26 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 
[July 
Knoll to-day in our endeavour to keep within the flat area 
of land ice. Sastrugi were increasing rapidly here, and we 
were now entering the true path of the southerly blizzard. 
The min. temp, for the night had been -35°. At 
8.30 A.M. it was - I7'4°, and in the afternoon and evening 
it was - 24*6°. [The experiences so lightly passed over 
in the official account were sufficiently thrilling in them- 
selves. The other diary records : 
Rather a hair-raising day — very bad night — by hard 
slogging 2:| miles this morning — then on in thick gloom 
which suddenly lifted and we found ourselves under a 
huge great mountain of pressure ridge looking black in 
shadow — we went on bending to left when Bill fell and 
put his arm into a crevasse — we went over this and another 
and some time after got somewhere up to left, and both 
Bill and I put a foot into a crevasse — we sounded all 
about and everywhere was hollow, and so we ran the 
sledge down over it and all was well. My nerves were 
about on edge at end of day.] 
At the Knoll 
Saturday^ July 15, 191 1. — The min. temp, for the night 
was - 34*5'^, but at 10.30 a.m. it was - I9'2'^5 with a breeze 
of force 3 from the S.S.W. We got a clear view this 
morning, however, and could see the moraine shelf facing 
the Knoll, where we had decided to build our stone hut. 
We had a short, steep, uphill three miles' pull over very 
hard and deep-cut sastrugi to this spot, and then, rounding 
the lower end of the moraine, we found ourselves in the 
Knoll gap and pitched our last outward camp in a large 
