19"] VALLEY OF THE BEARDMORE 347 



any other desirable task. This is a second relief for which we 

 are most grateful. 



At the lunch camp the snow covering was less than a foot, 

 and at this it is a bare nine inches; patches of ice and hard 

 neve are showing through in places. I meant to camp at 6.30, 

 but before 5.0 the sky came down on us with falling snow. 

 We could see nothing, and the pulling grew very heavy. At 

 5.45 there seemed nothing to do but camp another interrupted 

 march. Our luck is really very bad. We should have done a 

 good march to-day, as it is we have covered about 1 1 miles 

 (stat.). 



Since supper there are signs of clearing again, but I don't 

 like the look of things; this weather has been working up from 

 the S.E. with all the symptoms of our pony-wrecking storm. 

 Pray heaven we are not going to have this wretched snow in 

 the worst part of the glacier to come. The lower part of this 

 glacier is not very interesting, except from an ice point of view. 

 Except Mount Kyffen, little bare rock is visible, and its structure 

 at this distance is impossible to determine. There are no mo- 

 raines on the surface of the glacier either. The tributary 

 glaciers are very fine and have cut very deep courses, though 

 they do not enter at grade. The walls of this valley are ex- 

 traordinarily steep; we count them at least 6o in places. The 

 ice-falls descending over the northern sides are almost continuous 

 one with another, but the southern steep faces are nearly bare; 

 evidently the sun gets a good hold on them. There must be a 

 good deal of melting and rock weathering, the talus heaps are 

 considerable under the southern rock faces. Higher up the 

 valley there is much more bare rock and stratification, which 

 promises to be very interesting, but oh! for fine weather; surely 

 we have had enough of this oppressive gloom. 



Saturday, December 16. Camp 38. A gloomy morning, 

 clearing at noon and ending in a gloriously fine evening. Al- 

 though constantly anxious in the morning, the light held good 

 for travelling throughout the day, and we have covered 11 

 miles (stat.), altering the aspect of the glacier greatly. But 

 the travelling has been very hard. We started at 7, lunched at 

 12.15, an( * marched on till 6.30 over ten hours on the march 

 the limit of time to be squeezed into one day. We began 

 on ski as usual, Evans' team hampering us a bit; the pulling very 



