82 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION QANUARY 



light load made good progress: We made a big sweep round 

 Cape Sastrugi to try and avoid the crevasses, but without success. 



The afternoon was hot and muggy, and when we camped 

 that night we were wet with perspiration. After supper I went 

 out with Priestley to collect, and the sun being hot I took off 

 my vest, and, turning it inside out, put it over my sweater, where 

 it dried beautifully. I remarked to Priestley at the time that this 

 ought to bring me luck, and sure enough, immediately afterwards 

 I found a sandstone rock containing fossil wood, the best speci- 

 men as yet secured by the party. 



January 28. Blowing hard from the N.W., with drift, but 

 clear sky. The temperature being warm, the drift made every- 

 thing very wet. After breakfast Priestley hunted for fossils, 

 while I got another round of angles. We then marched, edging 

 over to the northern moraines, on which we camped that night. 



January 29. A beautiful day, but no sign of the other party. 

 After breakfast we started, and crossing moraine, steered for 

 what we called ' Corner Glacier,' a small steep glacier whose 

 course lay more on our route for Wood Bay. The going was 

 easy, and we camped that evening on the north lateral moraine, 

 which lies at the foot of a steep scree descending from the 

 mountains. The moraine was a very large one, with a number 

 of conical heaps and with lakes in all the little valleys. The 

 noise of running water from a lot of streams sounded very odd 

 after the usual Antarctic silence. Occasionally an enormous 

 boulder would come crashing down from the heights above, 

 making jumps of from 50 to 100 feet at a time. 



January 30. Another fine morning, so after breakfast we 

 started for the south end of ' Black Ridge,' from which place 

 we could get a view up the Priestley Glacier. Arriving there 

 about i o'clock we found we were cut off from the moraine 

 by a barranca from 40 to 50 feet deep. The glacier itself 

 seemed an important one, judging by the disturbance it made 

 in the piedmont where it flowed in, large undulations and big 

 crevasses extending many miles out. 



Although not so steep as Corner Glacier, it was much more 

 crevassed, but what decided us to try Corner Glacier was that 

 the Priestley Glacier curved from a S.W. direction, which would 

 have taken us off our course. Accordingly, after I had secured 

 a round of angles, we steered for the foot of the icefalls of 



