“September 27.—­The temperature in my room last night was round about zero, rather chilly, but warm enough under the blankets.  Hooke has dismantled his wireless gear.  He feels rather sick about not getting communication, although he does not show it.

“September 30.—­Ninnis has been busy now for the week on the construction of a new tractor.  He is building the body and will assemble the motor in the fore ’tween decks, where it can be lashed securely when we are released from the ice.  I can see leads of open water from the masthead, but we are still held firmly.  How long?

“October 7.—­As time wears on the possibility of getting back to the Barrier to land a party deserves consideration; if we do not get clear until late in the season we will have to turn south first, although we have no anchors and little moorings, no rudder and a short supply of coal.  To leave a party on the Barrier would make us very short-handed; still, it can be done, and anything is preferable to the delay in assisting the people at Cape Evans.  At 5 a.m. a beautiful parhelion formed around the sun.  The sight so impressed the bos’n that he roused me out to see it.”

During the month of October the ‘Aurora’ drifted uneventfully.  Stenhouse mentions that there was often an appearance of open water on the northern and eastern horizon.  But anxious eyes were strained in vain for indications that the day of the ship’s release was near at hand.  Hooke had the wireless plant running again and was trying daily to get into touch with Macquarie Island, now about eight hundred and fifty miles distant.  The request for a relief ship was to be renewed if communication could be established, for by this time, if all had gone well with the ‘Endurance’, the overland party from the Weddell Sea would have been starting.  There was considerable movement of the ice towards the end of the month, lanes opening and closing, but the floe, some acres in area, into which the ‘Aurora’ was frozen, remained firm until the early days of November.  The cracks appeared close to the ship, due apparently to heavy drift causing the floe to sink.  The temperatures were higher now, under the influence of the sun, and the ice was softer.  Thawing was causing discomfort in the quarters aboard.  The position on November 12 was reckoned to be lat. 66° 49´ S., long. 155° 17´ 45´´ E. Stenhouse made a sounding on November 17, in lat. 66° 40´ S., long. 154° 45´ E., and found bottom at 194 fathoms.  The bottom sample was mud and a few small stones.  The sounding-line showed a fairly strong undercurrent to the north-west.  “We panned out some of the mud,” says Stenhouse, “and in the remaining grit found several specks of gold.”  Two days later the trend of the current was south-easterly.  There was a pronounced thaw on the 22nd.  The cabins were in a dripping state, and recently fallen snow was running off the ship in little streams.  All hands were delighted, for the present discomfort offered promise of an early break-up of the pack.