158 WITH SCOTT : THE SILVER LINING 



or not, for there was no snow in the wind. Personally I now 

 think it tends to prove that the snow in the blizzards is largely 

 old snow caught up again, for the force and direction of the 

 wind were just those of typical blizzards. We were protected 

 from the open barrier surface by Brown Island and the 

 Koettlitz glacier, and this region is one of small snowfall in 

 any case. So we were not inconvenienced by such blizzards 

 as blew on this western coast. 



The food was lasting out well. The first tin of biscuits 

 was finished, and had lasted from the 3rd instant. (We had, 

 however, an extra bag of loose biscuits.) I started my week 

 of cooking on the 1 8th, and as we reached Hut Point in the 

 seventh week I had only one turn at this duty. 



February 18, 191 1. — It seemed advisable to get a good 

 view of the Koettlitz from some high peak, so I decided to 

 spend a few days in the vicinity of this camp before marching 

 up the big glacier. We had a " make and mend " morning — 

 sadly needed by our boots. I had saved some staples from 

 the venesta boxes (thrown away at Butter Point) and found 

 they were satisfactory in holding the soles together. Luckily 

 the others' boots were very much better, though Debenham's 

 were much improved by some of Evans' sewing. We had 

 a large fry of |seal's liver in butter, and Debenham and myself 

 decided that as raw blubber tasted passably, we would fry liver 

 in blubber for the next meal off seal meat. 



In the afternoon Wright and I crossed Davis Bay to the 

 mouth of Hobbs Glacier (about two miles to the north-west). 

 The promontory on which we were camped was about a 

 quarter of a mile across, chiefly built of basalt fragments rich 

 in olivine. 



The shore of the bay below Hobbs Glacier was in the 

 form of an extraordinarily flat alluvial fan. This uniform 

 level extended almost to the glacier for three-quarters of a 

 mile, though it narrowed greatly away from the bay. It was 

 mapped out in square " tesselations," and at the sides were 

 striking terraces about five feet higher with strongly marked, 

 clean cut edges. The whole topography had a very recent 

 appearance ; but the only explanation I can give for these 

 levels points to a period when Davis Bay was dammed by ice 

 so as to raise the waterline to the levels of the various terraces. 

 A parallel case of terraces in a waterless region is given in 



