174 SCOTT’S LAST EXPEDITION [DecemBER 
off Cape Geology by the irresistible outward movement of the 
glacier. Great diagonal cracks traversed the floe from the same 
reason. So I decided to try to fix a stake on the Tongue, and 
with the theodolite we could accurately fix its progress to the 
east. 
The chief difficulty was to get a mark. We had no wood 
to spare. Stones would sink into the ice. Finally I used the 
broken end of the signal pole. I tied some sealskin on the top 
for a flag, and painted it well with blubber soot, of which un- 
limited quantities coated Granite Hut. Gran and I walked 
over to the Tongue and marched 200 yards up it quite easily. 
Then we suddenly came on many deep crevasses masked by snow 
round which we had to steer carefully. 
I sighted south with the theodolite to the tent on Cape 
Geology and north to a large crack in the granite of the Kar 
Plateau. These directions were not collinear of course at first, 
but I moved the theodolite until they were. This took a long 
time and we had to go back to get round a crevasse before we 
got it fixed. Returning we had a job to find a track and got 
lost amid the parallel crevasses, which had an awkward tendency 
to join after you had followed them for a few hundred yards. ° 
On our return I found it was an excellent station, the stake lying 
directly in line with the crack in the cliff 5 miles off across the 
bay. 
As a result of the seal-flensing to provide a roof for Granite 
Hut, I cut myself rather frequently. This was usual and a 
matter of no moment generally. Seven of these cuts healed up 
in a few days, but one on my right hand gave rise to much 
trouble. We carried a medical chest full of pills, and Debenham 
was sledge doctor and knew as much of medicine as Dr. Wilson 
could get on a sheet of notepaper. He felt an expert at snow- 
blindness, frost-bites and dyspepsia, but my hand baffled him. 
However, Gran had served on many vessels in his naval training 
and at first I had great faith in him. He gravely felt my pulse, 
and then the arm-pit. ‘ Do you feel any pain here?’ I truth- 
fully said ‘No!’ ‘No blood poisoning in that finger,’ says 
Gran. Next day it was worse, and Gran proceeded to lance it 
with great gusto, with the result that the thumb and two fingers 
swelled double normal size. For a week I could not sleep, and 
I tried all sorts of bandages and most of the pills—as expert 
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