THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



that I was able to take blocks as big as my head and break 

 them up in my fingers with as much ease as I could a 

 similar-sized block of friable marl from the English trias ; 

 whilst in many cases large masses, when struck fairly hard 

 with the haft of my geological hammer, crumbled to a 

 powder of individual quartz grains. Each stone, owing 

 to its greater capacity for absorbing heat than that of the 

 ice around it, had melted a hollow round it of a size depend- 

 ent on its own, and in cases where the hollows had not 

 been tapped by some of the many interlacing cracks with 

 which the face of the glacier was seamed, they were full 

 of thaw-water covered only when in shadow by a thin sheet 

 of ice, and the saline taste of this water, which we fre- 

 quently were compelled to use for cooking purposes, was 

 an eloquent tribute to the amount of matter filched from 

 the boulders. 



Having examined the medial and lateral moraines up 

 as far as the Cathedral Rocks, and now approaching a 

 region where, judging from the map, there seemed some 

 likelihood of reaching accessible exposures of large masses 

 of the Beacon sandstone, I asked Armytage to make for 

 the passage between the Solitary Rocks and the north side 

 of the glacier, and to make a detour on the way in order 

 to examine the foot of the Obelisk Range if possible. 



In pursuance of this plan we left the Cathedral Rocks 

 on December 20 and made for the north side of the glacier, 

 examining morainic matter on the way, and after success- 

 fully negotiating a series of ice-falls by keeping well to 

 the north, we camped practically on the site of Scott's 

 first camp after leaving the Dry Valley, namely, at the 

 north-western end of the Bluff, which forms the upper 

 end of the Kukri Hills. We had a good view of the 

 Solitary Rocks from here and of the islands beyond them, 

 and, in view of subsequent discoveries on closer inspection, 

 I may here say that from our camp of this night I 



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