Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/295

We pushed on till 9 p.m., descending slightly as we proceeded to the north, and camped on the glacier filling the upper end of the Dry Valley. The exploration of this glacier—which Scott had rapidly traversed in 1903—was the work before us during the next fortnight. Captain Scott has honoured me by giving it the name of Taylor Glacier.

I kept too near to the Kukri Hills on descending into the Taylor Glacier and we struck an extremely steep slippery surface consisting of clear ice cut into rounded hollows a foot across. This characteristic surface—like giant thumb-marks in a piece of putty—was full of small crevasses, and here the sledge repeatedly 'took charge.' We rolled about all over the place, and someone remarked that we had all the appearance of being drunk and none of the pleasure of it!

To our surprise, after five days' pulling over heavy snow in the Ferrar Glacier, we found no snow in the parallel Taylor Valley, only about 10 miles farther north. After lunching among the scattered blocks of the medial moraine we descended about a thousand feet, the sledge doing its own pulling. Debenham and I went on ahead with slack traces, while Evans and Wright enlivened the valley with what they were pleased to call 'cheerful song'! A strong keen wind was blowing up the valley, but the most remarkable feature of this region prevented it from becoming obnoxious. There was no drift-snow!

Imagine a valley 4 miles wide, 3000 feet deep, and 25 miles long without a patch of snow—and this in the Antarctic in latitude 77½° S. By this time we could see the