230 WITH SCOTT : THE SILVER LINING 



named below can be duly arranged, so that every one may have an 

 opportunity of hearing and discussing them. 



Central Asia (Meares) ; Magnetism (Simpson) ; Constitution of 

 Matter (Wright) ; Mineralogy II. (Debenham) ; Physiography III. 

 (Taylor) ; Biology III. (Nelson) ; Bacteriology (Atkinson) ; Evolution 

 of Polar Clothing (Bowers) ; Seals (E. A. Wilson) ; ending on 

 September ist. 



(Signed) R. F. Scott. 



Three lectures a week rather terrified some of the party, 

 and it must be admitted that when a lecture was " on," there 

 was not much room for private reading ! Anyhow, none 

 of the officers ever absented themselves. The seamen 

 attended the first two, but most of them " gave it a miss ' 

 thereafter, being probably intimidated by the title and pro- 

 bable aridity of the third lecture, " Physiography, by Griffith 

 Taylor." 



To the south of Cape Evans extended a long and narrow 

 belt of cliff hemmed in " betwixt the glacier and the deep 

 sea," which we called Land's End. This extended about a 

 mile ; and thereafter was a face of glacier ice for four more 

 miles similar to, but not so imposing as the Barne Glacier 

 face. 



Gran reported marvellous ice caves beyond Land's End, 

 so Ponting, he and I went off to investigate them. When we 

 reached the crevassed face we found that the caves were really 

 the exposed ends of crevasses. However, this seemed much 

 the best way of entering a crevasse, so we crossed the mushy 

 tide-crack and passed through the narrow entrance which was 

 half blocked by a tree-like mass of ice. At the back a huge 

 Stonehenge pillar supported the roof, and outgrowths from 

 the walls were connected to the flat floor by huge stalactites. 

 Sticking promiscuously to the central column was a slender 

 slab of ice, which seemed to indicate that there had been 

 no movement of late, or it would have fallen. This was 

 comforting, for Ponting made me " pont " in the interior for 

 several minutes while he tried a flashlight. Near by I 

 spotted a crack in the ice face covered by ice stalactites 

 cemented together. I chipped out an entrance till it re- 

 sembled what cave-explorers call a " fat man's misery," and 

 then squeezed inside. It was another pretty little cavern, 

 and the colouring was very striking. " The most magnificent 



