WINTER MONTHS 
floe, and had no wish to have the helpless Endmance involved 
in such a battle of giants. During the 3rd the seal meat and 
blubber was re-stowed on hummocks around the ship. The 
frozen masses had been sinking into the floe. Ice. though hard 
and solid to the touch, is never firm against heavy weights. 
An article left on the floe for any length of time is Ukely to 
sink into the surface-ice. Then the salt water wiU percolate 
tlirough and the article wiU become frozen into the body of 
the floe. 
Clear weather foUowed the gale, and we had a series of 
mock suns and parheUa. Minus temperatures were the rvde, 
21° below zero Fahr. being recorded on the 6th. We made 
mattresses for the dogs by stuffing sacks with straw and rubbish, 
and most of the animals were glad to receive this furnishing 
in their kennels. Some of them had suffered through the snow 
melting with the heat of their bodies and then freezing solid. 
The scientific members of the expedition were all busy by this 
time. The meteorologist had got his recording station, con- 
taining anemometer, barograph, and thermograph, rigged over 
the stern. The geologist was making the best of what to him 
was an unhappy situation, but was not altogether without 
material. The pebbles found in the penguins were often of 
considerable interest, and some fragments of rock were brought 
up from the sea floor with the sounding-lead and the drag-net. 
On the 7th Wordie and Worsley found some smafl pebbles, 
a piece of moss, a perfect bivalve shell, and some dust on a 
berg fragment, and brought their treasure-trove proudly to the 
ship. Clark was using the drag-net frequently in the leads 
and secured good hauls of planMon, with occasional specimens 
of greater scientific interest. Seals were not plentiful, but our 
store of meat and blubber grew gradually. AU hands ate seal 
meat with relish and would not have cared to become dependent 
on the ship's tinned meat. We preferred the crab-eater to 
the Weddell, which is a very sluggish beast. The crab-eater 
seemed cleaner and healthier. The kiUer-whales were still with 
us. On the 8th we examined a spot where the floe-ice had 
been smashed up by a blow from beneath, delivered presum- 
ably by a large whale in search of a breathing-place. The 
39 
