THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



left yesterday, so we must march on short food to reach 

 our goal. The temperature is plus 16° Fahr. to-night, 

 but a cold wind all the morning cut our faces and broken 

 lips. We keep crevasses with us still, but I think that 

 to-morrow will see the end of this. When we passed the 

 main slope to-day more mountains appeared to the west 

 of south, some with sheer cliffs and others rounded 

 off, ending in long snow slopes. I judge the south- 

 ern limit of the mountains to the west to be about latitude 

 86° South. 



December 19. — Not on the plateau level yet, though 

 we are to-night 7888 ft. up, and still there is another 

 rise ahead of us. We got breakfast at 5 a.m. and started 

 at 7 a.m. sharp, taking on one sledge. Soon we got 

 to the top of a ridge, and went back for the second 

 sledge, then hauled both together all the rest of the 

 day. The weight was about 200 lb. per man, and we 

 kept going until 6 p.m., with a stop of one hour for lunch. 

 We got a meridian altitude at noon, and found that our 

 latitude was 85° 5' South. We seem unable to get rid 

 of the crevasses, and we have been falling into them 

 and steering through them all day in the face of a cold 

 southerly wind, with a temperature varying from plus 

 15° to plus 9° Fahr. The work was very heavy, for we 

 were going uphill all day, and our sledge runners, which 

 have been suffering from the sharp ice and rough travel- 

 ling, are in a bad way. Soft snow in places greatly 

 retarded our progress, but we have covered our 10 

 miles, and now are camped on good snow between two 

 crevasses. I really think that to-morrow will see us 

 on the plateau proper. This glacier must be one of the 

 largest if not the largest in the world. The sastrugi 

 seem to point mainly to the South, so we may expect 

 head winds all the way to the Pole. Marshall has a cold 

 job to-night, taking the angles of the new mountains 



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