THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



The ponies have truly done well. I wrote yesterday 

 that we seemed to be in a windless area, but to-day 

 alters that opinion. The sastrugi are all pointing 

 clearly due south, and if we have the wind on our way 

 back it will be a great help. The same radiant points 

 in the clouds south-east to north west were visible 

 again to-day, and at times when it cleared somewhat 

 a regular nimbus cloud, similar to the rain clouds in the 

 " doldrums," could be seen. At the base of the converg- 

 ing point of the south-east part of cloud there seemed 

 to rise other clouds to meet the main body. The former 

 trended directly from the horizon at an angle of 30° 

 to meet the main body, and did not seem to be more 

 than a few miles off. The drift on the Barrier surface 

 was piled up into heaps of very fine snow, with the 

 smallest grains, and on encountering these the sledges 

 ran heavily. The crust that has formed, when broken 

 through discloses loose-grained snow, and the harder crust, 

 about 8 in. down, is almost even. I suppose that the top 

 8 in. represents the year's snowfall. 



November 20. — Started at 8.55 a.m. in dull, over- 

 cast weather again, but the sun broke through during 

 the morning, so we had something to steer by. The 

 surface has been the worst we have encountered so far, 

 terribly soft, but we did 15 miles 800 yards (statute) 

 for the day. The latter part of the afternoon was 

 better. It seems to savour of repetition to write each 

 day of the heavy going and the soft surface, but these 

 factors play a most important part in our daily work, 

 and it causes us a great deal of speculation as to what 

 we will eventually find as we get further south. The 

 whole place and conditions seem so strange and so 

 unlike anything else in the world in our experience, 

 that one cannot describe them in fitting words. At one 

 moment one thinks of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner": 



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