4 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [JUNE 



tied up the ventilator permanently and kept in all the steam and 

 heat we could, to thaw out our finnesko, which we hung in the 

 roof at night. We were so iced up as to our clothes and sleeping- 

 bags that nothing outside made any difference, and the omission 

 of brushing down saved time in getting off. 



After lunch we got away at 4 P.M. and made for what we 

 believed to be Hut Point, but in the dark we got a good deal too 

 close in towards Castle Rock, much more than was necessary. 

 Our pace was slow owing to the weights, but the surface was not 

 bad. It was chiefly crusty rough sea ice, salt to the taste still; 

 or it had an inch or two of white crusty snow on the rough, darker 

 sea ice, alternating with broader drifts of hard wind-swept snow, 

 making long, low mounds over which the sledges ran easily. 

 These seemed here to result from an E.N.E. wind coming from 

 the neck on the promontory, the wind which we caught just after 

 passing the Glacier Tongue, and again off the ridge along Castle 

 Rock, where it blew to force 5, up to 8 P.M., when we camped for 

 the night, having made 9^ miles from Cape Evans. [Setting 

 this tent in dark is difficult, but not too bad even in that wind. 

 Bill warns me seriously against running risk of frostbite. I find 

 no specs, very hard in setting tent must be sure not to let any 

 inability arising from this get on my nerves 41 more days we 

 hope.] Castle Rock was here nearly abeam. The wind dropped 

 soon after and we had a clear starlit night. 



The temperature for the day ranged from 14-5 to 15, 

 and the minimum temperature for the night was 26. 



Wednesday, June 28, 1911. Turned out at 7.30 A.M. The 

 going became very heavy with the two sledges, and we made very 

 little more than a mile an hour over a surface which was all rough, 

 rubbly salt sea ice with no snow on it. Bowers thinks that we 

 were on definitely younger ice than that which we were on farther 

 out yesterday and on our return. He thinks there was a large 

 open lead along the shore which was the last to freeze up, and 

 that this resulted from off-shore winds. 



We reached Hut Point at 1.30 P.M., having crossed three or 

 four cracks and lines of pressure chiefly radiating from Hut Point 

 itself. The sledgemeter showed 13 m. 1500 yds., but we had not 

 come in a direct line from Cape Evans. We lunched in the hut 

 and had no difficulty with the door, as there was hardly any snow- 

 drift against it. 



