1912] ON THE BOOMERANG GLACIER 79 
_ the slope, Priestley very wisely decided to return. The icefalls 
_ we see from our present camp apparently connect with the ridge. 
_ It was worth going on to see, however, so we got under weig!: 
and marched till 7 P.M., when we camped at the foot of the first 
ice falls on snow, the weather having come over very thick in the 
afternoon. 
January 15.—Still and very thick when we turned out at 
6 A.M., so there was nothing for it but to turn in again after 
breakfast. The Antarctic teaches one patience if nothing else. 
We are fairly sheltered, but can hear the wind roaring in 
the crags on the side of the glacier, and the snow and drift are 
so thick that we can only see a few yards. Occasionally in the 
lulls we can see the blue icefalls looming up through the driit, 
and then everything shuts down again. 
The conditions remained the same until breakfast on January 
19, when it began to clear from the southward. We started 
away after breakfast with the surface awful, and the snow so 
deep I doubt if we should have got the sledges along at all 
if we had not had ski, which enabled us to break a trail. As 
soon as it was clear to the northward, Priestley and I climbed 
the slopes on our left on ski, leaving the remainder halted at 
the bottom. The view from the ridge was not promising. The 
icefalls reached right up to the ridge, a mass of séracs and cre- 
vasses as far as we could see, and I decided to return and try 
the Boomerang Glacier, which lay a few miles south of us. The 
sun now came out, and in the deep sticky surface it took all six 
of us to pull one sledge. We had to relay all the way, and it | 
was six o'clock before we reached the N. lateral moraine of the 
Boomerang Glacier, where we camped. 
January 20.—After breakfast we divided into two parties. 
I, taking Levick and Dickason, climbed the mountain on the N. 
side of the glacier. Priestley, taking Abbott and Browning, went 
up the glacier on the moraine, where Priestley wanted to collect. 
At the first possible place my party left the glacier, and, 
after about an hour’s climb, came out on a snow field, where 
we roped up and ploughed through deep snow lying over ice, 
along the foot of a steep slope, which we attempted to climb by 
cutting steps in order to reach a rocky spur several hundred feet 
above us. Half-way up, however, we had to retrace our steps, 
