fjfj'] Taylor, A Scientist in the Antarctic. 9 



latter (often six feet thick) into great pressure waves up to 

 twenty feet high. In similar fashion has the earth's crust 

 been buckled in the process of mountain-building. All round 

 the .coast — long after the sea ice has vanished in .summer — 

 extends a long terrace known as the ice-foot. This is frozen 

 spray, &c., attached to the land, and might have been invented 

 to form a sledge-track for the explorer ! Every cape has a 

 long snowdrift on its leeward side built by the southern 

 blizzards. This hardens to ice in situ, and forms a small gla- 

 cieret. In summer these often dam back small lakes, and we see 

 in miniature the origin of the famous Glenroy Terraces which 

 so puzzled early Scotch geologists. Only rarely in miles and 

 miles of moraine does one come across the scratched blocks 

 which used to be postulated as the indispensable evidence 

 of a glacial deposit. Finally, I would add that Antarctica 

 is too cold for maximum glacial erosion. Infinitely more 

 work is being done by the ice in New Zealand than in 

 Antarctica. 



I will devote the last few paragraphs of this article to a 

 brief account of our life in the hut during the long winter 

 • night. Captain Scott early instituted a series of forty lectures. 

 These were given, not only by the scientists on all branches 

 of science, but also by Ponting (our camera artist), and by 

 most of the naval officers, on such subjects as travel, 

 clothing, food, surveying, &c. Much time was spent in 

 writing up records of the past summer's sledging, and also in 

 preparing for the ensuing season ; but the vicinity of the 

 hut offered many problems of its own. There were great 

 cones of debris, up to thirty feet high, which we found to be 

 due to the complete weathering of huge monoliths of kenyte 

 lava. The biologist kept a pool open in the sea ice right 

 through the winter. Here, protected partly by a six-foot wall 

 of ice from the furious blizzards, he dredged and took tem- 

 peratures. To prevent the delicate organisms from getting 

 frost-bitten, he used to carry them the mile to the hut in a 

 thermos flask ! Nearer the hut we had fishing-holes, in which 

 we sunk a wire fish-trap. Many weary half-hours have I spent 

 hauling this contraption up at temperatures down to eighty 

 below freezing ! All the fish were Notothenia, about eight 

 inches long. Even forty of these (our greatest catch) did not 

 go far among twenty-five stalwart explorers. 



In ice-grottos carved out of the living glacier were stationed 

 the magnetographs and the pendulums. Here Simpson and 

 Wright would engage in a " quick run." At this instant all 

 over the earth similar magnetic records were being taken with 

 a view to correlating them with auroras, sun-spots, magnetic 

 storms, &c. 



