THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



and anxiety the change is delightful. The distance cov- 

 ered to-day was 13 miles 200 yards. 



December 16. — We started at 7 a.m., having had 

 breakfast at 5.30 a.m. It was snowing slightly for the 

 first few hours, and then the weather cleared. The 

 surface was hard and the going good. We camped at 

 noon and took sights for latitude, and ascertained that 

 our position was 84° 50' South. Ahead of us we could 

 see a long slope, icy and crevassed, but we did 13 miles 

 1650 yards for the day. We camped at 5.30 p.m., and got 

 ready our depot gear. We have decided to travel as 

 lightly as possible, taking only the clothes we are wear- 

 ing, and we will leave four days' food, which I calculate 

 should get us back to the last depot on short ration. We 

 have now traversed nearly one hundred miles of crevassed 

 ice, and risen 6000 ft. on the largest glacier in the 

 world, One more crevassed slope, and we will be on 

 the plateau, please God. We are all fit and well. The 

 temperature to-night is plus 15° Fahr., and the wind 

 is blowing freshly from the south-west. There are splen- 

 did ranges of mountains to the west-south-west, and we 

 have an extended view of glacier and mountains. 

 Ahead of us lie three sharp peaks, connected up and 

 forming an island in what is apparently inland ice or 

 the head of the glacier. The peaks lie due south of us. 

 To the eastward and westward of this island the ice bears 

 down upon the inland ice-sheet, and joins the head of 

 the glacier proper. To the westward the mountains 

 along the side of the glacier are all of the bluff type, 

 and the lines of stratification can be seen plainly. Still 

 further to the westward, behind the frontal range, lie 

 sharper peaks, some of them almost perfect cones. The 

 trend of the land from the " Cloud-Maker " is about 

 south-south-west. We are travelling up the west side 

 of the glacier. On the other side, to the east, there is 



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