xvi THE FIRST ACCOUNT 



driving snow it looked as if we had a frozen lake before 

 us ; but it proved to be a sloping plateau of ice, full of 

 small blocks of ice. Our walk across this frozen lake 

 was not pleasant. The ground under our feet was 

 evidently hollow, and it sounded as if we were walking 

 on empty barrels. First a man fell through, then a 

 couple of dogs; but they got up again all right. We 

 could not, of course, use our ski on this smooth-polished 

 ice, but we got on fairly well with the sledges. We 

 called this place the Devil's Ballroom. This part of 

 our march was the most unpleasant of the whole trip. 

 On December 2 we reached our greatest elevation. 

 According to the hypsometer and our aneroid barometer 

 we were at a height of 11,075 feet this was in lat. 87 51'. 

 On December 8 the bad weather came to an end, the 

 sun shone on us once more, and we were able to take 

 our observations again. It proved that the observations 

 and our reckoning of the distance covered gave exactly 

 the same result namely, 88 16' S. lat. Before us lay 

 an absolutely flat plateau, only broken by small crevices. 

 In the afternoon we passed 88 23', Shackleton's farthest 

 south. We pitched our camp in 88 25', and established 

 our last depot No. 10. From 88 25' the plateau 

 began to descend evenly and very slowly. We reached 

 88 29' on December 9. On December 10, 88 56'; 

 December 11, 89 15'; December 12, 89 30'; Decem- 

 ber 13, 89 45'. 



Up to this moment the observations and our reckoning 



