Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/304

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. Débris 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 manfully, 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