ing and waning in density; a slight southerly
breeze sprang up, cumulo-stratus cloud formed overhead with a rather
windy appearance (radial E. and W.).

At the first halt (5 miles S.) Atkinson called my attention to a
curious phenomenon. Across the face of the low sun the strata of
mist could be seen rising rapidly, lines of shadow appearing to be
travelling upwards against the light. Presumably this was sun-warmed
air. The accumulation of this gradually overspread the sky with a
layer of stratus, which, however, never seemed to be very dense;
the position of the sun could always be seen. Two or three hours
later the wind steadily increased in force, with the usual gusty
characteristic. A noticeable fact was that the sky was clear and
blue above the southern horizon, and the clouds seemed to be closing
down on this from time to time. At intervals since, it has lifted,
showing quite an expanse of clear sky. The general appearance is
that the disturbance is created by conditions about us, and is
rather spreading from north to south than coming up with the wind,
and this seems rather typical. On the other hand, this is not a bad
snow blizzard; although the wind holds, the land, obscured last night,
is now quite clear and the Bluff has no mantle.

[Added in another hand, probably dictated:

Before we felt any air moving, during our A.M. march and the greater
part of the previous march, there was dark cloud over Ross Sea off
the Barrier, which continued over the Eastern Barrier to the S.E. as
a heavy stratus, with here and there an appearance of wind. At the
same time, due south of us, dark lines of stratus were appearing,
miraged on the horizon, and while we were camping after our A.M. march,
these were obscured by banks of white fog (or drift?), and the wind
increasing the whole time. My general impression was that the storm
came up from the south, but swept round over the eastern part of the
Barrier before it became general and included the western part where
we were.]

_Tuesday, November_ 7.--Camp 4. The blizzard has continued
throughout last night and up to this time of writing, late in
the afternoon. Starting mildly, with broken clouds, little snow,
and gleams of sunshine, it grew in intensity until this forenoon,
when there was heavy snowfall and the sky overspread with low nimbus
cloud. In the early afternoon the snow and wind took off, and the
wind is dropping now, but the sky looks very lowering and unsettled.