HAULING PROVISIONS TO SHORE 



yards from the site of our hut. We thought that this 

 would be a good place, but the selection was to cost us 

 dearly in the future. The tide-crack played an important 

 part in connection with the landing of the stores. In 

 the polar regions, both north and south, when the sea is 

 frozen over there always appears between the fast ice, 

 which is the ice attached to the land, and the sea ice, a 

 crack which is due to the sea ice moving up and down 

 with the rise and fall of the tide. When the bottom of 

 the sea slopes gradually from the land, sometimes two 

 or three tide-cracks appear running parallel to each other. 

 When no more tide-cracks are to be seen landwards, the 

 snow or ice-foot has always been considered as being 

 a permanent adjunct to the land, and in our case this 

 opinion was further strengthened by the fact that our 

 soundings in the tide-crack showed that the ice-foot on 

 the landward side of it must be aground. I have ex- 

 plained this fully, for it was after taking into considera- 

 tion these points that I, for convenience sake, landed the 

 bulk of the stores just below the bare rocks on what I 

 considered to be the permanent snow-slope. 



About 9 a.m. on the morning of February 6 

 we started work with sledges, hauling provisions and 

 pieces of the hut to the shore. The previous night the 

 foundation posts of the hut had been sunk and frozen into 

 the ground with a cement composed of volcanic earth 

 and water. The digging of the foundation holes, on 

 which job Dunlop, Adams, Joyce, Brocklehurst, and 

 Marshall were engaged, proved hard work, for in some 

 cases where the hole had to be dug the bed-rock was 

 found a few inches below the coating of the earth, and 

 this had to be broken through or drilled with chisel and 

 hammer. Now that the ponies were ashore it was neces- 

 sary to have a party living ashore also, for the animals 

 would require looking after if the ship were forced to 



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