h-south-east as far as we could follow it. Was it
taking a short cut to the Ross Sea?

December 2 saw us through "Dead-Beat Gully" to a rise, in sight of the
shadows towards which we had been steering. Two miles away they appeared
like the edge of the moon seen through a large telescope. The
shadows were due to large mounds of snow on the south side of a steep
escarpment. Three main prominences were cross-connected with regular
lines of hillocks, giving the impression of a subdivided town-site. The
low evening sun threw everything up in the most wonderful relief.

On the morning of the 3rd we were in a valley running west-north-west
and east-south-east. The southern side rose steeply and from it
projected three large mounds, about two hundred feet from the bottom of
the valley, into which they fell just like tailings-heaps from a mine.
They were christened "The Nodules."

Going due south uphill over neve we found ourselves in a regular network
of crevasses. They were about ten feet wide and well bridged. Most
noticeable were "hedges" of ice up to six feet in height on either side
of the crevasses which ran southward. It was now nearly calm and
in every crack and chink in the snow-bridges beautiful fern-like
ice-crystals were seen. These must have been just forming, as a very
light puff of wind was seen to destroy many of them.

We spent three hours exploring the locality. On nearing the top of the
ridge, roped together, we found that the crevasses were becoming much
wider, while the "hedges" were disappearing. The centre "nodule" was
found to be immediately north or to the leeward of the intersection of
two crevasses, each about forty feet wide. The bridge of one crevasse
had dropped some thirty feet for a length of eighty yards. Doubtless, an
eddy from this hole accounts for the deposit of snow and, by accretions,
for the erection of the nodule. Webb went down at the end of the alpine
rope and found the bridge below quite solid.

For about half a mile the summit of the slope was practically level,
three hundred feet above the bed of the valley. The surface was still of
neve, intersected by canals forty, sixty and eighty feet wide, in which
the snow-bridge was generally four or five feet from the brink.

On the south-west horizon, perhaps twenty miles away, was a salient
crest streaked by three dark vertical bars; evidently another crevassed
area.

Returning to the sledge, we toggled-on and worked it up over the