sisted by a good
team of dogs.

Aladdin's Cave was much the same as we had left it in the previous
February, except that a fine crop of delicate ice-crystals had formed on
its walls. We carried with us a small home-made wireless receiving set,
and arrangements were made with Bickerton and Bage to call at certain
hours. As an "aerial" a couple of lengths of copper wire were run out
on the surface of the ice. At the first "call" Madigan heard the signals
strongly and distinctly, but beyond five and a half miles nothing more
was received.

Resuming the journey on the following day, we made a direct course for
Madigan Nunatak and then steered southeast for Mount Murchison, pitching
camp at its summit on the night of November 28.

On the 29th Madigan and Hodgeman made a descent into the valley, on
whose southern side rose Aurora Peak. The former slid away on skis and
had a fine run to the bottom, while Hodgeman followed on the sledge
drawn by Monkey and D'Urville, braking with an ice-axe driven into
the snow between the cross-bars. Their object was to find the depot of
instruments and rocks which the Eastern Coastal Party were forced to
abandon when fifty-three miles from home. They were unsuccessful in
the search, as an enormous amount of snow had fallen on the old surface
during the interval of almost a year. Indeed, on the knoll crowning
Mount Murchison, where a ten-foot flagpole had been left, snow had
accumulated so that less than a foot of the top of the pole was
showing. Nine feet of hard compressed snow scarcely marked by one's
footsteps--the contribution of one year! To such a high isolated spot
drift-snow would not reach, so that the annual snowfall must greatly
exceed the residuum found by us, for the effect of the prevailing winds
would be to reduce it greatly.

On the third day after leaving Mount Murchison for the Southern
Party's depot, sixty-seven miles south of Winter Quarters, driving snow
commenced, and a blizzard kept us in camp for seven days. When the drift
at last moderated we were forced to make direct for the Hut, as the time
when the Ship was expected to arrive had passed.

Descending the long blue slopes of the glacier just before midnight
on December 12, we became aware of a faint black bar on the seaward
horizon. Soon a black speck had moved to the windward side of the
bar--and it could be nothing but the smoke of the 'Aurora'. The moment
of which we had dreamt for months had assuredly come