THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



was made to the dwellings outside the hut in the shape of 

 a series of dog-houses for those animals about to pup, 

 and as that was not an uncommon thing down there, the 

 houses were constantly occupied. 



On the south-east side of the hut a store-room 

 was built, constructed entirely of cases, and roofed 

 with hammocks sewn together. Here we kept the tool- 

 chest, shoe-makers' outfit, which was in constant requi- 

 sition, and any general stores that had to be issued at 

 stated times. The first heavy blizzard found this place 

 out, and after the roof had been blown off, the wall 

 fell down, and we had to organise a party, when the 

 weather got fine, to search for anything that might be 

 lost, such as mufflers, woollen helmets, and so on. Some 

 things were blown more than a mile away. I found a 

 Russian felt boot, weighing five pounds, lying three- 

 quarters of a mile from the crate in which it had been 

 stowed, and it must have had a clear run in the air for 

 the whole of this distance, for there was not a scratch 

 on the leather; if it had been blown along the rocks, 

 which lay in the way, the leather would certainly have 

 been scratched all over. The chimney, which was an 

 iron pipe, projecting two or three feet above the roof 

 of the hut, and capped by a cowl, was let through the 

 roof, at the south-east end, and secured by numerous rope 

 stays supporting it at every point from which the wind 

 could blow. 



We were quite free from the trouble of down draughts 

 or choking with snow, such as had been of common 

 occurrence in the large hut on the Discovery expedition. 

 Certainly the revolving cowl blew off during the first 

 blizzard, and this happened again in the second, so we 

 took the hint and left it off for good, without detriment, 

 as it happened, to the efficiency of the stove. 



136 



