FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 



141 



— recalling the Bonney Riegel — bounded the narrow gorge and 

 led to terraces about 1700 feet high. To the south, however, 

 an extension of these, 3000 feet high, quite barred the large 

 valley we had just traversed. 



It was now nearly six o'clock and my shoulder was aching 

 with my pack. Judging from the readiness of the others to 

 drop their loads, I concluded that they felt the same. But 

 we all had an idea that a few minutes later would give us a 

 view of the Ross Sea. We wondered if we could pass around 

 the snout of the wonderful tributary immediately in front. 

 It opposed a face of ice forty feet high ; but just where it 

 butted into the steep south slope of the defile, there was 

 a narrow gap where thaw-ice had filled in the interspaces 

 between the cliff" debris. Over this we carried our packs ; 



South 



Sketch section across the Taylor Valley at Suess Glacier, showing the 

 Nussbaum Riegel which bars it. 



over this the seals must have laboriously crawled to die further 

 inland. One seal reached no less than twenty miles from the 

 sea, and ascended many hundred feet on its death journey. 

 Another, near Solitary Rocks some ten miles further west, at a 

 height of 2000 feet, may have ascended the Ferrar Glacier — 

 an incredible journey for a marine animal like the seal. 



We scrambled up the slippery ice mantle below the snout 

 of the Suess Glacier — as we named this striking glacier — and 

 reached the highest portion of the valley since we had left 

 the Taylor Glacier. The rock slopes looked full of interest. 

 Here were vertical strata of limestone and slate, which were 

 the first sedimentary rocks that we had examined in situ. 

 Unfortunately they were so folded and altered that no trace 

 of fossils could be expected. 



We could not see the sea from the crest of the defile, 



