20 SCOTT’S LAST EXPEDITION [Juuy 
built up the walls, Bowers and I collected rocks and piled up the 
outside of the walls with snow slabs and gravel. We had a pick 
and a shovel to work with. 
[It was quite a question what it was to be called: in his 
Diary Bill called it ‘Oriana Hut, and the ridge the Oriana 
ridge: we discussed * Terra Igloo,’ ‘ Bleak House,’ ‘ The House 
on the Hill.’ 
Birdie gathered rocks from over the hill, nothing was too 
big for him. Bill did the banking up outside. The stones were 
good, the snow, however, was blown so hard as to be practi- 
cally ice: a pick made little impression upon it, and the only 
way was to chip out big blocks gradually by the small shovel. 
There was now little moonlight or daylight, but for the next 
two days we used both to their utmost, being up at all times 
by day and night, and often working on when there was great 
difficulty to see anything: one day Birdie was digging with the 
hurricane lamp by his side. ] 
The hut was placed so as to escape the force of the southerly 
wind under the moraine ridge. We were about 800 feet above 
sea level. Our method of construction was to build four walls 
of solid rock, leaving a small gap for a door in the lee end. 
The weather wall was highest, and the breadth of the hut was 
714 to 8 ft., so that the 9-foot sledge rested across from wall 
to wall as a cross rafter to support the canvas roof. The two 
side walls were built up to the height of the weather wall at 
the weather end, but were not so high by a couple of feet at 
the door end. The length of the hut was about ro ft. 
Against the outer side of the rock-walls were laid large 
slabs of hard snow like paving stones, each having its icy wind- 
swept surface outside. Between the slabs of snow and the rock 
walls we shovelled moraine gravel. Over all this fell the canvas 
roof, anchored by lanyards to heavy rocks all round, and bat- 
tened down to its outer side again by a double banking of ice 
slabs and gravel; finally, every crevice was packed in by hand 
with soft snow until the whole wall was uniformly tight all 
round. The work took us all the light we had of three days 
to finish. The canvas roof was made so ample in size that it 
came right down to the ground on the weather side and more 
than half-way down all the other sides. This, we thought, could 
not fail to make the walls tight when packed in and over as 
