But this is another story. Three hours, sitting writing figures in a temperature of -15 degrees F., is no joke. The magnetician is not so badly off, because he is moving about, though he often has to stop and warm his fingers, handling the cold metal. The Magnetograph House had by far the most formidable name. The Hut, though it symbolized our all in all, sounded very insignificant unless it were repeated with just the right intonation. The Absolute Hut had a superadded dignity. The Hangar, in passing, scarcely seemed to have a right to a capital H. The Transit House, on the and other hand, was the only dangerous rival to the first mentioned. But what's in a name? If the Magnetograph House had been advertised, it would have been described as "two minutes from the Hut." This can easily be understood, for the magnetician after leaving home is speedily blown over a few hillocks and sastrugi, and, coming to an ice-flat about one hundred and fifty yards wide, swiftly slides over it, alighting at the snow-packed door of his house. The outside porch is just roomy enough for a man to slip off burberrys and crampons. The latter are full of steel spikes, and being capable of upsetting magnetic equilibrium, are left outside. Walking in soft finnesko, the magnetician opens an inner door, to be at once accosted by darkness, made more intense after the white glare of the snow. His eyes grow accustomed to the blackness, and he gropes his way to a large box almost concealing the feeble glimmer of a lamp. The lamp is the source of the light, projected on to small mirrors attached to the magnetic needles of three variometers. A ray of light is reflected from the mirrors for several feet on to a slit, past which revolves sensitized photographic paper folded on a drum moving by clockwork. The slightest movements of the suspended needles are greatly magnified, and, when the paper is removed and developed in a dark-room, a series of intricate curves denoting declination, horizontal intensity and vertical force, are exquisitely traced. Every day the magnetician attends to the lamp and changes papers; also at prearranged times he tests his "scale values" or takes a "quick run." To obtain results as free as possible from the local attraction of the rocks in the neighbourhood, Webb resolved to take several sets of observations on the ice-sheet. In order to make the determinations it was necessary to excavate a cave in the glacier. This was done about three-quarters of a mile south of the Hut in working shifts of two men. A fine cavern was hewn out, and there full sets of magnetic observations were taken under ideal conditions. On sledging journeys the "dip" and declination were both ascertained at many stations, around and up to within less than half a degree of the South Magnetic Pole.