Priestly took charge of the meteorology for this station in addition to his own special subjects.  Abbott was the carpenter, Browning the acetylene gas-man, and Dickason the cook and baker.  With these ends in view Mr. Archer had had Dickason in the galley on board during the outward voyage.

This hut of theirs was stayed down with wire hawser on account of the gales recorded by the “Southern Cross” Expedition.

The company’s alarm clock, an invention of Browning’s, deserves the description taken from Campbell’s diary:  “We have felt the want of an alarm clock, as in such a small party it seems undesirable that any one should have to remain awake the whole night to take the 2-4 a.m. observations, but Browning has come to the rescue with a wonderful contrivance.  It consists of a bamboo spring held back by a piece of cotton rove through a candle which is marked off in hours.  The other end of the cotton is attached to the trigger of the gramophone, and whoever takes the midnight observations winds the gramophone, ‘sets’ the cotton, lights the candle, and turns the trumpet towards Priestley, who has to turn out for the 2 a.m.  At ten minutes to two the candle burns the thread and releases the bamboo spring, which being attached to the trigger, starts the gramophone in the sleeper’s ear, and he turns out and stops the tune; this arrangement works beautifully and can be timed to five minutes.”

Curiously enough Campbell’s men sustained far more frostbites than we at Cape Evans did:  in all my four Antarctic voyages I have never been frost-bitten beyond a touch here and there on the finger-tips working instruments, yet I occasionally now get chilblains in an ordinary English winter.

A short expedition was made by Campbell, Priestley, and Abbott on July 29, to determine the travelling condition and find out what sort of surface would be met with for coastwise sledging to come when the season opened.  Speed worked out at little over seven miles a day on the outward trip to Duke of York Island.  The salt-flecked, smooth ice was heavier going than much rougher stuff where pressure obtained.

On August 8 a small two-day geological expedition was undertaken, and prepared to start on a more extensive journey westward; the party were disappointed to find the ice had all blown out and left them water-girdled; a blizzard of unusual violence followed the exit of ice, and the storehouse roof was torn away.

It must have been a severe blow to the energetic Campbell that he was denied serious sledging while quartered at Cape Adare.  Minor expeditions were undertaken and some useful information gleaned, but unsafe ice and unsatisfactory conditions all round prevented any of the really long journeys Campbell would otherwise have made.

The “Terra Nova” was sighted on January 4, and in two days Campbell, his party and belongings were safely on board and proceeding along the coast eager to try their fortunes farther South, Evans Coves in Latitude 75 degrees being the next objective.  The ship was placed alongside the Piedmont here on January 8, near a big moraine close north of the Coves.  A depot of provisions was established, and an arrangement was come to between Pennell and Campbell that the latter should be picked up on February 18.  Reference to the sketch charts will show the part of Victoria Land in which Campbell was now working.