we followed the passage round the house —­ you remember where all the tinned provisions stood in such perfect order —­ then, on reaching the south-east angle of the house, this new passage opened out and led across to the coal-tent.  In the middle of the passage, on the right-hand side, a door led into the pendulum observatory.  Continuing along the passage, one came first to some steps leading down, and then the passage ended in a steep flight of steps which led up through a hole in the snow surface.  On going up this one suddenly found oneself in the middle of the coal-tent.  It was a fine piece of work, and did all honour to its designers.  It paid, too —­ Hassel could now fetch coal at any time under cover, and escaped having to go out of doors.

But this was not the end of our great underground works.  We wanted a room where Wisting could store all the things in his charge; he was specially anxious about the reindeer-skin clothing, and wished to have it under a roof.  We therefore decided upon a room sufficiently large to house all these articles, and at the same time to provide working-space for Wisting and Hanssen, who would have to lash all the sledges as fast as they came from Bjaaland.  Wisting elected to build this room in a big snow-drift that had formed around the tent in which he had kept all his stuff; the spot lay to the north-east of the house.  The Clothing Store, as this building was called, was fairly large, and provided space not only for all our equipment, but also for a workshop.  From it a door led into a very small room, where Wisting set up his sewing-machine and worked on it all through the winter.  Continuing in a north-easterly direction, we came to another big room, called the Crystal Palace, in which all the ski and sledging cases were stored.  Here all the provisions for the sledge journey were packed.  For the time being this room remained separate from the others, and we had to go out of doors to reach it.  Later, when Lindstrom had dug out an enormous hole in the Barrier at the spot where he took all the snow and ice for cooking, we connected this with the two rooms last mentioned, and were thus finally able to go everywhere under the snow.

The astronomical observatory had also arisen; it lay right alongside the Crystal Palace.  But it had an air of suffering from debility, and before very long it passed peacefully away.  Prestrud afterwards invented many patents; he used an empty barrel for a time as a pedestal, then an old block of wood.  His experience of instrument-stands is manifold.

All these undertakings were finished at the beginning of May.  One last piece of work remained, and then at last we should be ready.  This was the rebuilding of the depot.  The small heaps in which the cases were piled proved unsatisfactory, as the passages between the different piles offered a fine site for snow-drifts.  All the cases were now taken out and laid in two long rows, with sufficient intervals between them to prevent their offering resistance to the drifting snow.  This work was carried out in two days.