1912] ON’ THE PIEDMONT 193 
sure the seaward slope would be safer. So it was, though Forde 
went down a small one. We pulled along this up to a sort of 
col about 8 miles from Cape Roberts, and here, as we were well 
beyond the mouth of the Big Valley, we camped. 
‘My only fear now was that bad weather might cover the 
glacier with soft snow, for I felt that all the big crevasses would 
be lidded and the little ones could hardly swallow the lot of us.’ 
Next morning we made the harness traces longer, so that 
only one man at a time need cross even a wide crevasse. We 
had to traverse the mouth of another large valley glacier. Three 
of these debouched on the piedmont glacier from the Western 
Mountains, and the pressure from the northernmost (the Deben- 
ham Glacier was responsible for the crevasses of March 5. 
The second valley glacier was not so large, but we anticipated 
trouble. We had a stiff pull uphill for three-quarters of a mile, 
but some of the snow was so hard that the sledge runners made 
no mark! This was an ideal surface, for one’s feet did not slip 
on it, though occasionally the sledge skidded. We were about 
700 feet above the sea here and entered a col just below a huge 
snow hill. - 
‘ Afterwards we were cutting around the hill aforesaid when 
suddenly appeared many crevasses. So we deviated abruptly and 
ascended the hill sharply. We encountered three, into*one of 
which I fell, but they were not very wide. The moral of this is, 
Don’t go for the break of a hill facing and near the sea, but 
stick to humdrum grades if possible; if not, still don’t go for 
the break of a hill!’ 
The somewhat frivolous tone of the above note is evidence 
that it was written when we had traversed the worst of the pied- 
mont. It was always the case ‘down South.’ One never got 
photographs or ‘ instantaneous pen pictures’ of anything really 
exciting. It was always a case of ‘Get a move on, and get out 
of this good and quick,’ so that one’s diary lost most where it 
would have been most interesting. 
We were now behind Dunlop Island and about 1250 feet 
up the piedmont. We were astonished to find that the floe had 
all broken up to south’ard. Long curved cracks parallel to the 
coast marked where pieces were continually floating off. We 
congratulated ourselves on our safe position on the piedmont, 
for we should have sledged into this without knowing it, had we 
VOL, II—I3 
