156 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



The seal bolted for the tide crack — and for a short distance 

 they can " lollop along " fairly rapidly. It was amusing, at 

 first, being pulled by an angry seal ; but it suddenly struck 

 me, " What will happen when the brute dives into the pool ? ' 

 I could not get the loop off his neck, and had as much chance 

 of stopping him as a railway train. I experienced some 

 anxious moments before I managed to get ahead of him and 

 jerk off" the lasso, for it was impossible to slip out of the broad 

 waistbelt in time. This adventure furnished considerable 

 amusement to my unfeeling comrades, and became the subject 

 of one of Wilson's sketches in the South Polar Times. 



After lunch we took a round of sights from this low head- 

 land. It was composed of moraine heaps with numerous 

 circular sheets of water, which reminded one most strongly of 

 crater lakes. On descending from the cape, Debenham found 

 that the steep little cliff near the tide crack was formed of ice 

 covered with a mere veneer of moraine silt. Probably a large 

 portion of the promontory was ice, and we saw other examples 

 of this pseudo-moraine further up the Koettlitz. As Deben- 

 ham suggested, the crater lakes were due, in all probability, to 

 the melting of the foundation ice. Probably the sun's rays 

 acting on the silt in a shallow pool have a powerful effect in 

 deepening the lake when it is once initiated. The drainage of 

 such a lake presents some difficulties, for though there was 

 usually an apparent outlet, many were quite enclosed by a 

 circular wall of debris. Steps of silt, appearing as small 

 terraces, were common among the heaps. These probably 

 represent crevasses in the underlying ice, and we actually saw 

 several such crevasses in the ice exposure noted above. Per- 

 haps these crevasses account for the (hidden) drainage, for 

 ablation could not empty many of the lakes. The whole 

 question of the origin of these unusual lakes is of great 

 physiographic interest. 



We could see fairly rough ice ahead, but hoped to be 

 able to get the two sledges several miles further before 

 depoting one during our work on the Koettlitz. 



We proceeded somewhat to the east over blue ice. This 

 soon became rippled and degenerated rapidly into a fearful 

 " glass-house " and " bottle-glass " surface. We started to 

 fall through the ice into hidden channels, and in some cases 

 there was a foot of fresh water awaiting us. Things got 



