198 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [February 
at the west end of the Kukri Hills. After supper Wright 
and I went over to the great ^ glacier moat ' which separates 
the ice from the granite cliffs. I was very anxious to 
see whether there was any evidence of erosion by the 
glacier on the cliffs at the foot of the moat. 
We carried ice axes and 120 feet of Alpine rope. At 
the edge of the glacier there was a sharp curve formed 
by a snow cornice. Carefully peering over the edge, 
we could see there was a frozen stream about 200 feet 
below. 
Wright lowered me over the edge — which I found was 
formed of soft snow and projected, like the eaves of a 
house, about ten feet. Some thirty feet down was a sort 
of platform and then the steep edge of the great glacier. 
Wright paid out the rope and I let myself down to its 
end, about 80 feet above the moat. I started cutting steps 
down the remainder, but my ski boots were so worn out 
I got no grip, and I reached the moat purely by the force of 
gravity. My instruments were luckily not damaged and 
I found the depth to be 207 feet, while the moat was 
100 feet wide at the bottom. Debris screened the cliff foot 
and I could see no planation by the ice. 
I managed to cut steps up to the rope and reached the 
platform under the cornice. Wright hauled away man- 
fully, with the natural but unexpected result that the rope 
cut through the snow cornice and his efforts resulted in 
my head being enveloped in snow, and there I stopped. 
I cried ' Lower away,' reached the platform again, and 
crawled along under the cornice, but could see no way out 
of the cul-de-sac. Gloomily I returned to the rope and 
