I90 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [January 
awaiting tlie end of their moulting season. They probably 
totalled one hundred. Only one individual was garbed 
in new and shining raiment, and him I slew in preparation 
for a change of diet if our appetite failed on a pemmican 
regime. 
All next day we pulled steadily up the glacier to the 
west, encouraged by Evans's opinion that we should 
meet better sledging surfaces higher up the glacier. 
On the 30th we had very heavy going up the broad ice 
undulations and about noon got among the crevasses. We 
all slipped in at various intervals, but they were quite 
narrow and gave us no trouble. The snow was a foot thick 
in many places and alternated with ' glass-roof ' ice into 
which we fell frequently. However, we kept on till 9 p.m., 
when we reached the big moraine below Cathedral Rocks, 
and there made our depot as Captain Scott had advised. 
Above our depot the slope was steeper, but we had only 
half the load to pull, and towards 6 p.m. on the next 
evening we reached the top of the lower Ferrar and found 
ourselves on a small ice plateau about 3200 feet above sea 
level. We now marched along the grandest geological 
section it has ever been my good fortune to see. The cliff 
to the north, 3300 feet high, was capped by yellowish 
sandstone. Beneath this were two wonderful horizontal 
sheets of dark lava which had intruded through the 
granite base so that the rocks looked like a gigantic sand- 
wich composed of alternating yellow, black and red layers. 
The lower slopes of the red granite were covered by the old 
lateral moraine, a layer of dark debris left by the Ferrar 
Glacier when it almost filled the valley we were following. 
