i9ii] CLOTHES FROZEN HARD n 



neither Bowers nor I made use of our jackets, however, at all 

 they were stowed away, stiff, in the tank, and so returned home. 



Wednesday, July 5, 1911. At 3 A.M. the whole sky was 

 clearing and at 7 A.M. we turned out. The surface was now 

 worse than we had as yet experienced, and we moved dreadfully 

 slowly with one sledge load at a time. In 754 hours hauling we 

 only made 1 1 / 2 miles good. 



The min. temp, last night was 54-6, and by the evening the 

 temp, had dropped to - 61-1. We were then surrounded by a 

 white fog, but could see Erebus and Terror. The cirro-stratus 

 gave a white-looking sky in the moonlight and a fair halo with 

 mock moons and vertical beams and a particularly well-defined 

 mock moon beneath on the horizon. 



All day we had been hauling up hill, and we hoped it was 

 Terror Point we were crossing. Settlements of the crust occurred 

 regularly again at short intervals. The surface still shows no 

 sign of windcut sastrugi, and though much of it is wind-hardened 

 and smooth, it appears to be the result of variable winds of no 

 great force, and it is also covered to a very great extent by deep 

 sheets of soft snow, on which the sledges hang up exactly as 

 though they were going over sand. There is no surface marking 

 on this snow except marks resembling horses' hoofs, with edges 

 that have a peculiar planed-off appearance. 



Whether harder or softer, the whole surface is crusted and 

 lets one's feet in for a couple of inches, spoiling one's pull on the 

 sticky-runnered sledges. 



Thursday, July 6, 191 1. Again a calm day and clear, though 

 a heavy bank of fog lies over the pressure ridges ahead of us, 

 and over the seaward area to the east. 



We had relay work again on a very heavy surface, which, 

 however, improved slightly in the afternoon. But the result of 

 7^2 hours' hauling was a forward move of 1^2 miles only. 



The min. temp, for the night had been -75-3. At starting 

 in the morning it was 70-2 and at noon - 76-8. At 5.15 P.M., 

 when we camped for lunch, it was 77 exactly, and at midnight 

 it had risen again to 69, when there was some low-lying white 

 fog and mist to the N. and N.N.W. The butter, when stabbed 

 with a knife, ' flew ' like very brittle toffee. Our paraffin at these 

 temperatures was perfectly easy to pour, though there was just 

 a trace of opalescent milkiness in its appearance. 



