196 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [February 
tributary glaciers, and had to cross many streams running 
across the plain from the southern wall. We reached a 
suitable station on the eastern slopes of the Kiikri Hills 
and I took a round of angles with the theodolite which 
linked Dry Valley to Ross Island. We got back at nine 
o'clock and found that Debenham had collected many 
interesting minerals from the marble outcrops of the 
defile. 
Next morning Wright and I ascended the Riegel which 
so nearly barred the valley. We climbed 2400 feet and 
then walked to the top of the scarp facing up the valley 
to the west. So tempestuous was the wind that we could 
not stand against it, much less use the theodolite. At last 
there came a lull, and almost before we had the theodolite 
ready the gale had veered to the east — diametrically 
opposite — and continued to blow almost as fiercely from 
that quarter. Our apparent fine weather in the west was, 
I think, largely due to the fact that there was so little 
snowfall there; in fact, this region would have been an 
arid desert even in more favoured cHmes. 
After supper I took the prospecting dish and washed 
for gold in the gravels alongside the lake. There were 
numerous quartz ' leads ' in the slates with which meta- 
morphic and eruptive rocks were associated, while water 
was abundant in Lake Chad. In spite of these favouring 
conditions neither Debenham nor myself could get a 
' colour.' Only a ' tail ' of magnetite in the dish rewarded 
our perseverance. So we depoted the dish on a boulder 
in the defile, for we knew that there would be no water 
available for gold-seeking in the remainder of our journey. 
