The period of our stay here seems to promise to lengthen. It is trying—trying—but we can live, which is something. I should not be greatly surprised if we had to wait till May. Several skuas were about the camp yesterday. I have seen none to-day.
Two rorquals were rising close to Hut Point this morning—although the ice is nowhere thick it was strange to see them making for the open leads and thin places to blow.
Friday, March 31.—I studied the wind blowing along the ridge yesterday and came to the conclusion that a comparatively thin shaft of air was moving along the ridge from Erebus. On cither side of the ridge it seemed to pour down from the ridge itself—there was practically no wind on the sea ice off Pram Point, and to the westward of Hut Point the frost smoke was drifting to the N.W. The temperature ranges about zero. It seems to be almost certain that the perpetual wind is due to the open winter. Meanwhile the sea refuses to freeze over.
Wright pointed out the very critical point which zero temperature represents in the freezing of salt water, being the freezing temperature of concentrated brine—a very few degrees above or below zero would make all the difference to the rate of increase of the ice thickness.
Yesterday the ice was 8 inches in places east of Cape Armitage and 6 inches in our Bay: it was said to be fast to the south of the Glacier Tongue well beyond Turtleback Island and to the north out of the Islands, except for a strip of water immediately north of the Tongue.
We are good for another week in pretty well every
