Bowers did not use an eiderdown bag throughout, and in some miraculous manner he managed to turn his reindeer bag two or three times during the journey.  The following are the weights of sleeping-bags before and after: 

                                    Starting Weight.  Final Weight. 
    Wilson, reindeer and eiderdown 17 40
    Bowers, reindeer only 17 33
    C.-Garrard, reindeer and
    eiderdown 18 45

This gives some idea of the ice collected.

The double tent has been reported an immense success.  It weighed about 35 lbs. at starting and 60 lbs. on return:  the ice mainly collected on the inner tent.

The crampons are much praised, except by Bowers, who has an eccentric attachment to our older form.  We have discovered a hundred details of clothes, mits, and footwear:  there seems no solution to the difficulties which attach to these articles in extreme cold; all Wilson can say, speaking broadly, is ‘the gear is excellent, excellent.’  One continues to wonder as to the possibilities of fur clothing as made by the Esquimaux, with a sneaking feeling that it may outclass our more civilised garb.  For us this can only be a matter of speculation, as it would have been quite impossible to have obtained such articles.  With the exception of this radically different alternative, I feel sure we are as near perfection as experience can direct.

At any rate we can now hold that our system of clothing has come through a severer test than any other, fur included.

Effect of Journey.—­Wilson lost 3 1/2 lbs.; Bowers lost 2 1/2 lbs.; C.-Garrard lost 1 lb.

CHAPTER XIII

The Return of the Sun

Thursday, August 3.—­We have had such a long spell of fine clear weather without especially low temperatures that one can scarcely grumble at the change which we found on waking this morning, when the canopy of stratus cloud spread over us and the wind came in those fitful gusts which promise a gale.  All day the wind force has been slowly increasing, whilst the temperature has risen to -15 deg., but there is no snow falling or drifting as yet.  The steam cloud of Erebus was streaming away to the N.W. this morning; now it is hidden.

Our expectations have been falsified so often that we feel ourselves wholly incapable as weather prophets—­therefore one scarce dares to predict a blizzard even in face of such disturbance as exists.  A paper handed to Simpson by David, [28] and purporting to contain a description of approaching signs, together with the cause and effect of our blizzards, proves equally hopeless.  We have not obtained a single scrap of evidence to verify its statements, and a great number of our observations definitely contradict them.  The plain fact is that no two of our storms have been heralded by the same signs.