THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



cast. We fixed up the tent, chopping httle holes in the 

 surface of the smooth ice, in which to socket the ends of 

 the tent-poles, and while Mackay cooked, Mawson and 

 I snowed the skirt. This was subsequent to a little 

 reconnoitring which we each did. It was 2 a.m. before 

 we camped on the lake ice, and 4 a.m. before we turned 

 into our sleeping-bag. 



Close to our tent was the most beautiful lateral 

 moraine which we had yet discovered. It was formed 

 of blocks of bright red granite, together with quartz 

 porphyries with much rusty stain due to oxidation of 

 iron pyrites, and masses of dark broT^n rocks, more 

 basic, perhaps of an intermediate character between 

 granite and diorite. We found that immediately to the 

 right of us, in an easterly direction — that is, directly 

 between us and our depot on the Drygalski Glacier — 

 were great pressure ridges of ice, and a vast entangle- 

 ment of crevasses. In fact, in that direction the 

 glacier seemed impassable. The only possible outlet 

 for us with our sledge appeared to be close alongside 

 of the lateral moraine at the point where the glacier ice 

 joined it. Even this route was obviously a very difficult 

 one, and we decided before we turned in that on the 

 morrow we should have to unload our sledge and make 

 a portage, or a plurality of portages. The ice on the 

 small lake on which we were camped was only between 

 two and three inches tliick, and had obviously formed 

 quite recently after the thaw. It commenced to thaw 

 now under the influence of the warmth of our sleeping- 

 bag, as we lay in it, and we found shallow pools of water 

 all around us when we awoke the next morning. 



January 31. — ^We were up about 11 a.m., having 

 slept soundly after the very exhausting work of our 

 previous day's sledging. During the night it had snowed 

 heavily, there being fully from three to four inches of 



196 



