knew. The ice-falls stretched away as far as you could see towards the
mountains which bound the glacier on either side, and as you looked
upwards towards Buckley Island they were like a long breaking wave. One
of the great difficulties about the Beardmore was that you saw the
ice-falls as you went up, and avoided them, but coming down you knew
nothing of their whereabouts until you fell into the middle of pressure
and crevasses, and then it was almost impossible to say whether you
should go right or left to get out.

Evans was unable to pull this day, and was detached from the sledge, but
this was not necessarily a very serious sign: Shackleton on his return
journey was not able to pull at this place. Wilson wrote as follows:

"_February 8, Mt. Buckley Cliffs._ A very busy day. We had a very cold
forenoon march, blowing like blazes from the S. Birdie detached and went
on ski to Mt. Darwin and collected some dolerite, the only rock he could
see on the Nunatak, which was nearest. We got into a sort of crusted
surface where the snow broke through nearly to our knees and the
sledge-runner also. I thought at first we were all on a thinly bridged
crevasse. We then came on east a bit, and gradually got worse and worse
going over an ice-fall, having great trouble to prevent sledge taking
charge, but eventually got down and then made N.W. or N. into the land,
and camped right by the moraine under the great sandstone cliffs of Mt.
Buckley, out of the wind and quite warm again: it was a wonderful change.
After lunch we all geologized on till supper, and I was very late turning
in, examining the moraine after supper. Socks, all strewn over the rocks,
dried splendidly. Magnificent Beacon sandstone cliffs. Masses of
limestone in the moraine, and dolerite crags in various places. Coal
seams at all heights in the sandstone cliffs, and lumps of weathered coal
with fossil vegetable. Had a regular field-day and got some splendid
things in the short time."

"_February 9, Moraine visit._ We made our way along down the moraine, and
at the end of Mt. Buckley [I] unhitched and had half an hour over the
rocks and again got some good things written up in sketch-book. We then
left the moraine and made a very good march on rough blue ice all day
with very small and scarce scraps of neve, on one of which we camped for
the night with a rather overcast foggy sky, which cleared to bright sun
in the night. We are all thoroughly enjoying temps. of +10