. and the glacier is firing off like artillery--appears
to send up great jets of imprisoned air."

During the march Aurora Peak showed up to the west, about twenty miles
away, across the Mertz Glacier. I felt happy at thus fixing my position,
and at the sight of the far plateau which led onwards to Winter
Quarters.

The glacier was the next obstacle to advance. To the south-west it
descended from the plateau in immense broken folds. Pressing northward
it was torn into the jumbled crush of serac-ice, sparkling beneath
an unclouded sun. The idea of diverging to the west and rounding the
ice-falls occurred to me, but the detours involved other difficulties,
so I strove to pick out the best track across the valley.

A high wind which blew on the morning of the 14th diminished in strength
by noon and allowed me to get away. The sun was so warm that the
puckered ice underfoot was covered with a film of water and in some
places small trickles ran away to disappear into crevasses.

Though the course was downhill to the Mertz Glacier, the sledge required
a good deal of pulling owing to the wet runners. At 9 P.M., after
travelling five miles, I pitched camp in the bed of the glacier.

Between 9.30 P.M. and 11 P.M. the "cannonading" heard on the previous
night recommenced. The sounds, resembling the explosions of heavy guns,
usually started higher up the glacier and ended down towards the sea.
When I first heard them, I put my head outside the tent to see what was
going on. The reports came at random from every direction, but there was
no visible evidence as to how they were produced. Without a doubt they
had something to do with the re-freezing and splitting of the ice owing
to the evening chill; but the sounds seemed far too loud to be explained
by this cause alone.

January 15--the date on which all the summer sledging parties were due
at the Hut! It was overcast and snowing early in the day, and in a few
hours the sun broke out and shone warmly. The travelling was so heavy
over a soft snowy surface, partly melting, that I gave up, after one
mile, and camped.

At 7 P.M. the surface had not improved, the sky was thickly obscured and
snow fell. At 10 P.M. the snow was coming down heavily, and, since there
were many crevasses in the vicinity, I resolved to wait.

On the 16th at 2 A.M. the snow was as thick as ever, but at 5 A.M. the
atmosphere lightened and the sun appeared.

Without delay I broke camp. A favourable bree