APPROACHING THE KNOLL 17 



- 28-6, but there was still a lot of cirro-stratus about, which 

 the blizzard doesn't seem to have cleared away. There were 

 also windy-looking clouds about, with lunar coronas and occa- 

 sional halos. During the daylight there was a very striking rosy 

 glow all over -the northern sky even up to the summit of Mt. 

 Terror. The whole sky was a rich rosy purple, due to a thin 

 cirro-stratus or alti-stratus I think. 



The new surface was very flat, and very windswept, but not 

 cut into sastrugi at all. Most of the new areas are low, flat, 

 soft drifts, or low mounds, slightly rounded at the top and of 

 large area. The softer areas have still the shaved or planed-off 

 appearance with none but the horse-hoof shaped impressions 

 on the surface. 



Friday, July 14, 1911. We made five and one-third miles 

 in all to-day by a good morning march, but an afternoon march 

 cut short by a complete loss of all light. After lunch we once 

 more found we had overdone our easting and had run again 

 into one of the higher pressure ridges. We turned north from 

 it and encountered more crevasses, but by zig-zagging and sound- 

 ing in advance on a longer trace we succeeded in getting clear 

 of them. We had the Knoll before us at the time while there 

 was light enough to see it. Our moonlight was, however, all 

 but spent, so much of it had been lost in fogs and blizzard and 

 bad weather. We were making for rather east of the Knoll 

 to-day in our endeavour to keep within the flat area of land ice. 

 Sastrugi were increasing rapidly here, and we were now entering 

 the true path of the southerly blizzard. 



The min. temp, for the night had been 35. At 8.30 A.M. 

 it was 17-4, and in the afternoon and evening it was - 24-6. 

 [The experiences so lightly passed over in the official account 

 were sufficiently thrilling in themselves. The other diary 

 records : 



Rather a hair-raising day very bad night by hard slogging 

 2^4 miles this morning then on in thick gloom which suddenly 

 lifted and we found ourselves under a huge great mountain of 

 pressure ridge looking black in shadow we went on bending to 

 left when Bill fell and put his arm into a crevasse we went over 

 this and another and some time after got somewhere up to left, 

 and both Bill and I put a foot into a crevasse we sounded all 

 about and everywhere was hollow, and so we ran the sledge 



VOL. II 2 



