Page:The Worst Journey in the World volume 2.djvu/264

Rh rapid fall of temperature in January. The mean actual temperature found on the plateau this year in December was −8.6°, the minimum observed being −19.3°. Simpson remarks that "it must be accounted as one of the wonders of the Antarctic that it contains a vast area of the earth's surface where the mean temperature during the warmest month is more than 8° below the Fahrenheit zero, and when throughout the month the highest temperature was only +5.5° F." But the mean temperature on the plateau dropped 10° in January to −18.7°, the minimum observed being −29.7°. These temperatures have to be combined with the wind force described above to imagine the conditions of the march. In the light of Scott's previous plateau journey and Shackleton's Polar Journey this wind was always expected by our advance parties. But there can be no doubt that the temperature falls as solar radiation decreases more rapidly than was generally supposed. Scott probably expected neither such a rapid fall of temperature, nor the very bad surfaces, though he knew that the plateau would mean a trying time, and indeed it was supposed that it would be much the hardest part of the journey.

On the night of January 15, Scott wrote " it ought to be a certain thing now, and the only appalling possibility the sight of the Norwegian flag forestalling ours." They were 27 miles from the Pole.

The story of the next three days is taken from Wilson's diary:

"January 16. We got away at 8 and made 7.5 miles by 1.15, lunched, and then in 5.3 miles came on a black flag and the Norwegians' sledge, ski, and dog tracks running about N.E. and S.W. both ways. The flag was of black bunting tied with string to a fore-and-after which had evidently been taken off a finished-up sledge. The age of the tracks was hard to guess but probably a couple of weeks—or three or more. The flag was fairly well frayed at the