dep6t picked up 



and variation, and found the latitude to be 79° 36' 

 South, and the variation 155° East. Had lunch at 

 noon and started due south at 1.15 p.m., the ponies 

 pulling well. As the afternoon went on the surface 

 of the Barrier altered to thick, crusty snow, with long 

 rounded sastrugi about 4 ft. high, almost looking like 

 small undulations, running south-west to north-west, 

 with small sastrugi on top running west and east. 

 Camped at 6 p.m., having done 12 miles 1500 yards 

 (statute) to-day. There are some high, stratified, light 

 clouds in the sky, the first clouds we have had for 

 nearly a week. The sun now, at 9. p.m., is beautifully 

 warm, though the air temperature is minus 2° Fahr. 

 It is dead calm. We are going to build a snow mound 

 at each camp as a guide to our homeward track, and 

 as our camps will only be seven miles apart, these 

 marks ought to help us. The mystery of the Barrier 

 grips us, and we long to know what lies in the unknown 

 to the south. This we may do with good fortune in 

 another fortnight. 



Note. — I wrote that the provisions left at the depot would suffice 

 for three days, but as a matter of fact there was not more than a 

 two days' supply. We felt that we ought to take on every ounce 

 of food that we could, and that if we got back to the depot we would 

 be able to manage as far as the Bluff all right. During the winter 

 we had thought over the possibility of making the mounds as a guide 

 for the return march., and had concluded that though they would 

 entail extra work, we might be well repaid if we picked up only one 

 or two of them at critical times. We had with us two shovels, and 

 ten minutes' work was sufficient to raise a mound 6 or 7 ft. high. 

 We wondered whether the mounds would disappear under the influence 

 of wind and sun, and our tracks remain, whether the tracks would 

 disappear and the mounds remain, whether both tracks and mounds 

 would disappear, or whether both would remain. As we were not 

 keeping in towards the land, but were making a bee-line for the south, 

 it was advisable to neglect no precaution, and as events turned out, 



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