148 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



cornice was a well-defined platform a few feet wide — which, 

 however, narrowed on either side — and then came a long slope 

 to the bottom. Wright paid ]out the rope, and I let myself 

 down to its end. There I started to cut steps, but un- 

 fortunately slipped and fell the last thirty feet — luckily 

 without damage except to my knuckles. I can remember 

 thinking that an ice-axe was an uncomfortable companion in 

 this roll down the slope and so threw it away for fear lest it 

 should claim close acquaintance with my person. The stream 

 was over a hundred feet wide, and then I reached the foot of 

 a steep rocky slope formed of dolerite blocks fallen from a 

 bold crag a few hundred feet up. 



I climbed up the glacier side again, and then found that 

 the large snow-shawls of the cornice prevented my getting 

 back — for as Wright hoisted me the rope merely cut deep 

 into the snow and soon my head was pulled into the lower 

 parts of the huge cornice ! I crawled along under the cornice, 

 devoutly trusting it would not avalanche on me, but ulti- 

 mately had to retrace my steps down to the stream. Again 

 I slipped, and this time lost the skin off my other hand as I 

 rolled once more into the moat. Luckily some few hundred 

 yards north I saw a place where the cornice had fallen off, 

 and here I was pulled up by Wright with such vigour that 

 the ice-axe entered my leg ! 



The huge cross-section of these " moats ' is worthy of 

 note. They definitely prove that no lateral erosion of any 

 importance is occurring in this portion of Antarctica. After 

 returning to the tent the glacier treated us to rounds of 

 volley-firing ! These were due to the opening of contraction 

 cracks as the ice shrank in the colder night temperatures. 



Wright and Evans spent the morning of the 9th over 

 near the ice falls from the upper glacier. These we named 

 after the famous Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge. They 

 had to cross a surface compounded of "plough-shares" and 

 "thumb-marks," which they found intensely slippery, so that 

 even surefooted Evans fell and nearly broke his elbow. 



Debenham and I cracked sandstone boulders, but found 

 nought of interest save worm burrows in some shaly bands. 

 However, these indicate damp conditions for some portions 

 of the Beacon Sandstone, and so show that the latter is not 

 perhaps of desert origin. 



