12 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION QULY 



Friday, July 7, 1911. We got away late, at noon, in a thick 

 white fog in which it was impossible to see where we were going. 

 We still had to relay, though the surface had distinctly improved. 

 There was no sign of wind sastrugi yet. 



After lunch, which we finished about 6.30 P.M., we got an in- 

 distinct view of the mountains, and saw we were beginning to 

 close Mt. Terra Nova with Mt. Terror, but the fog came down 

 again at once, and at 9.45 P.M. we camped, as we were unable to 

 guess at all what direction we had been making. We only made 

 one and two-thirds miles good in the day. 



The min. temp, for the night from 12 to 2 P.M. had been 

 -75-8. At 2 P.M. it was -58-3, and at 7 P.M. had risen to 

 55-4, a change which we felt as a grateful one both in our hands 

 and feet on the march. [There is something after all rather good 

 in doing something never done before these temperatures must 

 be world's record.] 



Saturday, July 8, 1911. A day of white fog and high moon- 

 light but without a trace of landmark to guide us. We relayed as 

 usual, four hours in the forenoon, for i *4 miles, and three hours 

 in the afternoon for one mile only. We were on a better surface, 

 either more windswept or else improved by the rise in tempera- 

 ture, but still deep and soft to walk in, though often with harder 

 crusted areas. Here and there were really hard and slippery- 

 windswept snow surfaces occurring under a covering of some 

 inches of quite soft snow, showing the peculiar planed-off appear- 

 ance which was always associated with horse-shoe impressions 

 and very heavy dragging. We made our course to-day by 

 compass. 



The min. temp, for the night was 59-8 and at 10.30 A.M. 

 -52-3, with south-easterly airs, and -47 at 7.15 P.M. 



Sunday, July 9, 191 1. Dense mist, and white fog [the fourth 

 day of fog], and snow falling all day, made relaying impossible, 

 but we found we could manage the two sledges together again on 

 the improving surface. 



Our chief difficulty was to avoid gradually and unwittingly 

 mounting the slopes of Mt. Terror to our left, where there are 

 any number of crevassed patches of ice, and running into the 

 pressure ridges on our right. Between these two lay an area of 

 more or less level land ice which was safe going but in two or 

 three places I knew it was necessary to cross long snow capes run- 



