THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



to the men later in the expedition's work. The party 

 camped for lunch at Inaccessible Island, with a tempera- 

 ture at seventeen degrees below zero Fahr., and a fresh 

 wind blowing from the north, with light drift. At 2.30 

 p.m. they left the island and started for Glacier Tongue, 

 the weather growing thicker, but they had no trouble with 

 the tide-cracks, and at the Tongue depot had a short 

 rest, breaking a bottle of frozen preserved cherries. Then 

 they crossed the Tongue, but as the drift was obscuring 

 all landmarks, decided to camp in the snow close to the 

 south side of the Tongue. 



Next morning the weather was still bad, and they 

 were not able to make a start until after noon. At 

 1.20 p.m. they ran out of the northerly wind into light 

 southerly airs with intervals of calm, and they noticed 

 that at the meeting of the two winds the clouds of drift 

 were formed into whirling columns, some of them over 

 forty feet high. They reached the Discovery hut at 

 4.30 p.m., and soon turned in, the temperature being 

 forty degrees below zero. When they dressed at 5.30 

 a.m. the next day they found that a southerly wind 

 with heavy drift rendered a start on the return journey 

 inadvisable. After breakfast they walked over to 

 Observation Hill, where they examined a set of stakes 

 which Ferrar and Wild had placed in the Gap glacier 

 in 1902. The stakes showed that the movement of the 

 glacier during the six years since the stakes had been 

 put into position had amounted to a few inches only. 

 The middle stake had advanced eight inches and those 

 next it on either side about six inches. At noon the 

 wind dropped, and although the drift was still thick, 

 the party started back, steering by the sastrugi till the 

 Tongue was reached. At the point at which they had 

 run out of the north wind on the outward journey, 

 they again picked up a strong northerly breeze. They 



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