hut and made the best shelter we could to boil our cocoa.

There was something too depressing in finding the old hut in
such a desolate condition. I had had so much interest in seeing
all the old landmarks and the huts apparently intact. To camp
outside and feel that all the old comfort and cheer had departed,
was dreadfully heartrending. I went to bed thoroughly depressed. It
stems a fundamental expression of civilised human sentiment that men
who come to such places as this should leave what comfort they can
to welcome those who follow.

_Monday, January_ 16.--We slept badly till the morning and,
therefore, late. After breakfast we went up the hills; there was a
keen S.E. breeze, but the sun shone and my spirits revived. There was
very much less snow everywhere than I had ever seen. The ski run was
completely cut through in two places, the Gap and Observation Hill
almost bare, a great bare slope on the side of Arrival Heights, and
on top of Crater Heights an immense bare table-land. How delighted
we should have been to see it like this in the old days! The pond was
thawed and the #confervae green in fresh water. The hole which we had
dug in the mound in the pond was still there, as Meares discovered
by falling into it up to his waist and getting very wet.

On the south side we could see the Pressure Ridges beyond Pram Point
as of old--Horseshoe Bay calm and unpressed--the sea ice pressed
on Pram Point and along the Gap ice foot, and a new ridge running
around C. Armitage about 2 miles off. We saw Ferrar's old thermometer
tubes standing out of the snow slope as though they'd been placed
yesterday. Vince's cross might have been placed yesterday--the paint
was so fresh and the inscription so legible.