The West Ice Shelf is a prominent ice shelf extending about 288 km (179 mi) in an east-west direction along the Leopold and Astrid Coast in East Antarctica between Barrier Bay and Posadowsky Bay. It was discovered and named by the First German Antarctica Expedition, 1901–1903, under Dr. Erich von Drygalski. The toponym describes the direction in which the German expedition first viewed the ice shelf. Their limited westward view became a prolonged one; on February 21, 1902, the ship became stuck in the ice. It remained there imprisoned by the pack ice until February 8, 1903.
Famous quotes containing the words west, ice and/or shelf:
“I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
““The room’s very hot, with all this crowd,” the Professor said to Sylvie. “I wonder why they don’t put some lumps of ice in the grate? You fill it with lumps of coal in the winter, you know, and you sit round it and enjoy the warmth. How jolly it would be to fill it now with lumps of ice, and sit round it and enjoy the coolth!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows,
Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will,—
But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still
With the sure strength that fearless truth endows.”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)