have a supply in
readiness for eating. It was not till 2 P.M. that the second lot was
finished. The task was very trying, for I had to sit up on the floor of
the tent for hours in a cramped position, continually attending to the
cooker, while Mertz in his Sleeping-bag was just accommodated within the
limited space which remained. The tent was too small either to lie down
during the operation or to sit up comfortably on a sleeping-bag.

At 9.30 P.M. Mertz rose to take a turn at the cooking, and at 11 P.M. I
joined him at "breakfast."

At this time a kind of daily cycle was noted in the weather. It was
always calmest between 4 P.M. and 6 P.M. During the evening hours the
wind increased until it reached a maximum between four and six o'clock
next morning, after which it fell off gradually.

We were away at 2.30 A.M. on the 29th in a thirty-mile wind which raised
a light drift. The sail was found to be of great assistance over a
surface which rose in terraces of fifty to one hundred feet in height,
occurring every one to one and a half miles. This march lasted for six
hours, during which we covered seven miles five hundred and twenty-eight
yards.

On December 30 the ascent continued and the wind was still in the
"thirties." After several hours we overtopped the last terrace and stood
on flat ground--the crest of a ridge.

Tramping over the plateau, where reigns the desolation of the outer
worlds, in solitude at once ominous and weird, one is free to roam in
imagination through the wide realm of human experience to the bounds of
the great Beyond. One is in the midst of infinities--the infinity of the
dazzling white plateau, the infinity of the dome above, the infinity of
the time past since these things had birth, and the infinity of the time
to come before they shall have fulfilled the Purpose for which they were
created. We, in the midst of the illimitable, could feel with Marcus
Aurelius that "Of life, the time is a point."

By 9 A.M. we had accomplished a splendid march of fifteen miles three
hundred and fifty yards, but the satisfaction we should have felt at
making such an inroad on the huge task before us was damped by the fact
that I suddenly became aware that Mertz was not as cheerful as usual.
I was at a loss to know the reason, for he was always such a bright and
companionable fellow.

At 10.15 P.M. the sky had become overcast, snow was falling and a strong
wind was blowing. We decided to wait for better