ng stillness vast in its madd'ning lust.

Lotus-floe 'neath the Barrier brink,
Starting sheer--a marble blink-
Pelting shafts from the show'ring arrow-blast
Strike--ill the blackened flood seethe riven past.

Glow of the vibrant, yellow west
Pallid fades in the dread unrest.
Low'ring shades through the fury-stricken night
Rack the screaming void in shudd'ring might.

Requiem peace from the hinter-snows
Soft as river music flows.
Dawn in a flushing glamour tints the sea;
Serene her thrill of rhythmic ecstasy.

Sledging was out of the question. Indeed, we recognized how fortunate we
were not to have pushed farther south in March. Had we advanced, it is
more than likely that provisions would have been exhausted before we
could have located the Hut in the sea of drift. Our hopes were now
centred on midwinter calms.

Looking through my diary, I notice that on March 24, "we experienced
a rise in spirits because of the improved weather." I find the average
velocity of the wind for that day to have been forty-five miles per
hour, corresponding to a "strong gale" on the Beaufort scale. This tells
its own story.

When the high wind blew off shore, there was no backswell, on account of
the pack-ice to the north quelling the sea. The arrival of a true ocean
swell meant that the pack had been dispersed. On March 24 such appears
to have been the case, for then, during the day, a big northerly swell
set in, dashing over the ice-foot and scattering seaweed on the rocks.

After the equinox, the temperatures remained in the vicinity of zero,
Fahrenheit. The penguins took to the sea, and, save for the glimpse of
an occasional petrel on the wing, the landscape was desolate.

It was high time that our programme of construction was completed, but,
however much we tried, it was impossible to do a great deal in winds
exceeding fifty miles an hour. By taking advantage of days freest from
drift, the exterior of the Hangar was completed by April 6. After the
air-tractor sledge had been moved inside, the snow was piled so high
on the leeward face, that the shelter became naturally blocked with a
rampart of snow which served admirably in place of the wall of tarpaulin
which we originally intended to use.

Bickerton could now proceed at leisure to make any necessary
alterations. The Hangar was also used as a store for many articles which
had been crowded into odd corners or rescued from th