Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 1.djvu/217

1911] found much of the ice uncovered. Towards the Glacier Tongue there were some heaps of snow much wind-blown. As we rose the glacier we saw the Nimrod depôt some way to the right and made for it. We found a good deal of compressed fodder and boxes of maize, but no grain crusher as expected. The open water was practically up to the Glacier Tongue.

We descended by an easy slope mile from the end of the Glacier Tongue, but found ourselves cut off by an open crack some 15 feet across and had to get on the glacier again and go some mile farther in. We came to a second crack, but avoided it by skirting to the west. From this point we had an easy run without difficulty to Hut Point. There was a small pool of open water and a longish crack off Hut Point. I got my feet very wet crossing the latter. We passed hundreds of seals at the various cracks.

On the arrival at the hut to my chagrin we found it filled with snow. Shackleton reported that the door had been forced by the wind, but that he had made an entrance by the window and found shelter inside—other members of his party used it for shelter. But they actually went away and left the window (which they had forced) open; as a result, nearly the whole of the interior of the hut is filled with hard icy snow, and it is now impossible to find shelter inside.

Meares and I were able to clamber over the snow to some extent and to examine the neat pile of cases in the middle, but they will take much digging out. We got some asbestos sheeting from the magnetic hut and made the best shelter we could to boil our cocoa.