Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/153

Monday, March 6.—We set to work on the coal and stores and carried everything up to the hut, stacking them on the weather side.

We have now settled down into a regular routine; we turn out at 7 a.m., have breakfast at 8 a.m., dinner at 1 p.m., and supper at 7 p.m.

The weather is fairly fine, the temperature keeping between 18° and 20° F., but with a cold east wind. Loose pack sets into the bay with the flood and drifts out with the ebb tide.

March 9.—We had a most magnificent surf breaking on the western shore over a fringe of grounded pack, throwing spray and bits of ice 30 or 40 feet into the air.

On the 11th and 12th we had our first blizzard with heavy drift, and the hut shook a little, but nothing gave way. The remaining penguins began gathering in parties on the sea shore, which looked as though they were going to leave us for the winter; we had now 120 penguins and 4 seals in the ice-house, which should be sufficient for the winter. All manner of bergs drift past our beach, and it is interesting to note the difference in the buoyancy between the two types of berg—the glacier-formed iceberg and the barrier berg composed chiefly or wholly of névé. In one instance a glacier berg about 70 or 80 feet high grounded off our beach in 36 fathoms, and a few days after a barrier berg of similar height drifted past well inside the former.

March 19.—A week of snow and drift, with very little sun.

This morning about seven o'clock it came on to blow