f THE FIRST WINTER 193 
Sometimes a shooting star would seem to fall right into the 
mountain, and for the most part the Aurora flitted uneasily 
about in the sky. 
The importance of plenty of out-door exercise was 
generally recognized, and our experience showed us that 
the happiest and healthiest members of our party during 
this first year were those who spent the longest period in 
the fresh air. As a rule we walked and worked and ski-ed 
alone, not I feel sure because of any individual distaste for 
the company of our fellows but rather because of a general 
inclination to spend a short period of the day without com- 
pany. At least this is certainly true of the officers: I am 
not so sure about the men. Under the circumstances, the 
only time in the year that a man could be alone was in his 
walks abroad from Winter Quarters, for the hut, of course, 
was always occupied, and when sledging this sardine-like 
existence was continuous night and day. 
There was one regular exception to this rule. Every 
possible evening, that is to say if it was not blowing a full 
blizzard, Wilson and Bowers went up the Ramp together 
“to read Bertram.’ Now this phrase will convey little mean- 
ing without some explanation. I have already spoken of the 
Ramp as the steep rubbly slope partly covered by snow 
and partly by ice which divided the cape on which we 
lived from the glaciated slopes of Erebus. After a breath- 
less scramble up this embankment one came upon a belt 
of rough boulder-strewn ground from which arose at in- 
tervals conical mounds, the origin of which puzzled us for 
Many months. At length, by the obvious means of cutting 
a section through one of them, it was proved that there 
was a solid kenyte lava block in the centre of this cone, 
proving that the whole was formed by the weathering of a 
single rock. Threading your way for some hundreds of 
yards through this terrain, a scramble attended by many 
slips and falls on a dark night, you reached the first signs 
of glaciation. A little farther, isolated in the ice stream, is 
another group of debris cones, and on the largest of these 
we placed meteorological Screen ‘‘ B,”’ commonly called 
Bertram. This screen, together with “A” (Algernon) and , 
Oo 
