FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 155 



lose. We pushed gaily south and camped that night in a 

 little gravelly dell among the moraines. 



This crater-like dell was occupied by a frozen lakelet of 

 greenish ice, the colour being due to algae. On the slope 

 above the lake was a blanket of alga forming a sort of peaty 

 layer an inch thick. 



The latter was apparently in situ, for it extended uniformly 

 for about ten feet. This occurrence of peat points to an ele- 

 vated old lake bottom, and we saw similar examples later on 

 our journey. Even in Antarctica at present we see that con- 

 siderable organic material is deposited, which might form a 

 thin coaly layer in succeeding ages under suitable conditions. 

 Indeed, the kerosene shale deposits of Australia are supposed 

 to originate in some lowly plant-form like these algae. 



February 17, 191 1. — We had a calm, clear night, and all 

 slept very well on the soft sand of the moraine crater. Just 

 to northward was a little bay filled with pancake-ice having two- 

 feet motion. We made south across little bays over a very 

 good surface, which was intersected by cross-channels of clear 

 ice. Seals were very numerous along this coast. We counted 

 one group of thirty. We could now see the first of the Ice 

 Slabs (described in 1902), which seemed in its lower portion 

 to run parallel to the coast. 



Wright espied some white material in the moraines, and 

 we walked across to see this. It turned out to be a huge 

 deposit of Mirabilite (sodium sulphate), about ten feet across 

 and fifty feet long. It was granular in texture, and the dip of 

 the bed was quite high. The Mirabilite was originally a level 

 deposit in a saline lake, so that, just as in the case of the algae, 

 we have evidence of strong upheaval of the moraine silts, 

 since they experienced a long-continued phase of equilibrium. 

 The granular mass was not unlike rock-salt in appearance. 



We proceeded south and crossed the mouth of the large 

 bay marked on the Discovery map. We halted off the 

 southern headland for lunch. 



I had a small adventure which might have been serious. 

 On outspanning — which consisted in freeing one's harness from 

 the sledge — I walked over to look at a seal which had crawled 

 about a hundred feet from the tide crack. He shook his 

 head angrily at me, so that I made a loop on my harness — still 

 attached to my belt — and lassoed him with unexpected ease. 



