is wonderful; in spite of my protest
he _would_ take sights after we had camped to-night, after marching in
the soft snow all day when we have been comparatively restful on
ski."[299] On January 14, Wilson wrote: "A very cold grey thick day with
a persistent breeze from the S.S.E. which we all felt considerably, but
temperature was only -18 deg. at lunch and -15 deg. in the evening. Now just over
40 miles from the Pole." Scott wrote the same day: "Again we noticed the
cold; at lunch to-day all our feet were cold but this was mainly due to
the bald state of our finnesko. I put some grease under the bare skin and
found it make all the difference. Oates seems to be feeling the cold and
fatigue more than the rest of us, but we are all very fit." And on
January 15, lunch: "We were all pretty done at camping."[300] And Wilson:
"We made a depot [The Last Depot] of provisions at lunch time and went on
for our last lap with nine days' provision. We went much more easily in
the afternoon, and on till 7.30 P.M. The surface was a funny mixture of
smooth snow and sudden patches of sastrugi, and we occasionally appear to
be on a very gradual down gradient and on a slope down from the west to
east." In the light of what happened afterwards I believe that the party
was not as fit at this time as might have been expected ten days before,
and that this was partly the reason why they felt the cold and found the
pulling so hard. The immediate test was the bad surface, and this was the
result of the crystals which covered the ground.
Simpson has worked out[301] that there is an almost constant pressure
gradient driving the air on the plateau northwards parallel to the 146 deg.
E. meridian, and parallel also to the probable edge of the plateau. The
mean velocity for the months of this December and January was about 11
miles an hour. During this plateau journey Scott logged wind force 5 and
over on 23 occasions, and this wind was in their faces from the Beardmore
to the Pole, and at their backs as they returned. A low temperature when
it is calm is paradise compared to a higher temperature with a wind, and
it is this constant pitiless wind, combined with the altitude and low
temperatures, which has made travelling on the Antarctic plateau so
difficult.
While the mean velocity of wind during the two midsummer months seems to
be fairly constant, there is a very rapid fall of temperature in
January. The mean actual temperature found on the pla
|