502 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



tudes given by Simpson in his meteorological report are 

 of great interest : Cape Evans o, Shambles Camp 1 70, 

 Upper Glacier Depot 7 151, Three Degree Depot 9392, 

 One and a Half Degree Depot 9862, South Pole 9072 

 feet above sea-level. 1 



What happened is not quite clear, but there is no doubt 

 that the surface became very bad, that the party began to 

 feel the cold, and that before long Evans especially began 

 to crock. The immediate trouble was bad surfaces. I will 

 try and show why these surfaces should have been met 

 in what was, you must remember, now a land which no 

 man had travelled before. 



Scott laid his One and a Half Degree Depot (i.e. ih° 

 or 90 miles from the Pole) on January 10. That day they 

 started to go down, but for several days before that the 

 plateau had been pretty flat. Time after time in the diaries 

 you find crystals — crystals — crystals : crystals falling 

 through the air, crystals bearding the sastrugi, crystals 

 lying loose upon the snow. Sandy crystals, upon which the 

 sun shines and which made pulling a terrible effort : when 

 the sky clouds over they get along much better. The clouds 

 form and disperse without visible reason. And generally 

 the wind is in their faces. 



Wright tells me that there is certain evidence in the 

 records which may explain these crystals. Halos are caused 

 by crystals and nearly all those logged from the bottom of 

 the Beardmore to the Pole and back were on this stretch of 

 country, where the land was falling. Bowers mentions that 

 the crystals did not appear in all directions, which goes to 

 show that the air was not always rising, but sometimes was 

 falling and therefore not depositing its moisture. There is 

 no doubt that the surfaces met were very variable, and it 

 may be that the snow lay in waves. Bowers mentions big 

 undulations for thirty miles before the Pole, and other in- 

 equalities may have been there which were not visible. 

 There is sometimes evidence that these crystals were formed 

 on the windward side of these waves, and carried over by a 

 strong wind and deposited on the lee side. 



1 Simpson, B.A.E., igio—igij, " Meteorology," vol. i. p. 291. 



