240 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [July 



give a sensation of burning to the bare touch, but none the 

 less it is an interesting variant of the common fact. 



Apropos. Atkinson is suffering a good deal from his hand: 

 the frostbite was deeper than I thought; fortunately he can now 

 feel all his fingers, though it was twenty-four hours before 

 sensation returned to one of them. 



Monday, July 10. We have had the worst gale I have ever 

 known in these regions and have not yet done with it. 



The wind started at about mid-day on Friday, and increas- 

 ing in violence reached an average of 60 miles for one hour 

 on Saturday, the gusts at this time exceeding 70 m.p.h. This 

 force of wind, although exceptional, has not been without 

 parallel earlier in the year, but the extraordinary feature of this 

 gale was the long continuance of a very cold temperature. On 

 Friday night the thermometer registered 39 . Throughout 

 Saturday and the greater part of Sunday it did not rise above 

 35 . Late yesterday it was in the minus twenties, and to-day 

 at length it has risen to zero. 



Needless to say no one has been far from the hut. It was 

 my turn for duty on Saturday night, and on the occasions when 

 I had to step out of doors I was struck with the impossibility 

 of enduring such conditions for any length of time. One seemed 

 to be robbed of breath as they burst on one the fine snow beat 

 in behind the wind guard, and ten paces against the wind were 

 sufficient to reduce one's face to the verge of frostbite. To clear 

 the anemometer vane it is necessary to go to the other end of 

 the hut and climb a ladder. Twice whilst engaged in this task 

 I had literally to lean against the wind with head bent and 

 face averted and so stagger crablike on my course. In those 

 two days of really terrible weather our thoughts often turned 

 to absentees at Cape Crozier with the devout hope that they 

 may be safely housed. 



They are certain to have been caught by this gale, but I 

 trust before it reached them they had managed to get up some 

 sort of shelter. Sometimes I have imagined them getting much 

 more wind than we do, yet at others it seems difficult to believe 

 that the Emperor penguins have chosen an excessively wind- 

 swept area for their rookery. 



To-day with the temperature at zero one can walk about 

 outside without inconvenience in spite of a 50-mile wind. 



