From our point of view, it was humorous to see Murray trying to slay the little animals he had found. He used to thaw them from a block of ice, freeze them up again, and repeat this process several times without causing the rotifers any inconvenience. Then he tested them in brine so strongly saline that it would not freeze at a temperature above minus 7° Fahr., and still the animals lived, and a good proportion of them survived a temperature of 200° Fahr. It became a contest between rotifers and scientist, and generally the rotifers seemed to triumph. * * * * * Tongue and pencil would sadly fail to describe the magic of the colouring in the days when the sun was leaving us. The very clouds at this time were iridescent with rainbow hues. The change from twilight into night, sometimes lit by a crescent moon, was extraordinarily beautiful, for the white cliffs gave no part of their colour away, and the rocks beside them did not part with their blackness; so the effect of deepening night over these contrasts was singularly weird. Throughout April hardly a day passed without an auroral display, and about the beginning of that month the temperature began to drop considerably, and in calm, still weather the thermometer often registered 40° below zero. * * * * * On April 6 Marshall decided that it was necessary to amputate Brocklehurst's big toe, as there was no sign of its recovery from frost-bite; and the patient having been put under chloroform, the bone was removed, and the sufferer moved to my room, where he remained till just before mid-winter's day. When mid-winter's day had passed, and the twilight became daily more marked, I set on foot arrangements for the sledging work in the following spring. For it was desirable that, at the earliest possible date, a depot of stores should be placed at a point to the south, in preparation for the departure of the Southern Party, which was to march towards the Pole. This depot I hoped to make at least a hundred miles from the winter quarters. It was also desirable that definite information should be obtained regarding the condition of the snow surface on the Barrier; and I also wanted various members of the party to have practice in sledging before the serious work began. Considering our scarcity of ponies, I resolved that these preliminary sledging journeys should be performed by man-haulage.