1911] APPROACHING THE KNOLL 17 
— 28-6°, but there was still a lot of cirro-stratus about, which 
the blizzard doesn’t seem to have cleared away. There were 
also windy-looking clouds about, with lunar corone and occa- 
sional halos. During the daylight there was a very striking rosy 
glow all over the northern sky even up to the summit of Mt. 
Terror. The whole sky was a rich rosy purple, due to a thin 
cirro-stratus or alti-stratus I think. 
The new surface was very flat, and very windswept, but not 
cut into sastrugi at all. Most of the new areas are low, flat, 
soft drifts, or low mounds, slightly rounded at the top and of 
large area. The softer areas have still the shaved or planed-off 
appearance with none but the horse-hoof shaped impressions 
on the surface. 
Friday, July 14, 1911.—We made five and one-third miles 
in all to-day by a good morning march, but an afternoon march 
cut short by a complete loss of all light. After lunch we once 
more found we had overdone our easting and had run again 
into one of the higher pressure ridges. We turned north from 
it and encountered more crevasses, but by zig-zagging and sound- 
ing in advance on a longer trace we succeeded in getting clear 
of them. We had the Knoll before us at the time while there 
was light enough to see it. Our moonlight was, however, all 
but spent, so much of it had been lost in fogs and blizzard and 
bad weather. We were making for rather east of the Knoll 
to-day in our endeavour to keep within the flat area of land ice. 
Sastrugi were increasing rapidly here, and we were now entering 
the true path of the southerly blizzard. 
The min. temp. for the night had been — 35°. At 8.30 A.M. 
it was — 17-4°, and in the afternoon and evening it was — 24:°6°. 
[The experiences so lightly passed over in the official account 
were sufficiently thrilling in themselves. The other diary 
records: 
Rather a hair-raising day—very bad night—by hard slogging 
234 miles this morning—then on in thick gloom which suddenly 
lifted and we found ourselves under a huge great mountain of 
pressure ridge looking black in shadow—we went on bending to 
left when Bill fell and put his arm into a crevasse—we went over 
this and another and some time after got somewhere up to left, 
and both Bill and I put a foot into a crevasse—we sounded all 
about and everywhere was hollow, and so we ran the sledge 
VOL. Il—2 
