another peak, to be
subsequently called Mount Strathcona; also several intervening outcrops.
Not a distinct range of mountains as we had hoped. The Denman Glacier
sweeps round these projecting rocks from the south-west, and the general
flow of the ice-sheet is thereby concentrated within the neck bounded by
the two peaks and the higher land to the east. Propelled by the immense
forces of the hinterland, this stream of ice is squeezed down through
a steep valley at an accelerated speed, and, meeting the slower moving
Shackleton Shelf, rends it from top to bottom and presses onward. Thus
chaos, icequake, and ruin.

Our tramp to Mount Barr-Smith was through eighteen inches of soft snow,
in many places a full two feet deep. Hard enough for walking, we knew
from experience what it was like for sledging. There was only sufficient
food for another week and the surface was so abominably heavy that in
that time, not allowing for blizzards, it would have been impossible to
travel as far as we could see from the summit of Mount Barr-Smith, while
four miles a day was the most that could have been done. Our attempt to
make east by rounding the Denman Glacier to the south had been foiled,
but by turning back at that point, we stood a chance of saving our two
remaining dogs, who had worked so well that they really deserved to
live.

Sunday December 22 broke with a fresh breeze and surface drift; overhead
a clear sky. We went back to Mount Barr-Smith, Kennedy taking an
observation for latitude, Watson making a geological survey and
collecting specimens, Harrisson sketching. The rocks at the summit were
granites, gneisses and schists. The latitude worked out at 67 degrees
10.4' S., and we were a little more than one hundred and twenty miles in
an air-line from the hut.

In the next two days, downhill, we "bullocked" through eleven miles,
reaching a point where the depot at Possession Nunataks was only sixteen
miles away. The surface snow was very sticky in places, clogging the
runners badly, so that they had to be scraped every half-mile. Stewed
skua was the feature of our Christmas Eve supper.

From the diary:

"Christmas Day, Wednesday. Turned out and got away at 8 A.M., doing nine
miles before lunch down a steep descent. The sun was very hot, and after
lunch the surface became sticky, but at 5 P.M. we reached the depot,
having done fifteen miles one hundred yards and descended two thousand
three hundred feet.

"I am afraid I