282 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [October 



Bowers insists on doing all camp work; he is a positive 

 wonder. I never met such a sledge traveller. 



The sastrugi all across the strait have been across, the main 

 S. by E. and the other E.S.E., but these are a great study here; 

 the hard snow is striated with long wavy lines crossed with 

 lighter wavy lines. It gives a sort of herringbone effect. 



After depositing this extra load we proceeded up the Ferrar 

 Glacier; curious low ice foot on left, no tide crack, sea ice very 

 thinly covered with snow. We are getting delightfully fit. 

 Bowers treasure all round, Evans much the same. Simpson 

 learning fast. Find the camp life suits me well except the turn- 

 ing out at night! three times last night. We were trying nose 

 nips and face guards, marching head to wind all day. 



We reached Cathedral Rocks on the 19th. Here we found 

 the stakes placed by Wright across the glacier, and spent the 

 remainder of the day and the whole of the 20th in plotting their 

 position accurately. (Very cold wind down glacier increasing. 

 In spite of this Bowers wrestled with theodolite. He is really 

 wonderful. I have never seen anyone who could go on so long 

 with bare fingers. My own fingers went every few moments.) 

 We saw that there had been movement and roughly measured 

 it as about 30 feet. (The old Ferrar Glacier is more lively 

 than we thought.) After plotting the figures it turns out that 

 the movement varies from 24 to 32 feet at different stakes this 

 is 7^4 months. This is an extremely important observation, 

 the first made on the movement of the coastal glaciers; it is 

 more than I expected to find, but small enough to show that 

 the idea of comparative stagnation was correct. Bowers and 

 I exposed a number of plates and films in the glacier which have 

 turned out very well, auguring well for the management of the 

 camera on the Southern journey. 



On the 2 1 st we came down the glacier and camped at the 

 northern end of the foot. (There appeared to be a storm in 

 the Strait; cumulus cloud over Erebus and the whalebacks. Very 

 stormy look over Lister occasionally and drift from peaks; but 

 all smiling in our Happy Valley. Evidently this is a very 

 favoured spot.) From thence we jogged up the coast on the 

 following days, dipping into New Harbour and climbing the 

 moraine, taking angles and collecting rock specimens. At Cape 

 Bernacchi we found a quantity of pure quartz in situ, and in it 



