I 9 6 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [FEBRUARY 



held up here all next day by a snowstorm, which we spent reading 

 and sewing. 



On the 1 2th we rounded the Kukri Hills, and when the ice- 

 foot petered out we were luckily able to continue on the sea ice. 

 We had lunch amid a colony of over forty seals, and then reached 

 the southern side of the Ferrar Glacier, where we camped on a 

 rather wet and muddy heap of ' road metal ' moraine. 



We were now safely round New Harbour, and curiously 

 enough crossed the sea ice at the mouth of the Ferrar on the 

 same day of the year as when we nearly went out to sea on our 

 first sledge journey. Henceforward we knew our route. We had 

 plenty of food at the Butter Point depot which we reached that 

 evening, and knew we could reach the old Discovery hut before 

 the end of the month. 



This depot had been blown over and wrecked generally. We 

 took some pemmican, butter, and chocolate, and next day pro- 

 ceeded south along the Butter Point piedmont, leaving another 

 note for Pennell. The surface was much better than the preced- 

 ing year, but curiously enough we found quite a number of small 

 crevasses. Debenham and Forde fell in together in one of these, 

 and the burly Irishman jammed so tightly, it was quite a business 

 pulling him out of it! In the evening we reached the Strand 

 Moraines. These are great piles of ancient silt, gravel, and 

 erratic blocks which were dropped here by the ancestor of the 

 present Koettlitz Glacier. At the southern end of these moraines 

 which were several miles long was quite a large lake. We 

 tobogganed down to this and across to a nice little gravelly delta 

 just made for the tent. We found that the open water reached 

 just to this point, the sound still being frozen to south'ard, 

 though obviously breaking away in great sheets. I wrote that 

 night: 'No Terra Nova. We should have been picked up at 

 Evans Coves (Terra Nova Bay) to-morrow.' We had the 

 choice of two routes now. Either to cross the snout of the Blue 

 Glacier, or to take to the sea ice and coast round the latter. We 

 had done the former and knew it would only take a day. The 

 latter might be quicker, though a great calved berg blocked the 

 route about two miles ahead. Debenham preferred the glacier, 

 the other two the sea ice. I made a bet with Gran that we 

 couldn't get the sledge between the calved berg and the glacier 

 without unloading it. This had a rather interesting outcome. 



