igii] THE BARRIER EDGE 7 
three or four cracks and lines of pressure chiefly radiating 
from Hut Point itself. The sledgemeter showed 13 m. 
1500 yds., but we had not come in a direct line from Cape 
Evans. We lunched in the hut and had no difficulty with 
the door, as there was hardly any snowdrift against it. 
After lunch we made better going to Cape Armitage, 
though there was still no snow here on the rough, rubbly 
ice, but it was not so bad as what we had been on during 
the forenoon, where the sea ice was still salt and crunchy, 
with humps everywhere, formed from the old weathered 
ice and salt flowers, none bigger than one's fist, allowing 
the feet to crush between them every step at a different 
angle. After Cape Armitage the surface became hard 
and snow-covered ; and with the best going we met with 
the whole journey for a short two miles, we quickly 
reached the edge of the Barrier, finding a good slope of 
snowdrift where we struck it, and having no difficulty 
in drawing our sledges up one at a time. There was a 
snow-covered crack as usual at the top of the drift, not 
a working crack, and invisible until broken into. 
Unfortunately, both in going out and in coming back, 
we reached the Barrier edge in too bad a light to see 
whether these snowdrifts were quite continuous all along 
the edge, but from the fact that they were so at the two 
different points at which we struck the edge in the dark, I 
think it is probable that the slope is now continuous pretty 
well everywhere. We rose about 12 ft. off the sea ice. 
Coming down the snow slope off the Barrier was a 
stream of very cold air which we felt first when we were 
only a few yards from the foot, and lost very soon after 
