d attained to a stage of complex perfection. To penetrate to
the inside hut, the stranger reverently steps through a hole in the snow
to the veranda, then by way of a vestibule with an inner and outer door
he has invaded the privacy of the work-room, from which with fear and
trembling he passes by a third door into the sanctum sanctorum. Later,
when the snow-tunnel system came into vogue, the place became another
Labyrinth of Minos.

The three doors were fitted with springs to keep them shut unless they
were jammed open for ventilation, which was at once obtained by opening
an aperture in the cooking-range flue. A current of air would then
circulate through the open doors. The roof windows were immovable and
sealed on the inside by a thick accumulation of ice. An officer of
public health, unacquainted with the climate of Adelie Land, would be
inclined to regard the absence of more adequate ventilation as a serious
omission. It would enlighten him to know that much of our spare time,
for a month after the completion of the building, was spent in plugging
off draughts which found their way through most unexpected places, urged
by a wind-pressure from without of many pounds to the square foot.

Excepting the small portion used as an entrance-porch, the verandas were
left without any better flooring than well-trodden snow. In the boarded
floor of the porch was a trap-door which led down into a shallow
cellar extending under a portion of the work-room. The cellar was a
refrigerating chamber for fresh meat and contained fifteen carcases of
mutton, besides piles of seal-meat and penguins.

In preparation for our contemplated sledging, masts, spars and
sails were fitted to some of the sledges, rations were prepared and
alterations made to harness and clothing. Soon a sledge stood packed,
ready to set out on the first fine day.

For several days in succession, about the middle of February, the
otherwise continuous wind fell off to a calm for several hours in the
evening. On those occasions Mertz gave us some fine exhibitions of
skiing, of which art he was a consummate master. Skis had been provided
for every one, in case we should have to traverse a country where the
snow lay soft and deep. From the outset, there was little chance of that
being the case in wind-scoured Adelie Land. Nevertheless, most of the
men seized the few opportunities we had to become more practiced in
their use. My final opinion, however, was that if we