neve. [n,e acute, v, e acute] The compacted snow of a snow-field; a stage in the transition between soft, loose snow and glacier-ice.
Sastrugi. The waves caused by continuous winds blowing across the surface of an expanse of snow. These waves vary in size according to the force and continuity of the wind and the compactness of the snow.
The word is of Russian derivation (from zastruga [sing.], zastrugi [pl.] ), denoting snow-waves or the irregularities on the surface of roughly-planed wood.
Ice-foot. A sheath of ice adhering along the sh.o.r.es of polar lands.
The formation may be composed of attached remnants of floe-ice, frozen sea-spray and drift-snow.
Nunatak. An island-like outcrop of rock projecting through a sheet of enveloping land-ice.
Shelf-ice. A thick, floating, fresh water ice-formation pus.h.i.+ng out from the land and continuous with an extensive glacier. Narrow prolongations or peninsulas of the shelf-ice may be referred to as ice-tongues or glacier-tongues.
Barrier is a term which has been rather loosely applied in the literature of Antarctic Exploration. Formerly it was used to describe a formation, which is mainly shelf-ice, known as the Great Ross Barrier. Confusion arose when ”Barrier” came to be applied to the seaward ice-cliff (resting on rock) of an extensive sheet of land-ice and when it was also employed to designate a line of consolidated pack-ice. Spelt with a small ”b” the term is a convenient one, so long as it carries its ordinary meaning; it seems unnecessary to give it a technical connotation.
Blizzard. A high wind at a low temperature, accompanied by drifting, not necessarily falling snow.
Floe or Floe-ice. The comparatively flat, frozen surface of the sea intersected by cracks and leads (channels of open water).
Pack or Pack-ice is a field of loose ice originating in the main from broken floe, to which may be added material from the disintegration of bergs, and bergs themselves.
Brash or Brash-ice. Small, floating fragments of ice--the debris of larger pieces--usually observed bordering a tract of pack-ice.
Bergschrund has been ”freely rendered” in the description of the great cleft between the lower part of the Denman Glacier and the Shackleton Shelf-Ice (Queen Mary Land). In a typical glacier, ”the upper portion is hidden by neve and often by freshly fallen snow and is smooth and unbroken. During the summer, when little snow falls, the body of the glacier moves away from the snow-field and a gaping creva.s.se of great depth is usually established, called a 'Bergschrund', which is sometimes taken as the upper limit of the glacier” (”Encyclopaedia Britannica”).
Sub-Antarctica. A general term used to denote the area of ocean, containing islands and encircling the Antarctic continent, between the vicinity of the 50th parallel of south lat.i.tude and the confines of the ice-covered sea.
Seracs are wedged ma.s.ses of icy pinnacles which are produced in the surface of a glacier by dragging strains which operate on creva.s.sed areas. A field of such pinnacles, jammed together in broken confusion, is called serac-ice
The following colloquial words or phrases occurring in the narrative were largely determined by general usage: To depot = to cache or to place a stock of provisions in a depot; drift = drift-snow; fifty-mile wind = a wind of fifty miles an hour; burberry = ”Burberry gabardine” or specially prepared wind-proof clothing; whirly (pi. whirlies) = whirlwind carrying drift-snow and pursuing a devious track; night-watchman = night-watch; glaxo = ”Glaxo” (a powder of dried milk); primus = primus stove used during sledging; hoosh = pemmican and plasmon biscuit ”porridge”; tanks = canvas bags for holding sledging provisions; boil-up = sledging meal; ramp = bank of snow slanting away obliquely on the leeward side of an obstacle; radiant = an appearance noted in clouds (especially cirro-stratus) which seem to radiate from a point on the horizon
The following appended list may be of biological interest:
Birds Aves
Emperor penguin Aptenodytes forsteri King penguin Aptenodytes patagonica Adelie penguin Pygoscelis adeliae Royal penguin Catarrhactes schlegeli Victoria penguin Catarrhactes pachyrynchus Gentoo or Rockhopper penguin Pygoscelis papua
Wandering albatross Diomedea exulans Mollymawk or Black-browed albatross Diomedea melanophrys Sooty albatross Phoebetria fuliginosa Giant petrel or nelly Ossifraga gigantea MacCormick's skua gull Megalestris maccormicki Southern skua gull Megalestris antarctica Antarctic petrel Thala.s.soeca antarctica Silver-grey petrel or southern fulmar Priocella glacialoides Cape pigeon Daption capensis Snow petrel PaG.o.droma nivea Lesson's petrel Oestrelata lessoni Wilson petrel Oceanites oceanicus Storm petrel Fregetta melanogaster Cape hen Majaqueus oequinoctialis Small prion or whale bird Prion banksii Crested tern Sterna sp.
Southern black-backed or Dominican gull Larus dominica.n.u.s Macquarie Island s.h.a.g Phalacrocorax traversi Mutton bird Puffinus griseus Maori hen or ”weka” Ocydromus scotti
Seals Pinnipedia
Sea elephant Macrorhinus leoninus Sea-leopard Stenorhynchus leptonyax Weddell seal Leptonychotes weddelli Crab-eater seal Lobodon carcinophagus Ross seal Ommatophoca rossi
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