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side and the side of the defile on the other. Through this we carried our packs; through this in the other direction the seals must have laboriously crawled to die far inland.

We could not see the sea, but found the defile occupied by a frozen lake a mile long. There were dry gravelly banks around this lake and here we pitched the tent. We had brought no floor-cloth, but after the wet and icy floor of the 'Alcove' camp—where Wright had slept in a pool of water three inches deep—we found the warm gravel most comfortable. We had our frugal meal, washed down by cold water from the lake adjacent. The latter was distinctly medicinal and had no outlet, so ignoring climatic differences we unanimously christened it Lake Chad.

I was quite worried to know what had become of the broad stony valley which Shackleton's men had seen from the coast in 1908, and wondered if we were side-tracked in some tributary valley. So after dinner P.O. Evans—who was always eager for extra work—accompanied me to the top of the ridge immediately south of the tent. It was a stiff ascent of 1600 feet to a flat bare expanse obviously planed by bygone glaciers. To my surprise I saw that a much larger rounded valley lay immediately north of this ridge, but this 'Round' Valley, unlike the defile, did not connect with the Taylor glacier. To the east some ten miles beyond a broad débris-strewn plain lay the sea, and in the far distance we could see the glaciers on the slopes of Erebus and the pyramid of Beaufort Island.

Early on the 5th Evans and I started for the coast, while Debenham and Wright investigated the rocks and glaciers near the defile. We proceeded S.E., passing several