altogether, some to the length of their harness to be hauled
out with the Alpine rope. Most of them could be seen by the strip of snow
on the blue ice. They were often too wide to jump though, and the only
thing was to plant your feet on the bridge and try not to tread heavily.
As a rule the centre of a bridged crevasse is the safest place, the
rotten places are at the edges. We had to go over dozens by hopping right
on to the bridge and then over on to the ice. It is a bit of a jar when
it gives way under you, but the friendly harness is made to trust one's
life to. The Lord only knows how deep these vast chasms go down, they
seem to extend into blue black nothingness thousands of feet below.

"Before reaching the rise we had to go up and down many steep slopes, and
on the one side the sledges were overrunning us, and on the other it
fairly took the juice out of you to reach the top. We saw the
stratification on the nunatak which Shackleton supposed to be coal: there
was also much sandstone and red granite. I should like to have scratched
round these rocks: we may get a chance on our return journey. As we
topped each rise we found another one beyond it, and so on.

"About noon some clouds settled in a fog round us, and being fairly in a
trough of crevasses we could not get on. Fortunately we found a snow
patch to pitch the tents on, but even there were crevasses under us.
However, we enjoyed a hearty lunch, and I improved the shining hour by
preparing my rations for the Upper Glacier Depot.

"At 3 P.M. it cleared, and Mount Darwin, a nunatak to the S.W. of the
others, could be seen. This we made for, and some two miles on exchanged
blue ice for the new snow which was much harder pulling. Scott was fairly
wound up, and he went on and on. Every rise topped seemed to fire him
with a desire to top the next, and every rise had another beyond and
above it. We camped at 8 P.M., all pretty weary, having come up nearly
1500 feet, and done over eleven miles in a S.W. direction. We were south
of Mount Darwin in 85 deg. 7' S., and our corrected altitude proved to be
7000 feet above the Barrier. I worked up till a very late hour getting
the depot stores ready, and also weighing out and arranging allowances
for the returning party, and arranging the stores and distribution of
weights of the two parties going on. The temperature was down to zero
to-day, the lowest it has been for some time this summer weather."[244]

"There is a ve