522 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



and the sledge-runner also. I thought at first we were all 

 on a thinly bridged crevasse. We then came on east a bit, 

 and gradually got worse and worse going over an ice-fall, 

 having great trouble to prevent sledge taking charge, but 

 eventually got down and then made N.W. or N. into the 

 land, and camped right by the moraine under the great 

 sandstone cliffs of Mt. Buckley, out of the wind and quite 

 warm again : it was a wonderful change. After lunch we 

 all geologized on till supper, and I was very late turning 

 in, examining the moraine after supper. Socks, all strewn 

 over the rocks, dried splendidly. Magnificent Beacon sand- 

 stone cliffs. Masses of limestone in the moraine, and doler- 

 ite crags in various places. Coal seams at all heights in the 

 sandstone cliffs, and lumps of weathered coal with fossil 

 vegetable. Had a regular field-day and got some splendid 

 things in the short time." 



''''February 9, Moraine visit. We made our way along 

 down the moraine, and at the end of Mt. Buckley [I] un- 

 hitched and had half an hour over the rocks and again got 

 some good things written up in sketch-book. We then 

 left the moraine and made a very good march on rough 

 blue ice all day with very small and scarce scraps of neve, 

 on one of which we camped for the night with a rather 

 overcast foggy sky, which cleared to bright sun in the 

 night. We are all thoroughly enjoying temps, of + io° or 

 thereabouts now, with no wind instead of the summit winds 

 which are incessant with temp. -20 ." 



''''February 10. ? 16 m. We made a very good forenoon 

 march from 10 to 2.45 towards the Cloudmaker. Weather 

 overcast gradually obscured everything in snowfall fog, 

 starting with crystals of large size. . . . We had to camp 

 after i\ hours' afternoon march as it got too thick to see 

 anything and we were going downhill on blue ice. . . ." * 



The next day in bad lights and on a bad surface they 

 fell into the same pressure which both the other returning 

 parties experienced. Like them they were in the middle of 

 it before they realized. "Then came the fatal decision to 

 steer east. We went on for 6 hours, hoping to do a good 



1 Wilson. 



