can
and emergency rations, grinding biscuits, attending to personal gear and
doing odd jobs many and various.

In addition to recreations like chess, cards and dominoes, a competition
was started for each member to write a poem and short article, humorous
or otherwise, connected with the Expedition. These were all read by the
authors after dinner one evening and caused considerable amusement.
One man even preferred to sing his poem. These literary efforts were
incorporated in a small publication known as "The Glacier Tongue."

Watson and Hoadley put in a good deal of time digging their shaft in the
glacier. As a roofed shelter had been built over the top, they were able
to work in all but the very worst weather. While the rest of us were
fitting sledges on the 17th and 18th, they succeeded in getting down to
a level of twenty-one feet below the surface of the shelf-ice.

Sandow, the leader of the dogs, disappeared on the 18th. Zip, who had
been missed for two days, returned, but Sandow never came back, being
killed, doubtless, by a fall of snow from the cliffs. All along the edge
of the ice-shelf were snow cornices, some weighing hundreds of tons; and
these often broke away, collapsing with a thunderous sound. On July 31,
Harrisson and Watson had a narrow escape. After finishing their day's
work, they climbed down to the floe by a huge cornice and sloping ramp.
A few seconds later, the cornice fell and an immense mass of hard snow
crashed down, cracking the sea-ice for more than a hundred yards around.

July had been an inclement month with three really fine and eight
tolerable days. In comparison with June's, which was -14.5 degrees F.,
the mean temperature of July was high at -1.5 degrees F. and the early
half of August was little better.

Sunday August 11 was rather an eventful day. Dovers and I went out
in the wind to attend to the dogs and clear the chimney and, upon
our return, found the others just recovering from rather an exciting
accident. Jones had been charging the acetylene generators and by some
means one of them caught fire. For a while there was the danger of a
general conflagration and explosion, as the gas-tank was floating in
kerosene. Throwing water over everything would have made matters
worse, so blankets were used to smother the flames. As this failed to
extinguish them, the whole plant was pulled down and carried into the
tunnel, where the fire was at last put out. The damage amounted to two