THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



snow-blindness, through neglecting to wear my snow 

 goggles regularly. Finding that my eyes were no 

 better next morning, and my sight being dim, I asked 

 Mawson to take my place at the end of the long rope, 

 the foremost position in the team. Mawson proved 

 himself on this occasion and afterwards so remarkably 

 efficient at picking out the best track for our sledges, 

 and steering a good course that by my request he 

 occupied this position throughout the rest of the journey. 



The next two days were uneventful, except for the 

 fact that we occasionally had extremely heavy sledging 

 over screw pack-ice and high and long sastrugi. The 

 latter were from two to three feet high, bounded fre- 

 quently by almost perpendicular sides, and as they 

 trended from west to east and our course was from south 

 to north they proved formidable obstacles to our progress, 

 and capsizes of the sledges were frequent. 



On the night of October 20, we camped on the 

 sea ice about three-quarters of a mile off shore. To 

 the north-east of us was an outward curve of the shore- 

 line, shown as a promontory on the existing chart. 

 Early the next morning I walked over to the shore 

 to geologise, and found the rocky headland composed 

 of curious gneissic granite veined with quartz. On 

 ascending this headland I noticed to my surprise that 

 what had been previously supposed to be a promontory 

 was really an island separated by a narrow strait from 

 the mainland. It was clear that by going through 

 this strait we would save several miles. Accordingly, 

 after breakfast we sledged into the strait. The western 

 side of the strait was formed of glacier ice terminating 

 eastward in an almost precipitous slope. Here and 

 there masses of gneissic granite showed from beneath 

 the ice. The eastern side of the strait was formed of 

 terraced moraine gravels with large erratics embedded 



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