I3 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [JANUARY 



reached the top of the lower Ferrar and found ourselves on a 

 small ice plateau about 3200 feet above sea level. We now 

 marched along the grandest geological section it has ever been 

 my good fortune to see. The cliff to the north, 3300 feet high, 

 was capped by yellowish sandstone. Beneath this were two 

 wonderful horizontal sheets of dark lava which had intruded 

 through the granite base so that the rocks looked like a gigantic 

 sandwich composed of alternating yellow, black and red layers. 

 The lower slopes of the red granite were covered by the old 

 lateral moraine, a layer of dark debris left by the Ferrar Glacier 

 when it almost filled the valley we were following. 



We pushed on till 9 P.M., descending slightly as we proceeded 

 to the north, and camped on the glacier filling the upper end of 

 the Dry Valley. The exploration of this glacier which Scott 

 had rapidly traversed in 1903 was the work before us during 

 the next fortnight. Captain Scott has honoured me by giving it 

 the name of Taylor Glacier. 



I kept too near to the Kukri Hills on descending into the 

 Taylor Glacier and we struck an extremely steep slippery surface 

 consisting of clear ice cut into rounded hollows a foot across. 

 This characteristic surface like giant thumb marks in a piece 

 of putty^was full of small crevasses, and here the sledge re- 

 peatedly ' took charge.' We rolled about all over the place, and 

 someone remarked that we had all the appearance of being drunk 

 and none of the pleasure of it! 



To our surprise, after five days' pulling over heavy snow in 

 the Ferrar Glacier, we found no snow in the parallel Taylor 

 Valley, only about 10 miles farther north. After lunching among 

 the scattered blocks of the medial moraine we descended about a 

 thousand feet, the sledge doing its own pulling. Debenham and 

 I went on ahead with slack traces, while Evans and Wright en- 

 livened the valley with what they were pleased to call ' cheerful 

 song ' ! A strong keen wind was blowing up the valley, but the 

 most remarkable feature of this region prevented it from becom- 

 ing obnoxious. There was no drift-snow ! 



Imagine a valley four miles wide, 3000 feet deep, and 25 

 miles long without a patch of snow and this in the Antarctic in 

 latitude 77^ S. By this time we could see the ' snout ' of the 

 glacier just below us. The slope became too steep for the sledge 

 and at six o'clock we halted to try and find a site for our camp. 



