A MONTH IN THE OLD DISCOVERT HUT 197 



Mormonism, the medieval ramparts of Aigues Mortes, and 

 the pronunciation of ancient Greek ! 



On the 23rd March the Barrier party returned. They 

 had experienced temperatures of — 42 F. Wright told me that 

 it used to take three hours to get warm — after they had 

 thawed the ice out of their bags. On leaving the tent in the 

 morning in a clammy wet state, the instantaneous freezing of 

 their clothes felt like an electric shock ! 



I made a tour to inspect the " moraines ' on Crater 

 Heights, accompanied by Dr. Wilson. I believe they are due 

 to differential erosion of lavas of varying resistance, and have 

 not been left there by an upward extension of the Barrier Ice 

 Sheet. 



Dr. Bill told me of the loss of the ponies. He and 



Sf"e ig-eisen n-2.11 



Meares with the dog teams made straight across to the hut 

 over the sea ice from the Barrier camp. They noticed 

 cracks every thirty feet or so, and so deviated sharply to the 

 east, and reached terra firma at Pram Point. They then 

 started cutting a track up the ice slope for the ponies. Mean- 

 while Bowers, Garrard, and Crean had not noticed the dog 

 teams swerving, but had turned back later. They had to 

 camp on the sea ice, because the ponies were too " done " to 

 get back two miles to the Barrier ice. They woke in the 

 small hours of 1st March to find that one pony had vanished, 

 and they were adrift on a broken floe. They drifted about all 

 night and next day, while Wilson could do nothing but 

 watch them from the top of Observation Hill. Wilson went 

 off and met Scott, who had come to the open water, and was 

 able to tell him that there was a chance yet. 



