I am at the very center of the great white continent, Antarctica. The South Pole is about half a mile away. For a thousand miles, in all directions, there is nothing but ice. And, in the whole of this continent, which is one and a half times the size of the United States and larger than Europe, there is a year-round population of no more than 800 people. This is the loneliest and the coldest place on earth, the place that is most hostile to life. And yet, in one or two places, it is astonishingly rich.

Penguins come here by the million and endure temperatures of minus 70 degrees centigrade and winds of 120 miles an hour. Other birds fly right to the heart of the continent, even though they have to dig away snow in order to find a place to nest . And here is the nursery for over half the world's seals.

Antarctica is remote from all other continents, surrounded by the vast southern ocean and smothered by a blanket of ice so immense that it contains over three quarters of the world's freshwater.

All life in the Antarctic is dominated by the ice. All but 2% of the continent is covered by it. Its very whiteness reflects back what little heat there is in the sun's feeble rays. And snow, when it falls, remains permanently frozen. So that now, after accumulating for millions of years, it has formed this gigantic ice cap and the ice beneath my feet is three miles thick.

Submerged beneath it are mountain ranges as high as the Alps, only their summits project through it.

words and expressions

feeble: 微弱的, 薄弱的

project :To extend forward or out; jut out:突出