In 81deg.  S. we laid down a depot consisting of fourteen cases of dogs’ pemmican —­ 1,234 pounds.  For marking this depot we had no bamboo poles, so there was nothing to be done but to break up some cases and use the pieces as marks; this was, at any rate, better than nothing.  Personally, I considered these pieces of wood, 2 feet high, good enough, considering the amount of precipitation I had remarked since our arrival in these regions.  The precipitation we had observed was very slight, considering the time of year —­ spring and summer.  If, then, the snowfall was so inconsiderable at this time of the year and along the edge of the Barrier, what might it not be in autumn and winter in the interior?  As I have said, something was better than nothing, and Bjaaland, Hassel, and Stubberud, who were to return to Lindstrom’s flesh-pots on the following day, were given the task of setting up these marks.  As with the former depot, this one was marked for nine kilometres on each side from east to west.  So that we might know where the depot was, in case we should come upon one of these marks in a fog, all those on the east were marked with a little cut of an axe.  I must confess they looked insignificant, these little bits of wood that were soon lost to sight on the boundless plain, and the idea that they held the key of the castle where the fair one slept made me smile.  They looked altogether too inconsiderable for such an honour.  Meanwhile, we others, who were to go on to the south, took it easy.  The rest was good for the dogs especially, though the cold prevented their enjoying it as they should have done.

At eight o’clock next morning we parted company with the three who went north.  I had to send home one of my dogs, Odin, who had got an ugly raw place —­ I was using Greenland harness on him —­ and I went on with five dogs.  These were very thin, and apparently worn out; but in any case we had to reach 82deg.  S. before we gave up.  I had had some hope that we might have got to 83deg., but it began to look as if we had a poor chance of that.  After 81deg.  S. the Barrier began to take on a slightly different appearance instead of the absolutely flat surface, we saw on the first day a good many small formations of the shape of haycocks.  At that time we did not pay much attention to these apparently insignificant irregularities, but later on we learned to keep our eyes open and our feet active when passing in their vicinity.  On this first day southward from 81deg.  S. we noticed nothing; the going was excellent, the temperature not so bad as it had been, -27.4deg.  F., and the distance covered very creditable.  The next day we got our first idea of the meaning of these little mounds, as the surface was cut up by crevasse after crevasse.  These fissures were not particularly wide, but were bottomless, as far as we could see.  About noon Hanssen’s three leading dogs, Helge, Mylius, and Ring, fell into one of them, and remained hanging by their harness; and it was lucky the traces held, as the loss of these three would have been severely felt.  When the rest of the team saw these three disappear, they stopped short.  Fortunately, they had a pronounced fear of these fissures, and always stopped when anything happened.  We understood now that the haycock formations were the result of pressure, and that crevasses were always found in their neighbourhood.