old magnetic hut, into dog and pony shelters, two inner compartments were
screened off by bulkheads made of biscuit cases, a cook's table was
somehow fashioned and a reliable stove erected out of petrol tins and
scrap-iron. Our engineers in this work of art were Oates and Meares. For
a short while we burnt wood in the stove, but the day soon came when seal
blubber was substituted, and the heat from the burning grease was
sufficient to cook any kind of dish likely to be available, and also to
heat the hut after a fashion.

Round the stove we built up benches to sit on for meals, and two sleeping
spaces were chosen and made snug by using felt, of which a quantity had
been left by Scott's or Shackleton's people. The "Soldier" and Meares
unearthed same fire bricks and a stove pipe from the debris heap outside
the hut and then we were spared the great discomfort of being smoked out
whenever a fire was lit. An awning left by the "Discovery" was fixed up
by several of us around the sleeping and cooking space, and although
rather short of luxuries such as sugar and flour, we were never in any
great want of good plain food.

On March 14 the depot party was joined by Griffith Taylor, Debenham,
Wright, and Petty Officer Evans.

Taylor's team had been landed by the "Terra Nova" on January 27, after
the start of the depot party, to make a geological reconnaissance. In the
course of their journeying they had traversed the Ferrar Glacier and then
come down a new glacier, which Scott named after Taylor, and descended
into Dry Valley, so called because it was entirely free from snow.
Taylor's way had led him and his party over a deep fresh-water lake, four
miles long, which was only surface frozen--this lake was full of algae.
The gravels below a promising region of limestones rich in garnets were