Daylight now is very short. One wonders why the Hut Point party does not come. Bowers and Cherry-Garrard have set up a thermometer screen containing maximum thermometers and thermographs on the sea floe about 3/4′ N.W. of the hut. Another smaller one is to go on top of the Ramp. They took the screen out on one of Day’s bicycle wheel carriages and found it ran very easily over the salty ice where the sledges give so much trouble. This vehicle is not easily turned, but may be very useful before there is much snowfall.

Yesterday a balloon was sent up and reached a very good height (probably 2 to 3 miles) before the instrument disengaged; the balloon went almost straight up and the silk fell in festoons over the rocky part of the Cape, affording a very difficult clue to follow; but whilst Bowers was following it, Atkinson observed the instrument fall a few hundred yards out on the Bay – it was recovered and gives the first important record of upper air temperature.

Atkinson and Crean put out the fish trap in about 3 fathoms of water off the west beach; both yesterday morning and yesterday evening when the trap was raised it contained over forty fish, whilst this morning and this evening the catches in the same spot have been from twenty to twenty-five. We had fish for breakfast this morning, but an even more satisfactory result of the catches has been revealed by Atkinson’s microscope. He had discovered quite a number of new parasites and found work to last quite a long time.

Last night it came to my turn to do night watchman again, so that I shall be glad to have a good sleep to-night.

Yesterday we had a game of football; it is pleasant to mess about, but the light is failing.
Clissold is still producing food novelties; to-night we had galantine of seal – it was excellent.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 7th, 1911 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Chapter IX: The Work and the Workers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.