es only one-eighth of an inch in thickness and a
couple of inches wide. This would sag downwards under its own weight in
a fine curve till the tip rested on the snow beneath. It is marvellous
how such a delicate structure can withstand the heavy wind.

November 27 proved a very hard day. The wind kept up sixty miles per
hour all the time, so that, after taking four hours to do four and
three-quarter miles, we were all thoroughly exhausted. It was not a
great run, but the century was hoisted--one hundred and three-quarter
miles by sledge-meter; altitude two thousand nine hundred feet. There
was a mild celebration that night over a square of butter-scotch and
half an ounce of chocolate, besides the regular hoosh and cocoa.

Next day the light was very bad and the wind fifty miles per hour.
Observations were therefore made inside the tent. Webb, Hurley and
the instrument occupied all available space, while I spent three hours
digging a shaft eight feet deep in the snow, taking temperatures every
foot. It appeared that the mean annual temperature of the snow was
approximately -16 degrees F.

The dip was 88 degrees 54'; certainly rather too large a rise from 88
degrees 20' of twenty miles back. The declination had actually changed
about 80 degrees in the last ten miles. This one-hundred-mile station
was badly disturbed. From the evidence, it is possible that a subsidiary
"pole" or area of almost vertical dip may exist close by this spot to
the west or south-west.

Going straight up wind into a "blow" which varied from forty to fifty
miles per hour, we were able to make eight miles after the previous
day's rest. At lunch a hole was dug five feet square and two feet deep.
It served three purposes. First, it gave a good shelter for a longitude
observation; secondly, with the mast, yard and floor-cloth we converted
it into a shelter snug enough to house the primus and to lunch
comfortably; and thirdly, a mound was left as a back-mark which was
picked up on the return journey.

By experience we found that a warm lunch and a rest enabled one to "peg"
along a good deal farther than would otherwise be possible.

The "scenery" in the afternoon became if possible more desolate--very
few new sastrugi, the surface appearing generally old and pitted. In
some places it was rotten and blown away, disclosing coarse granulated
substrata. At the top of one ridge the snow merged into neve split into
small crevasses, nine inches wide and