136 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [FEBRUARY 



walked towards Knob Head. The direction of the moraines 

 revealed the interesting fact that all the ice from the Plateau 

 was moving into Dry Valley and not into the Lower Ferrar as 

 was previously supposed. The Ferrar and Taylor Glaciers are 

 4 apposed ' glaciers linked like Siamese twins by the col at Knob 

 Head. Originally they were quite distinct, and they will again 

 be separated when the ice has dwindled a little farther. 



That evening we discussed literature. P.O. Evans disliked 

 Dickens and Kipling, whom Debenham and I enjoy thoroughly. 

 He preferred a well-known foreign writer whose name he very 

 sensibly pronounced Dum-ass. Our sledging library was quite 

 extensive, for each of us had devoted a pound of our personal 

 allowance to books. I will give the catalogue, if only as a 

 caution to later explorers. Debenham took my Browning and 

 the ' Autocrat ' ; Evans had a William le Queux and the Red 

 Magazine; Wright had two mathematical books, both in Ger- 

 man; I took Debenham's Tennyson and three small German 

 books. The Red Magazine, the ' Autocrat,' and Browning were 

 most often read; Evans' contribution being an easy winner. 

 Somehow we didn't hanker after German; 



On the loth we descended 1200 feet down a series of undu- 

 lations and reached our depot at Cathedral Rocks. The skua 

 gulls had found the carcase of the Emperor and our chance oi : 

 a variation in the menu had departed with the gulls. 



On the nth Wright and Debenham carried out a very im- 

 portant operation to determine the movement of the Ferrar 

 Glacier. They fixed stakes right across the glacier which were 

 aligned on two prominent peaks. Some six months later Captain 

 Scott re-measured this line and found that very considerable 

 movement, amounting to 30 feet, had taken place during the 

 winter. 



Meanwhile P.O. Evans and I prospected for a route up the 

 steep snow slope of Descent Pass. Evans had been with Armi- 

 tage when he used this route in 1903. We found the conditions 

 very different. Soon we were sinking nearly two feet at every 

 step in soft snow, through which I knew it would be almost 

 impossible to drag the sledges. The slope soon increased to 1 1 , 

 so that we found some difficulty in progressing even unencum- 

 bered. There I first made the acquaintance of the * Barrier 

 Shudder.' Every now and then a shiver would shake the surface 



