Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/55

to get once more into the safety limit of land ice on the flat, which seemed very narrow in the dark.

We camped about 8 p.m. Min. temp. for last night was −22·2° and by the evening the temperature had dropped to −28·6°, but there was still a lot of cirro-stratus about, which the blizzard doesn't seem to have cleared away. There were also windy-looking clouds about, with lunar coronæ and occasional halos. During the daylight there was a very striking rosy glow all over the northern sky even up to the summit of Mt. Terror. The whole sky was a rich rosy purple, due to a thin cirro-stratus or alti-stratus I think.

The new surface was very flat, and very windswept, but not cut into sastrugi at all. Most of the new areas are low, flat, soft drifts, or low mounds, slightly rounded at the top and of large area. The softer areas have still the shaved or planed-off appearance with none but the horse-hoof shaped impressions on the surface.

Friday, July 14, 1911.—We made five and one-third miles in all to-day by a good morning march, but an afternoon march cut short by a complete loss of all light. After lunch we once more found we had overdone our easting and had run again into one of the higher pressure ridges. We turned north from it and encountered more crevasses, but by zig-zagging and sounding in advance on a longer trace we succeeded in getting clear of them. We had the Knoll before us at the time while there was light enough to see it. Our moonlight was, however, all but spent, so much of it had been lost in fogs and blizzard and bad weather. We were making for rather east of the