1 8 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [JULY 



down over it and all was well. My nerves were about on edge 

 at end of day.] 



AT THE KNOLL 



Saturday, July 15, 1911. The min. temp, for the night was 

 34-5, but at 10.30 A.M. it was 19-2, with a breeze of force 

 3 from the S.S.W. We got a clear view this morning, however, 

 and could see the moraine shelf facing the Knoll, where we had 

 decided to build our stone hut. We had a short, steep, uphill 

 three miles' pull over very hard and deep-cut sastrugi to this 

 spot, and then, rounding the lower end of the moraine, we found 

 ourselves in the Knoll gap and pitched our last outward camp 

 in a large open smooth snow hollow, hard and windswept as to 

 surface, but in places not cut up by sastrugi. This camp lay 

 about 150 yards below the ridge where we proposed to build 

 our stone hut. [Here we are after a real slog 700 feet up, 

 camped on very hard snow with our hut site chosen off to W. 

 on some moraine we have been discussing what to call the hut 

 which we hope to build under a big boulder on the slope, walling 

 one side of it Terra Igloo I expect. It seems too good to be 

 true 19 days out, this is our I5th camp four days' blizzard. 

 Surely seldom has anyone been so wet our bags hardly possible 

 to get into our windclothes just frozen boxes. Birdie's patent 

 balaclava is like iron it is wonderful how our cares have van- 

 ished.] We had originally intended building on the Adelie 

 penguin rookery, but so much of our time has been taken up in 

 getting here, and our oil was already so short, that we decided 

 to build as close as we could to our work with the Emperor 

 penguins, and take the chance of doing so in the blizzard area. 

 In the Adelie penguin rookery we should have been out of the 

 blizzards, but five miles from our principal work. We hoped, 

 however, to find something of a lee for our hut, and to put up 

 with the blizzards. 



On the ridge top above the snow hollow where we were 

 camped was a low, rough mass of rock in situ with a quantity 

 of loose rock masses of erratics of various kinds, some granite, 

 some hard basalt, and some crumbly volcanic lava lying around. 

 There was also a lot of rough gravel and plenty of hard snow 

 which could be cut into paving stone slabs. So here we had 

 all the material we wanted, and as the corner under the rock 



