Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/34

crusty rough sea ice, salt to the taste still; or it had an inch or two of white crusty snow on the rough, darker sea ice, alternating with broader drifts of hard windswept snow, making long, low mounds over which the sledges ran easily. These seemed here to result from an E.N.E. wind coming from the neck on the promontory, the wind which we caught just after passing the Glacier Tongue, and again off the ridge along Castle Rock, where it blew to force 5, up to 8 p.m., when we camped for the night, having made 9¾ miles from Cape Evans. [Setting this tent in dark is difficult, but not too bad even in that wind. Bill warns me seriously against running risk of frostbite. I find no specs. very hard in setting tent—must be sure not to let any inability arising from this get on my nerves—41 more days we hope.] Castle Rock was here nearly abeam. The wind dropped soon after and we had a clear starlit night.

The temperature for the day ranged from −14·5° to −15°, and the minimum temperature for the night was −26°.

Wednesday, June 28, 1911.—Turned out at 7.30 a.m. The going became very heavy with the two sledges, and we made very little more than a mile an hour over a surface which was all rough, rubbly salt sea ice with no snow on it. Bowers thinks that we were on definitely younger ice than that which we were on farther out yesterday and on our return. He thinks there was a large open lead along the shore which was the last to freeze up, and that this resulted from off-shore winds.

We reached Hut Point at 1.30 p.m., having crossed