DRYGALSKI GLACIER 



only partly frozen over, and some of these were inter- 

 posed between us and the Drygalski Gladier. Clearly 

 not a moment was to be lost if we were to reach the 

 Drygalsld Glacier before the sea ice broke up. A 

 single strong blizzard would now have converted the 

 whole of the sea ice between us and the Drygalski 

 Glacier into a mass of drifting pack. We obtained 

 from this rocky promontory a fine collection of 

 geological specimens, and here, as elsewhere, got 

 abundant evidence of former much greater extension 

 of the inland ice sheet. 



The following day, November 27, we decided to 

 run our sledges to the east of the large berg, which we 

 had observed on the previous day, and this course 

 apparently would enable us to avoid a wide and ugly 

 looking tide-crack extending northwards from the rocky 

 point at our previous camp. The temperature was now 

 as high as from plus 26° to plus 28° Fahr. at mid-day, 

 consequently, the saline snow and ice were all day more 

 or less sticky and slushy. We camped near the large berg. 



On the morning of November 28 a mother seal 

 with a well-grown baby came up to our tent and sniffed 

 and snorted around its skirt. It seemed about to enter 

 the tent when I hunted it off, and mother and baby, 

 meanwhile, made tracks, in every sense of the word, 

 for the open water. Then we packed up and started 

 our sledges, and pulled them over a treacherous slushy 

 tide-crack, and then headed them round an open lead 

 of water in the sea ice. At 3 a.m. we had lunch near the 

 east end of the big berg. Near here Mackay and 

 Mawson succeeded in catching and kilHng an Emperor 

 penguin, and took the breast and liver. This bird 

 was caught close to a lane of open water in the sea ice. 

 We found that in the direction of the berg this was 

 thinly frozen over, and for some time it seemed as 



131 



