usy
following the track of the evanescent rays.

Powerless, one was in the spell of an all-enfolding wonder. The vast,
solitary snow-land, cold-white under the sparkling star-gems; lustrous
in the radiance of the southern lights; furrowed beneath the icy sweep of
the wind. We had come to probe its mystery, we had hoped to reduce it
to terms of science, but there was always the "indefinable" which held
aloof, yet riveted our souls.

The aurora was always with us, and almost without exception could be
seen on a dark, driftless night. The nature of the aurora polaris has
not yet been finally demonstrated, though it is generally agreed to be
a discharge of electricity occurring in the upper, more rarefied
atmosphere. The luminous phenomena are very similar to those seen when a
current of electricity is passed through a vacuum tube.

One receives a distinct impression of nearness, watching the shimmering
edges of the "curtains" in the zenith, but all measurements indicate that
they never descend nearer than a few miles above the land-surface.

Careful records were taken to establish a relation between magnetic
storms and aurorae, and a good deal of evidence was amassed to support
the fact that auroral exhibitions correspond with periods of great
magnetic disturbance. The displays in Adelie Land were found to be more
active than those which occur in higher latitudes in the Ross Sea.

An occupation which helped to introduce variety in our life was the
digging of ice-shafts. For the purpose of making observations upon its
structure and temperature various excavations were made in the sea-ice,
in the ice of the glacier, and in that of the freshwater lakes. The work
was always popular. Even a whole day's labour with a pick and shovel at
the bottom of an ice-hole never seemed laborious. It was all so novel.

A calm morning in June, the sky is clear and the north ablaze with the
colours of sunrise--or is it sunset? The air is delicious, and a cool
waft comes down the glacier. A deep ultramarine, shading up into a soft
purple hue, blends in a colour-scheme with the lilac plateau. Two men
crunch along in spiked boots over snow mounds and polished sastrugi to
the harbour-ice. The sea to the north is glazed with freezing spicules,
and over it sweep the petrels--our only living companions of the winter.
It is all an inspiration; while hewing out chunks of ice and shovelling
them away is the acute pleasure of movement, exercise.