260 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [FEBRUARY 



The time, however, was not wasted : whenever in a workable 

 depth, with steam up, Lillie had his trawl out and so got six or 

 seven trawls. Rennick got a number of soundings, though of 

 necessity not in any particular line, and there were several oppor- 

 tunities for swinging ship and observing variation on fast ice, 

 while an interesting series of Giant Petrels was obtained, rang- 

 ing from white to the comparatively dark varieties. 



Mather, who had taken great trouble in New Zealand to 

 perfect his taxidermy, skinned all the ship's specimens. 



At last, on February 4, the ship was secured alongside fast 

 ice off Cape Barne. Atkinson came off with a dog team and re- 

 ported all well, and was shortly followed by Meares and Simp- 

 son. They informed us that the ice was bad between the ship 

 and shore, and consequently did not stay long, but took the mails 

 with them when they left. 



During the next two days two miles of ice went out in a gale, 



and in the first watch of the 6th the ship was at last 



Feb. 6-14, secured alongside fast ice, with safe ice between her 



IQI2. Off , r T7 



Cape Evans. and Ca P e Evans. 



The dogs went ashore at once, the mules were 

 hoisted out early the next morning, and soon were safely ashore, 

 after being on board fifty-four days. It says much for Dennis- 

 toun's care of them that they landed in such good condition. 



Sledging the stores on shore was commenced at once; but it 

 was two and three-quarter miles to Cape Evans (i.e. five and a 

 half miles on the round trip), so that the work was necessarily 

 slow. 



The unloading continued steadily till the I4th, with a break 

 in the middle when a gale took another mile of ice out and so 

 made work much quicker; but on the I4th the ice started breaking 

 up and yet did not go out; nothing could be done, and as after 

 a day no change took place the ship crossed over the Sound to 

 Butter Point to see conditions in that direction. There were still 

 nineteen tons of stores, including some coal, to be landed, but all 

 the essentials were ashore. 



At Butter Point a note from Taylor (in charge of the geo- 

 logical party) was found, saying that his party had camped there 

 and gone on the previous day. Following the coast 

 south, this party was observed on the Blue Glacier, 

 and tne Y were soon on board, all well. It was for- 

 Sound. tunate that Taylor had realised early the impossibility 



