will be great fun sailing the sledges back before it. As far as weather
is concerned we have had remarkably fine days up here on this limitless
snow plain. I should like to know what there is beneath us--mountains and
valleys simply levelled off to the top with ice? We constantly come
across disturbances which I can only imagine are caused by the peaks of
ice-covered mountains, and no doubt some of the ice-falls and crevasses
are accountable to the same source. Our coming west has not cleared them,
as we have seen more disturbances to the west, many miles away. However,
they are getting less and less, and are now nothing but featureless rises
with apparently no crevasses. Our first two hours' pulling to-day....

* * * * *

_From Lashly's Diary_

December 29, 1911. A nasty head wind all day and low drift which
accumulates in patches and makes it the deuce of a job to get along. We
have got to put in long days to do the distance.

December 30, 1911. Sledges going heavy, surface and wind the same as
yesterday. We depoted our ski to-night, that is the party returning
_to-morrow_, when we march in the forenoon and camp to change our sledge
runners into 10 feet. Done 11 miles but a bit stiff.

December 31, 1911. After doing 7 miles we camped and done the sledges
which took us until 11 P.M., and we had to dig out to get them done by
then, made a depot and saw the old year out and the new year in. We all
wondered where we should be next New Year. It was so still and quiet; the
weather was dull and overcast all night, in fact we have not seen much of
the sun lately; it would be so nice if we could sometimes get a glimpse
of it, the sun is always cheering.

January 1912. _New Year's Day._ We pushed on as usual, but were rather
late getting away, 9.10--something unusual for us to be as late. The
temperature and wind is still very troublesome. We are now ahead of
Shackleton's dates and have passed the 87th parallel, so it is only 180
miles to the Pole.

January 2, 1912. The dragging is still very heavy and we seem to be
always climbing higher. We are now over 10,000 feet above sea level. It
makes it bad as we don't get enough heat in our food and the tea is not
strong enough to run out of the pot. Everything gets cold so quickly, the
water boils at about 196 deg. F.

* * * * *

Scott's own diary of this first fortnight on the plateau shows the
immense shove of