Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 1.djvu/283

1911] Memo.—Arrangements for ponies.
 * 1) Hot bran or oat mashes.
 * 2) Clippers for breaking wires of bales.
 * 3) Pickets for horses.
 * 4) Lighter ponies to take 10 ft. sledges?

The surface is so crusty and friable that the question of snow-shoes again becomes of great importance.

All the sastrugi are from S.W. by S. to S.W. and all the wind that we have experienced in this region—there cannot be a doubt that the wind sweeps up the coast at all seasons.

A point has arisen as to the deposition. David called the crusts seasonal. This must be wrong; they mark blizzards, but after each blizzard fresh crusts are formed only over the patchy heaps left by the blizzard. A blizzard seems to leave heaps which cover anything from one-sixth to one-third of the whole surface—such heaps presumably turn hollows into mounds with fresh hollows between—these are filled in turn by ensuing blizzards. If this is so, the only way to get at the seasonal deposition would be to average the heaps deposited and multiply this by the number of blizzards in the year.

Monday, February 15.—14 Camp. 7 miles 775 yards. The surface was wretched to-day, the two drawbacks of yesterday (the thin crusts which let the ponies through and the sandy heaps which hang on the runners) if anything exaggerated.

Bowers' pony refused work at intervals for the first