FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 125 



and meandered across little channels a couple of feet wide, but 

 they were unusual enough to excite interest. Gradually the 

 silts changed into a pebbly soil, and this into a uniform layer 

 of coarse gravel as I ascended the slope. Larger stones and 

 boulders became common, and one specimen seemed of special 

 interest. It was a fragment of coarse granite some six inches 

 long, with its upper surface weathered to such an extent that 

 every felspar appeared as a separate glistening brick ; yet the 

 moiety of the granite buried in the silt was as smooth as any 

 pebble from the beach. I consider it by no means improbable 

 that this relatively large amount of " weathering ' had been 

 accomplished while this fragment lay in its present insecure 

 situation. 



A little higher up the slope I was amazed to see a carpet 

 of green moss, as flourishing as any in more temperate regions. 

 I sat down on a granite erratic, and noted that three types of 

 vegetation were present. One was a veritable moss, to my 

 unbotanical eyes, the ordinary moss of universal distribution. 

 Of the other two species, which may have been algas, one 

 resembled the seaweed called U/va, and the other had a some- 

 what fibrous structure. The patch of green was sixty feet 

 long and about fifteen feet wide, and is possibly the largest 

 area of vegetation south of 77|° ! I was under the impression 

 that these forms were quite common around MacMurdo 

 Sound, but if I had known that they were inhabited by a most 

 interesting primitive flea, 1 should certainly have added some 

 to our load. However, we obtained thousands of the insects 

 next year at Granite Harbour. 



On my return I found that Evans had laboriously collected 

 the fragments of a shell, which, pieced together, built up a red 

 scallop. He picked it up on the moraine, where it may have 

 been blown by the wind. 



We inspanned at noon, and before lunch reached the low 

 ridges marking the junction of the centre of the glacier with 

 the sea ice. Here we obtained fresh water for the cooker, by 

 cutting some three inches through the sea ice. Evidently at 

 this season the sub-glacial drainage overpowered the sea-water 

 at this spot, which was eight or nine miles from the open sea. 



To the north of this was that remarkable " Double 

 Curtain ' glacier, which is photographed in the Discovery 

 volume. After lunch Wright and I decided to walk in that 



