The weather has the appearance of breaking.  We had a strongish northerly breeze at midday with snow and hail storms, and now the wind has turned to the south and the sky is overcast with threatenings of a blizzard.  The floe is cracking and pieces may go out—­if so the ship will have to get up steam again.  The hail at noon made the surface very bad for some hours; the men and dogs felt it most.

The dogs are going well, but Meares says he thinks that several are suffering from snow blindness.  I never knew a dog get it before, but Day says that Shackleton’s dogs suffered from it.  The post-mortem on last night’s death revealed nothing to account for it.  Atkinson didn’t examine the brain, and wonders if the cause lay there.  There is a certain satisfaction in believing that there is nothing infectious.

Wednesday, January ll.—­A week here to-day—­it seems quite a month, so much has been crammed into a short space of time.

The threatened blizzard materialised at about four o’clock this morning.  The wind increased to force six or seven at the ship, and continued to blow, with drift, throughout the forenoon.

Campbell and his sledging party arrived at the Camp at 8.0 A.M. bringing a small load:  there seemed little object, but I suppose they like the experience of a march in the blizzard.  They started to go back, but the ship being blotted out, turned and gave us their company at breakfast.  The day was altogether too bad for outside work, so we turned our attention to the hut interior, with the result that to-night all the matchboarding is completed.  The floor linoleum is the only thing that remains to be put down; outside, the roof and ends have to be finished.  Then there are several days of odd jobs for the carpenter, and all will be finished.  It is a first-rate building in an extraordinarily sheltered spot; whilst the wind was raging at the ship this morning we enjoyed comparative peace.  Campbell says there was an extraordinary change as he approached the beach.

I sent two or three people to dig into the hard snow drift behind the camp; they got into solid ice immediately, became interested in the job, and have begun the making of a cave which is to be our larder.  Already they have tunnelled 6 or 8 feet in and have begun side channels.  In a few days they will have made quite a spacious apartment—­an ideal place to keep our meat store.  We had been speculating as to the origin of this solid drift and attached great antiquity to it, but the diggers came to a patch of earth with skua feathers, which rather knocks our theories on the head.

The wind began to drop at midday, and after lunch I went to the ship.  I was very glad to learn that she can hold steam at two hours’ notice on an expenditure of 13 cwt.  The ice anchors had held well during the blow.

As far as I can see the open water extends to an east and west line which is a little short of the glacier tongue.