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backs. I remained at the hut with Abbott, who was laid up with water on the knee, and I was kept busy by the combined duties of cook and bottle-washer, meteorologist, etc.

August 10.—Levick's party returned at 4 p.m., bringing in all our equipment. They had had overcast weather and high temperatures, and Levick had only been able to get six photographs, which were not good.

August 16.—We woke up this morning to find the ice had gone out in the night. This was a bitter disappointment and a blow to all my hopes of a western journey over the sea ice—the only comfort is that it came when it did, as had it come a fortnight later, we should have gone out with it. Yesterday a strong blizzard began to blow from the S.E., with lots of drift, and the gale continued very hard all day. About 8 p.m. it lulled a little, only to come on again with redoubled violence between 10 p.m. and midnight.

The squalls were terrific, harder than anything we had yet experienced, shaking the hut so that several things fell off the shelves. The roof of our store house was torn off, and the two gable ends which took all six of us to lift were slung about 20 yards away.

This morning the water extended from our beach to the coast of the mainland a little west of the Dugdale Glacier, and as far as we could see to the westward.

Three Antarctic and two snowy petrels, attracted no doubt by the open water, were flying about the beach.

On the 17th, Levick, Priestley, and I climbed Cape Adare to see the ice conditions in the Ross Sea after the