i9] A BAD ACCIDENT 359 



after plum-pudding, but I think we are getting on to the surface 

 which is likely to continue the rest of the way. There are still 

 mild differences of elevation, but generally speaking the plain is 

 flattening out; no doubt we are rising slowly. 



Camp 48. Bar. 21-02. The first two hours of the afternoon 

 march went well; then we got on a rough rise and the sledge 

 came badly. Camped at 6.30, sledge coming easier again at the 

 end. 



It seems astonishing to be disappointed with a march of 15 

 (stat.) miles, when I had contemplated doing little more than 

 10 with full loads. 



We are on the 86th parallel. Obs. : 86 2' S.; 160 26' E. 

 The temperature has been pretty consistent of late, io to 

 12 at night, 3 in the day. The wind has seemed milder 

 to-day it blows anywhere from S.E. to south. I had thought 

 to have done with pressures, but to-night a crevassed slope ap- 

 pears on our right. We shall pass well clear of it, but there may 

 be others. The undulating character of the plain causes a great 

 variety of surface, owing, of course, to the varying angles at 

 which the wind strikes the slopes. We were half an hour late 

 starting this morning, which accounts for some loss of distance, 

 though I should be content to keep up an average of 13' (geo.). 



Wednesday, December 27. Lunch. Bar. 21-02. The wind 

 light this morning and the pulling heavy. Everyone sweated, 

 especially the second team, which had great difficulty in keeping 

 up. We have been going up and down, the up grades very tiring, 

 especially when we get amongst sastrugi which jerk the sledge 

 about, but we have done 7^4 miles (geo.). A very bad accident 

 this morning. Bowers broke the only hypsometer thermometer. 

 We have nothing, to check our two aneroids. 



Night camp 49. Bar. 20-82. T. -6-3. We marched off 

 well after lunch on a soft, snowy surface, then came to slippery 

 hard sastrugi and kept a good pace; but I felt this meant some- 

 thing wrong, and on topping a short rise we were once more in 

 the midst of crevasses and disturbances. For an hour it was 

 dreadfully trying had to pick a road, tumbled into crevasses, 

 and got jerked about abominably. At the summit of the ridge we 

 came into another ' pit ' or ' whirl,' which seemed the centre of 

 the trouble is it a submerged mountain peak? During the last 

 hour and a quarter we pulled out on to soft snow again and 



