he morning of the
29th, to get several loads of forty pounds over the first steep rise
of the glacier to Webb's magnetic ice-cave against a "blow" of seventy
miles per hour.

August 1 was marked by a hurricane, and the celebration in the evening
of Swiss Confederation Day. Mertz was the hero of the occasion as well
as cook and master of ceremonies. From a mysterious box he produced all
kinds of quaint conserves, and the menu soared to unknown delicacies
like "Potage a la Suisse, Choucroute garnie aux saucission de Berne,
Puree de foie gras trufee, and Leckerley de Bale." Hanging above the
buoyant assembly were the Cross of Helvetia and the Jack of Britannia.

It was not till August 8 that there was any indication of improvement.
The sun was bright, the barometer was steady, the wind fell to forty
miles an hour and a fine radiant of cirrus cloud spread out fan-like
from the north; the first from that direction for months.

On the afternoon of August 9, Ninnis, Madigan and I set off with a team
of dogs against a forty-mile wind in an attempt to push to the south.
Darkness was coming on when we sighted a bamboo pole, three and a
quarter miles south of the Hut, and camped. The dogs pulled well up the
steep slopes, but the feet of several were cut by the sharp edges of the
wind-worn ice.

Very heavy gusts swept by in the early morning hours of the 10th. and
when the time came to get out of our sleeping-bags it fell calm for a
short space. We had taken down the tent and had started to move away,
when back rushed the wind, strong and steady. Still we pushed on with
our willing team and by a piece of good fortune reached the sledge which
had been abandoned in the autumn, five and a half miles from the Hut,
and of whose fate in the winter's hurricanes we had made all kind of
conjectures.

On its leeward side there was a ramp of very hard snow slanting down
from the top of the sledge. To windward the low pedestal of ice on
which the runners stood was hollowed out, and the wood of the rails and
cross-bars, the leather straps, tent, floor-cloth and canvas food-tanks
were all bleached and worn. The aluminium cooker, strapped on its box,
was brightly polished on the weather side by the dry, drifting snow
impelled by the furious winds. A thermograph, left behind in the autumn,
was found to be intact and indicated a temperature of -35 degrees
F.--the lowest for the eight days during which it had run. The remains
of Madigan's plum