MISHAP TO A WATCH 
537 
very annoying thing has happened. Bowers' watch has 
suddenly dropped 26 minutes ; it may have stopped from 
being frozen outside his pocket, or he may have inadver- 
tently touched the hands. Any way it makes one more 
chary of leaving stores on this great plain, especially as 
the blizzard tended to drift up our tracks. We could 
only just see the back track when we started, but the 
light was extremely poor. 
Wednesday , January 10. — Camp 62. T. -11°. Last 
depot 88°29 / S.; 159 0 33' E. ; Var. 180 0 . Terrible hard 
march in the morning; only covered 5*1 miles (geo.). 
Decided to leave depot at lunch camp. Built cairn and 
left one week's food together with sundry articles of 
clothing. We arc down as close as we can go in the latter. 
We go forward with eighteen days' food. Yesterday I 
should have said certain to sec us through, but now 
the surface is beyond words, and if it continues we 
shall have the greatest difficulty to keep our march long 
enough. The surface is quite covered with sandy snow, 
and when the sun shines it is terrible. During the early 
part of the afternoon it was overcast, and we started 
our lightened sledge with a good swing, but during the 
last two hours the sun cast shadows again, and the 
work was distressingly hard. We have covered only 
io'8 miles (geo.). 
Only 85 miles (geog.) from the Pole, but it's going to be a 
stiff pull both ways apparently ; still we do make progress, 
which is something. To-night the sky is overcast, the 
temperature (-11°) much higher than I anticipated; it 
is very difficult to imagine what is happening to the 
