ort they can
to welcome those who follow.

_Monday, January_ 16.--We slept badly till the morning and,
therefore, late. After breakfast we went up the hills; there was a
keen S.E. breeze, but the sun shone and my spirits revived. There was
very much less snow everywhere than I had ever seen. The ski run was
completely cut through in two places, the Gap and Observation Hill
almost bare, a great bare slope on the side of Arrival Heights, and
on top of Crater Heights an immense bare table-land. How delighted
we should have been to see it like this in the old days! The pond was
thawed and the #confervae green in fresh water. The hole which we had
dug in the mound in the pond was still there, as Meares discovered
by falling into it up to his waist and getting very wet.

On the south side we could see the Pressure Ridges beyond Pram Point
as of old--Horseshoe Bay calm and unpressed--the sea ice pressed
on Pram Point and along the Gap ice foot, and a new ridge running
around C. Armitage about 2 miles off. We saw Ferrar's old thermometer
tubes standing out of the snow slope as though they'd been placed
yesterday. Vince's cross might have been placed yesterday--the paint
was so fresh and the inscription so legible.

The flagstaff was down, the stays having carried away, but in five
minutes it could be put up again. We loaded some asbestos sheeting
from the old magnetic hut on our sledges for Simpson, and by standing
1/4 mile off Hut Point got a clear run to Glacier Tongue. I had hoped
to get across the wide crack by going west, but found that it ran for
a great distance and had to get on the glacier at the place at which
we had left it. We got to camp about teatime. I found our larder
in the grotto completed and stored with mutton and penguins--the
temperature inside has never been above 27 deg., so that it ought to be
a fine place for our winter store. Simpson has almost completed the
differential magnetic cave next door. The hut stove was burning well
and the interior of the building already warm and homelike--a day or
two and we shall be occupying it.

I took Ponting out to see some interesting thaw effects on the ice
cliffs east of the Camp. I noted that the ice layers were pressing
out over thin dirt bands as though the latter made the cleavage lines
over which the strata slid.

It has occurred to me that although the sea ice may freeze in our bays
early in March it will be a difficult thing to get ponies across it
o