of the Western Mountains and throwing into bold relief the massive form of Erebus.  The volcano was emitting a great deal of smoke, and the glow of its internal fires showed occasionally against the smoke-clouds above the crater.  Stevens, Spencer-Smith, and Cope went to Cape Royds on the 20th, and were still there when the sun made its first appearance over Erebus on the 26th.  Preceding days had been cloudy, and the sun, although above the horizon, had not been visible.

“The morning broke clear and fine,” wrote Mackintosh.  “Over Erebus the sun’s rays peeped through the massed cumulus and produced the most gorgeous cloud effects.  The light made us all blink and at the same time caused the greatest exuberance of spirits.  We felt like men released from prison.  I stood outside the hut and looked at the truly wonderful scenery all round.  The West Mountains were superb in their wild grandeur.  The whole outline of peaks, some eighty or ninety distant, showed up, stencilled in delicate contrast to the sky-line.  The immense ice-slopes shone white as alabaster against dark shadows.  The sky to the west over the mountains was clear, except for low-lying banks at the foot of the slopes round about Mount Discovery.  To the south hard streaks of stratus lay heaped up to 30 degrees above the horizon....  Then Erebus commenced to emit volumes of smoke, which rose hundreds of feet and trailed away in a north-westerly direction.  The southern slopes of Erebus were enveloped in a mass of cloud.”  The party from Cape Royds returned that afternoon, and there was disappointment at their report that no more tobacco had been found.

The sledging of stores to Hut Point, in preparation for the depot-laying journeys on the Barrier, was to begin on September 1.  Mackintosh, before that date, had discussed plans fully with the members of his party.  He considered that sufficient sledging provisions were available at Cape Evans, the supply landed from the ship being supplemented by the stores left by the Scott Expedition of 1912-13 and the Shackleton Expedition of 1907-09.  The supply of clothing and tents was more difficult.  Garments brought from the ship could be supplemented by old clothing found at Hut Point and Cape Evans.  The Burberry wind-proof outer garments were old and in poor order for the start of a season’s sledging.  Old sleeping-bags had been cut up to make finneskoe (fur boots) and mend other sleeping-bags.  Three tents were available, one sound one landed from the ‘Aurora’, and two old ones left by Captain Scott.  Mackintosh had enough sledges, but the experience of the first journey with the dogs had been unfortunate, and there were now only four useful dogs left.  They did not make a full team and would have to be used merely as an auxiliary to man-haulage.