282 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 
[February 
out gradually, so that we made fair progress. We came 
to another enclosed snow basin, and I felt sure the sea- 
ward slope would be safer. So it was, though Fordc 
went down a small one. We pulled along this up to 
a sort of col about 8 miles from Cape Roberts, and 
here, as we were well beyond the mouth of the Big Valley, 
we camped. 
*My only fear now was that bad weather might 
cover the glacier with soft snow, for I felt that all the 
big crevasses would be lidded and the little ones could 
hardly swallow the lot of us.' 
Next morning we made tlic harness traces longer, 
so that only one man at a time need cross even a wide 
crevasse. We had to traverse the mouth of another 
large valley glacier. Three of these debouched on the 
piedmont glacier from the Western Mountains, and 
the pressure from the northernmost (the Debenham 
Glacier) was responsible for the crevasses of March 5. 
The second valley glacier was not so large, but we anti- 
cipated trouble. We had a stiff pull uphill for three- 
quarters of a mile, but some of the snow was so hard 
that the sledge runners made no mark ! This was an 
ideal surface, for one's feet did not slip on it, though 
occasionally the sledge skidded. We were about 700 feet 
above the sea here and entered a col just below a huge 
snow hill. 
' Afterwards we were cutting around the hill afore- 
said when suddenly appeared many crevasses. So we 
deviated abruptly and ascended the hill sharply. We 
encountered three, into one of which I fell, but they were 
