THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



observations as to the position of the Magnetic Pole, 

 and decided that in order to reach it we would need to 

 travel for another four days. The horizontally moving 

 needle had now almost ceased to work. We decided 

 to go on for another four days and started our 

 sledging. It was a cold day with a light wind. The 

 temperature at about 10.30 a.m. being minus 6° Fahr. 

 At noon Mawson took a magnetic reading with the 

 Lloyd- Creak dip circle, which was now fifty minutes 

 off the vertical, that is, 89° 10'. At noon the latitude 

 was just about 73° South. The sastrugi were now 

 longer and higher than usual, and there were two 

 distinct sets. The strongest sastrugi trended from 

 south to north; a subordinate set from south-east to north- 

 west. That day we sledged thirteen miles. 



January 14. — The day was gloriously clear and 

 bright with a warm sun. A gentle wind was blowing 

 from about south-south-east, and there was a little 

 cumulus cloud far ahead of us over the horizon. The 

 surface of the snow over which we were sledging was 

 sparkling with large reconstructed ice crystals, about 

 half an inch in width and one-sixteenth of an inch in 

 thickness. These crystals form on this plateau during 

 warm days when the sun's heat leads to a gentle up- 

 ward streaming of the cold air with a small amount 

 of moisture in it from beneath. Under these influences 

 combined with the thawing of the surface snow, these 

 large and beautiful ice crystals form rapidly in a single 

 day. We observe that after every still sunny day a 

 crop of these crystals develops on the surface of the 

 neve, and remains there until the next wind blows 

 them off. They form a layer about half an inch in 

 thickness over the top of the neve. In the bright sun- 

 light the neve, covered with these sheets of bright 

 reflecting ice crystals, glittered like a sea of diamonds. 



1T8 



