Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/81

useless to try and warm the place. The wind was working in through the cracks in the snow blocks which we had used for baulking outside, and there was no possibility of stopping these cracks. I got out and cut up a triangular piece outside the door so as to get the roof cloth in under the stones, and then packed it down as best I could with snow and so blocked most of the drift coming in. Bill said the next evening, 'At any rate things look better to-night—I think we reached bedrock last night'—as a matter of fact we hadn't by some long way. The igloo was naturally very cold, and it blizzed all that night, blowing 6.

The greater part of the next day the wind had fallen, and we got all the drift we could find from the last night—it wasn't much—-and packed in the sides of the igloo.]

The temperature to-day had not been below −28·3°. There had been a southerly wind all day which we had felt at all the more exposed parts of the way down to the sea ice and in the hollows under the cliffs. It gradually freshened in the afternoon and stratus came up from the south. At 8 p.m. it was blowing force 6 from the S.S.W., but the sky was clear to the N.E.

Friday, July 21, 1911.—Our first night in the hut was comfortable enough, though the breeze freshened during the night and increased to force 8, but fell to 5 in the morning. The only thing we did not quite like was the tendency the wind had to lift the canvas roof off its supporting sledge—so we piled large slabs of icy snow on the canvas top to steady it down and prevent this.

The temp. ranged from −20·4° to −23·7°, and though