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SNOW CRUSTS AND BLIZZARDS 
171 
Memo. — Arrangements for ponies. 
1. Hot bran or oat mashes. 
2. Clippers for breaking wires of bales. 
3. Pickets for horses. 
4. Lighter ponies to take 10 ft. sledges ? 
The surface is so crusty and friable that the question 
of snow-shoes again becomes of great importance. 
All the sastrugi are from S.W. by S. to S.W. and all 
the wind that we have experienced in this region — there 
cannot be a doubt that the wind sweeps up the coast at 
all seasons. 
A point has arisen as to the deposition. David* called the 
crusts seasonal. This must be wrong ; they mark blizzards, 
but after each blizzard fresh crusts arc formed onlv over 
the patchy heaps left by the blizzard. A blizzard seems 
to leave heaps which cover anything from one-sixth to 
one-third of the whole surface — such heaps presumably turn 
hollows into mounds with fresh hollows between — these 
arc filled in turn by ensuing blizzards. If this is so, the 
only way to get at the seasonal deposition would be to 
average the heaps deposited and multiply this by the 
number of blizzards in the year. 
Monday, February 15. — 14 Camp. 7 miles 775 yards. 
The surface was wretched to-day, the two drawbacks of 
yesterday (the thin crusts which let the ponies through 
and the sandy heaps which hang on the runners) if 
anything exaggerated. 
Bowers' pony refused work at intervals for the first 
* Professor T. Edgeworth David, C.M.G., F.R.S., of Sydney 
University, who was the geologist to Shackleton's party. 
