Wind, insecure ice, and constant falls of snow told heavily against Captain Markham’s three sledges, but they successfully deposited their depôt near the Cape, and in such a position that anyone travelling along the beach could not fail to find it even in fog or storm. On their way back, part of the ice they had recently sledged over was found destroyed by the motion of the pack, and it was necessary to haul the sledges over the summits of the Black Cliffs. There, there was no shelter from the wind; the temperature fell to 47 degrees below freezing. That bleak ridge was afterwards known as “Frost-bite Range.” When, after three weeks’ absence, they reached the ship, the whole party was in a wretched condition. Their sleeping-bags, robes, and tent were stiffened into boards of ice, more than twice as heavy as when they set out; and the twenty-four men and officers had no less than forty-three frost-bites amongst them, most of them comparatively slight, but three so severe as to require amputation. While these sledge parties were laying out the autumn depôts and exploring northward, others were no less active in another direction. The programme of our Expedition stipulated that the “Alert,” in order to keep up communication with her consort, was not to winter more than two hundred miles from her. An officer and sledge crew belonging to the “Discovery” had accompanied us northwards with the intention of returning to their ship as soon as the “Alert” had reached her winter quarters. We had advanced but sixty miles, and yet the most gallant and persevering efforts to communicate with the “Discovery” were again and again unsuccessful. The deep soft snow lying piled against the cliffs of Cape Rawson and Black Cape barred the way. The men, buried to their waists in the snow, dug a path for the sledge till the excavation became a tunnel, and a day’s hard labour could be measured by a few paces. The last and most determined effort to force a road southward was undertaken on the 2nd October, but on the 12th the party returned without having got further than six miles from the ship. This failure to communicate with the “Discovery” over so short a distance as only 60 miles was altogether unlooked for, and could not but suggest uncomfortable reflections. It had been assumed that even two hundred miles would not interrupt communication between our ships, and that sledges could travel the whole length of Smith’s Sound to reach a relief ship, or to deposit despatches at its entrance. Where was the error in the assumption? Were our men degenerate? Our picked crews, full of health and strength, and enthusiastic to a man, were equal to the best of their predecessors. The conclusion was inevitable—the conditions and not the men were to blame. Within half-a-mile of our ship, there were many places that would stop the finest crew that ever drew a sledge. The ice was massive beyond all expectation; but