8 
scorrs last expedition 
[June 
reaching the top. [Got both hands bitten going up 
Barrier — all ten fingers.] 
It was now 6.30 p.m., and we camped at 7, the last 
half-hour on the Barrier surface being uphill, and very 
heavy compared with the easy going on the snow-covered 
sea ice from Cape Armitage, There was no doubt as to 
the existence of this slope up ; we confirmed it on our 
return, and I take it to be a proof that the Barrier at 
this point has in recent years broken back at any rate 
half a mile or a mile farther than it did this year — for 
the previous broken edges can be supposed to fill up suc- 
cessively in this way and so to produce a gradient without 
steps. 
We had nothing but light variable airs all day with 
a clear sky. The temp, ranged from - 24*5° in the morning 
by Castle Rock to - 26*5° at Hut Point and -47° at the 
edge of the Barrier, 
Thursday^ June 29, 191 1. — We spent a cold night 
with temp, down to -56*5'^ [Frightful cold last night — 
bad night. Bill has hardly slept for two nights — clothes 
beginning to get bad], and it was - 49° when we turned 
out at 9 A.M. ; but the day was fine and calm on the 
whole, with occasional light easterly airs only. 
Curtains of aurora covered a great part of the sky to 
the east both morning and evening, and it was one of 
the chief pleasures of our journey out that we were 
facing east, where almost all the aurora occurred, and 
so we could watch its changes as we marched, almost the 
whole time. Nine-tenths of the aurora we saw was in 
the east and S.E. of the sky, often well up to the zenith, 
