The 27th brought the same nasty weather, and the 28th was not much better, though not bad enough to stop us.  After a deal of hard work in hauling our buried belongings out of the snow, we got away and continued our course to the north-eastward.  It was not exactly an agreeable morning:  a brisk wind with driving snow right in one’s face.  After trudging against this for a couple of hours I heard Stubberud call “Halt!” —­ half his team were hanging by the traces in a crevasse.  I had gone across without noticing anything; no doubt owing to the snow in my face.  One would think the dogs would be suspicious of a place like this; but they are not —­ they plunge on till the snow-bridge breaks under them.  Luckily the harness held, so that it was the affair of a moment to pull the poor beasts up again.  Even a dog might well be expected to be a trifle shaken after hanging head downwards over such a fearful chasm; but apparently they took it very calmly, and were quite prepared to do the same thing over again.

For my own part I looked out more carefully after this, and although there were a good many ugly fissures on the remaining part of the ascent, we crossed them all without further incident.

Unpleasant as these crevasses are, they do not involve any direct danger, so long as the weather is clear and the light favourable.  One can then judge by the appearance of the surface whether there is danger ahead; and if crevasses are seen in time, there is always a suitable crossing to be found.  The case is somewhat different in fog, drift, or when the light is such that the small inequalities marking the course of the crevasse do not show up.  This last is often the case in cloudy weather, when even a fairly prominent rise will not be noticed on the absolutely white surface until one falls over it.  In such conditions it is safest to feel one’s way forward with the ski-pole; though this mode of proceeding is more troublesome than effective.

In the course of the 28th the ascent came to an end, and with it the crevasses.  The wind fell quite light, and the blinding drift was succeeded by clear sunshine.  We had now come sufficiently high up to have a view of the sea far to the north-west.  During the high wind a quantity of ice had been driven southward, so that for a great distance there was no open water to be seen, but a number of huge icebergs.  From the distance of the sea horizon we guessed our height to be about 1,000 feet, and in the evening the hypsometer showed the guess to be very nearly right.

November 29. —­ Weather and going all that could be wished on breaking camp this morning; before us we had a level plateau, which appeared to be quite free from unpleasant obstructions.  When we halted for the noon observation the sledge-meter showed ten geographical miles, and before evening we had brought the day’s distance up to twenty.  The latitude was then 77deg. 32’.  The distance to the Barrier edge on the north was, at a guess, about twenty