28 



WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



Here and there large boat-shaped hollows show sheer black 

 faces which glisten in the sunlight. Down these falls a con- 

 stant stream of shingle, and occasionally a huge monolith 

 tumbles with a roar into the body of the glacier. For there 

 are ancient crevasses in the glacier, though it needs close 

 inspection to see that their dark walls are formed of ice. 



We must go several miles higher up the glacier to reach 

 the clean white fields of snow and ice usually associated with 

 the name. It is this tumbled debris — the surface moraine — 

 which forms one of the most formidable obstacles to exploration 

 of the coastal regions of Antarctica ; while the smooth normal 

 glacier surface is excellent travelling. All round the snout of 

 the Mueller Glacier extends an almost circular rampart con- 

 sisting of two lines of fortifications. There is an outer wall 



Hooker 



61 :» &"ilr-an* Wafer 



He!*TvfXge 



KeaT"- 



"Mc-Aine. 



LooKmj iouin H\e Snout" of flie T\oelle/' (?(a<u#V~ ( jr*>*, flu Sfodtfno 



fs" «• 10 



some 300 feet high, curving grandly from the Stocking's wall 

 right across the Hooker Valley, and thence above the Hermitage 

 back to Kea Point. This is thickly covered with shrubs, and 

 contrasts strongly with the somewhat lower inner rampart of 

 new-piled blocks of slate. At first glance this suggests an 

 ancient crater wall ; but it is a glacial product, the terminal 

 and lateral moraines shovelled out to the edges of the glacier 

 by the ever-moving river of ice. 



More striking still is the course of the water draining 

 from the Hooker Glacier. This lies about two miles away to 

 the north of the snout of the Mueller, and from ice caves in 

 its terminal face a broad stream rushes to join the waters of 

 the Mueller Glacier. It will be readily understood that in 

 this small area, including the short ice-free strip of the valley 



