FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 



*37 



interesting, and seems to prove that eruptive action occurred 

 here since the period of maximum glaciation. I managed to 

 cut steps up the front of the glacier and so enter one of the 

 many surface gullies. I had a very unpleasant time getting 

 back to Alcove Camp, a distance of nearly two miles. I 

 thought perhaps the northern side of the glacier, which was 

 flatter, would be easier to negotiate. But the sun had 

 weathered it into a series of small alcoves, whose floors were 

 as smooth as glass and sloped towards the edge of the glacier, 

 here fifty feet high. 



The alcoves were bounded by razor-like ridges, and I had 



The recent crater on the flank of the Taylor Valley. The Rhone (cliff) 

 glacier appears on the left, February 7, 191 1. 



to crawl along from one to the other, where I did not cut 

 steps. The others had returned to camp earlier, and Evans 

 proudly produced a fossil-bearing specimen which he called a 

 "whisker-stone." It certainly showed signs of organic life, 

 but they were merely fibrous algae of a type fairly common in 

 the south, so he did not get the reward for the first fossils. 

 That evening Evans kindly sewed "toggles " on my sleeping- 

 bag, so that I could lash it up after I had coiled in. We cut 

 trenches in the ice to lead the thaw-waters away from the tent, 

 and turned in to sleep soundly, though the wind was howling 

 above us along the face of the glacier. But twenty feet below, 

 snugly sheltered in the alcove, nothing disturbed us. 



