I9ii] 
RETURN : PROSPECTS OF SEA ICE 
123 
C. Armitagc about 2 miles off. Wc saw Ferrar's old 
thermometer tubes standing out of the snow slope as 
though they'd been placed yesterday. Vince's cross might 
have been placed yesterday — the paint was so fresh and 
the inscription so legible. 
The flagstaff was down, the stays having carried away, 
but in five minutes it could be put up again. We loaded 
some asbestos sheeting from the old magnetic hut on our 
sledges for Simpson, and by standing £ mile off Hut Point 
got a clear run to Glacier Tongue. I had hoped to get 
across the wide crack by going west, but found that it ran 
for a great distance and had to get on the glacier at the 
place at which we had left it. Wc got to camp about tea- 
time. I found our larder in the grotto completed and 
stored with mutton and penguins — the temperature inside 
has never been above 27 0 , so that it ought to be a fine place 
for our winter store. Simpson has almost completed the 
differential magnetic cave next door. The hut stove 
was burning well and the interior of the building already 
warm and homelike — a day or two and we shall be 
occupying it. 
I took Ponting out to see some interesting thaw effects 
on the ice cliffs east of the Camp. I noted that the 
ice layers were pressing out over thin dirt bands as- 
though the latter made the cleavage lines over which 
the strata slid. 
It has occurred to me that although the sea ice may 
freeze in our bays early in March it will be a difficult thing 
to get ponies across it owing to the cliff edges at the side. 
Wc must therefore be prepared to be cut off for a longer 
