. It was rock without a doubt, and there was no one to dispute
it with us. While speculating wildly as to its distance, we came
unexpectedly to the summit of the hill.

The wind had subsided, the sky was clear and the sun stood low in the
south-west. Our view had widened to a noble outlook. The sea, a delicate
turquoise-blue, lay in the foreground of the low, white, northern
ice-cliffs. Away to the east was the dim suggestion of land across the
bed of the glacier, about which circled the southerly highlands of the
plateau, buried at times in the haze of distance. Due south, twenty
miles away, projecting from the glacier, was another island of rock.
The nunatak first seen, not many miles to the south-west, was a snowy
mountain streaked with sprouting rock, rising solitary in an indentation
of the land. We honoured our Ship by calling it Aurora Peak, while our
camp stood on what was thenceforth to be Mount Murchison.

It was obvious that this was the place for our first depot. I had
decided, too, to make it the first magnetic station and the point from
which to visit and explore Aurora Peak. None of us made any demur over
a short halt. Correll had strained his back during the day from pulling
too hard, and was troubled with a bleeding nose. My face was very sore
from sunburn, with one eye swollen and almost closed, and McLean's eyes
had not yet recovered from their first attack of snow-blindness.

November 21 was a day in camp. Most of the morning I spent trying, with
Correll's help, to get the declination needle to set. Its pivot had been
destroyed in transit and Correll had replaced it by a gramophone needle,
which was found too insensitive. There was nothing to do but use the
three-inch theodolite, which, setting to one degree, would give a good
result, with a mean of thirty-two settings, for a region with such
variable magnetic declination. A latitude "shot" was made at noon,
and in the afternoon I took a set of dip determinations. These, with a
panoramic sketch from the camp, a round of angles to conspicuous points
and an observation at 5.30 P.M. for time and azimuth completed the day's
work. Correll did the recording.

Meanwhile, McLean had built an eight-feet snow mound, erected a depot
flag upon it and taken several photographs.

The next day was devoted to an excursion to Aurora Peak. The weather
was, to our surprise, quite clear and calm. Armed with the paraphernalia
for a day's tour, we set off down the slo