4 io WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



ice-foot petered out we were luckily able to continue on the 

 sea-ice. We had lunch amid a colony of over forty seals, and 

 then reached the southern side of the Ferrar Glacier, where 

 we camped on a rather wet and muddy heap of " road-metal " 

 moraine. 



We were now safely round New Harbour, and, curiously 

 enough, crossed the sea-ice at the mouth of the Ferrar on the 

 same day of the year as when we nearly went out to sea on 

 our first sledge journey. Henceforward we knew our route. 

 We had plenty of food at the Butter Point dep6t, which we 

 reached that evening, and knew we could reach the old Dis- 

 covery hut before the end of the month. 



The depot had been blown over and wrecked generally. 

 We' took some pemmican, butter, and chocolate, and next day 

 proceeded south along the Butter Point Piedmont. The 

 surface was much better than the preceding year, but, curi- 

 ously enough, we found quite a number of small crevasses. 

 Debenham and Forde fell in together in one of these, and 

 the burly Irishman jammed so tightly it was quite a business 

 pulling him out of it. In the evening we reached the Strand 

 Moraines. These are great piles of ancient silt, gravel, and 

 erratic blocks, which were dropped here by the ancestor of the 

 present Koettlitz Glacier. 



At the southern end of these moraines, which were several 

 miles long, was quite a large lake. We tobogganed down to 

 this and across to a nice little gravelly delta just made for the 

 tent. We found that the open water reached just to this 

 point, the sound still being frozen to south'ard, though 

 obviously breaking away in great sheets. I wrote that night, 

 " No Terra Nova. We should be picked up at Evans Coves 

 (Terra Nova Bay) to-morrow ! " We had the choice of two 

 routes now : either to cross the snout of the Blue Glacier, 

 or to take to the sea-ice and coast round the latter. We 

 had done the former and knew it would only take a day. 

 The latter might be quicker, though a great calved berg 

 blocked the route about two miles ahead. Debenham pre- 

 ferred the glacier, the other two the sea-ice. I considered it 

 unsafe to march on the sea-ice if it could possibly be avoided. 

 I made a bet with Gran that we couldn't get the sledge 

 between the calved berg and the glacier without unloading 

 it. This had a rather interesting outcome. I decided to 



