EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT 



time on their return journey since they ran out of 

 food and oil and had no accurate idea of their posi- 

 tion. They fell down three hundred feet of steep 

 slope in drifting snow, and found they had actually 

 approached their glacier depot. A few hours later 

 Scott and Evans simultaneously fell into a wide cre- 

 vasse. It was a terrible experience, for Lashley could 

 not help them, as the sledge from which they were sus- 

 pended was broken and only held back by his efforts. 

 Scott climbed out unaided, and soon the party reached 

 their depot. They then reached the snout of the glacier 

 later named by Scott after the writer, and returning 

 down the Ferrar Glacier reached the ship on Christmas 

 Eve (see Figure 8). 



On January 5th, 1904, two relief ships reached 

 MacMurdo Sound but could not get to the ''Discovery" 

 by some six miles. After trying to cut a passage for 

 the latter with ice saws, they had recourse to explo- 

 sives ; but the swell from the north finally broke up the 

 pack ice on February 14th. On the seventeenth the 

 "Discovery" ran aground in a gale near Cape Armi- 

 tage, but luckily no great damage was done. On March 

 2nd they passed Sturge Island in the Balleny group, 

 and then proceeded west to find Wilkes' landmarks : 

 Eld's Peak, Ringgold's Knoll, and Cape Hudson (see 

 Figure 5). Scott writes on March 4th, 'T must con- 

 clude that as these places are nonexistent, there is no 

 case for any land eastward of Adelie Land." On April 

 1st the "Discovery" reached Lyttelton Harbor, N. Z., 

 and on the tenth of September, 1904, the ship anchored 

 at Spithead in the Isle of Wight. 



39 



