1911] Py ELGED TEDE 147 
of frost in the nights. , The weather was gloomy, the sun rarely 
appearing till it had sunk below the level of the pall of stratus. 
We had an eventful lunch just before reaching our depot. 
We pitched the tent and fastened the door to keep out the 
wind. I was sitting next the door with my precious lumps of 
sugar on the floor cloth when I noticed that water was creeping 
into the tent. In a few seconds it was several inches deep. 
We bolted our raisins, pocketed the lumps of butter and sugar 
and rushed out with the sleeping-bags. There was a small lake 
all round us, rapidly rising round sledge and tent. The water 
was rushing out of a crack one hundred yards below us, probably 
driven back by a high tide. We. had quite a pilgrimage to get 
our sledge packed again, having to walk round the newly formed 
bay. 
The avenue petered out here, after furnishing us with a mag- 
nificent highway for twenty miles. We had some pretty rough 
work for the next mile or so, but reached our depot safely on 
the evening of the 5th. We had a fine feed of seal liver fried 
in blubber. Debenham was cook and P.O. Evans was frankly 
sceptical as to the result. He took his whack gingerly, but 
handsomely acknowledged it tasted much better than in Dis- 
covery days. We turned over the fry with my bowie knife and 
found that safety-pins made excellent forks. 
On the 6th we started across the head of McMurdo Sound 
to reach Ross Island. We had now two sledges to pull, but 
the surface was good and we soon approached the Dailey Isles. 
We made an interesting discovery here. All around were heaps 
of large sponges—a foot in diameter—buried in snow and ice. 
Among the long spicules we found Bryozoa, Brachiopoda, Ser- 
pulz, mollusca, and a fine ‘ solitary’ coral. 
That evening we climbed West Dailey Isle—a mass of vol- 
canic lava 600 feet high—to try to see the extent of open water. 
The head of McMurdo Sound is occupied by a broad wedge of 
pinnacle ice about twelve miles wide at its base. It was neces- 
sary either to cross this or go right round it. We had had such 
heavy work with one light sledge that the latter route seemed 
the best, even though it was more than twice the distance. 
For the next two days we marched north—almost the oppo- 
site direction from our destination at Hut Point. At noon halt 
we found that Debenham had two toes frostbitten—owing to 
