Magnetic work under these conditions is an extremely uncomfortable operation. Even a light wind will eddy round the break-wind, and it is wind which makes low temperatures formidable. Nearly all the work has to be done with bare fingers or thin instrument-gloves, and the time taken is far greater than in temperate climates, owing to the fingers constantly "going" and because of the necessity of continually freeing the instrument from the condensed moisture of the breath. Considering that the temperature was -12 degrees F. when he had finished his four hours' work, it may be imagined that Webb was ready for his hot tea. The dip proved to be 89 degrees 43.5', that is, sixteen and a half minutes from the vertical. The altitude was just over five thousand nine hundred feet, in latitude 70 degrees 36.5' south and longitude 148 degrees 10' east. After lunch the Union Jack and the Commonwealth Ensign were hoisted and three cheers given for the King--willing but rather lonesome away out there! We searched the horizon with glasses but could see nothing save snow, undulating in endless sastrugi. To the south-east the horizon was limited by our old enemy, "the next ridge," some two miles away. We wondered what could be beyond, although we knew it was only the same featureless repetition, since one hundred and seventy-five miles on the same course would bring us to the spot where David, Mawson and Mackay had stood in 1909. After Hurley had taken a photograph of the camp, the tent was struck and the sledge repacked. At last the sail was rigged, we gave a final glance back and turned on the homeward trail. My diary of that night sums up: "We have now been exactly six weeks on the tramp and somehow feel rather sad at turning back, even though it has not been quite a Sunday school picnic all along. It is a great disappointment not to see a dip of 90 deg., but the time is too short with this 'climate.' It was higher than we expected to get, after the unsatisfactory dips obtained near the two-hundred-mile depot. The rate of increase since that spot has been fairly uniform and indicates that 90 degrees might be reached in another fifty to sixty miles, if the same rate held, and that means at least another week. It's no good thinking about it for 'orders are orders.' We'll have our work cut out to get back as it is. Twenty-five days till we are overdue. Certainly we have twenty-three days' food, eight days' with us, ten days' at two hundred miles, and five days' at sixty-seven miles, so with luck we should not go hungry, but Webb wants to get five more full sets of dips if possible on the way back, and this means two and a half days." That night the minimum thermometer registered its lowest at -25 degrees F. It was December 21 and Midsummer Day, so we concluded that the spot would be a very chilly one in the winter.