THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



on to our sledge. We found that, owing to the alternate 

 thawing and freezing of the snow at our depot, our ski- 

 boots were almost filled with solid ice. The work of 

 chipping out this ice proved a slow and tedious job, and 

 we did not get started until about 11 a.m. Soon after 

 we got going we found ourselves for a time in a mesh- 

 work of crevasses. These were from a foot up to about 

 twenty feet in width. Nearly all of them were roofed 

 over with a hard layer of snow. The only visible evi- 

 dence of the existence of a crevasse was a slight de- 

 pression in the snow surface at the inner edges of the 

 two walls bounding the crevasses, the whole of the snow 

 roof or lid being slightly counter-sunk below the general 

 level of the surrounding snow surface. 



This, however, was not always the case, and crevasses 

 not infrequently existed entirely concealed from view 

 under a perfectly smooth hard snow surface. On ac- 

 count of the fact, as already explained, that the snow 

 lids were thinner next to the walls of the crevass, and 

 thicker towards a position central between the walls, 

 we always used to take care, if we could see the little 

 depression in the snow surface — a sure indication of a 

 crevasse — ^not to put our foot down near the edge of the 

 depression, but to alight on the snow lid some feet away 

 from the crevasse wall. 



On stepping out on to one of these snow lids a large 

 piece suddenly gave way under me, and I was instantly 

 precipitated into the chasm below, but fortunately 

 caught the Alpine rope under my arm as I was falling; 

 this broke the force of the jerk on my sledge harness. 

 I was down about six feet below the snow lid, and Mawson 

 and Mackay holding on to the harness and Alpine ropes 

 which were supporting me, I was able to climb out 

 quickly, and we resumed our journey. Shortly after 

 this, and after crossing a number of other crevasses, we 



192 



