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The following articles have been left in the tent: 3 half bags of reindeer containing a miscellaneous assortment of mits and sleeping socks, very various in description, a sextant, a Norwegian artificial horizon and a hypsometer without boiling-point thermometers, a sextant and hypsometer of English make. Left a note to say I had visited the tent with companions.
Next day, according to our reckoning, we reached lat. 86°. The hypsometer showed a fall of 800 feet. The following day passed in the same way. The weather cleared up about noon, and there appeared to our astonished eyes a mighty mountain range to the east of us, and not far away. But the vision only lasted a moment, and then disappeared again in the driving snow.
Bowers broke the only hypsometer thermometer. We have nothing to check our two aneroids. Night camp 49. Bar. 20.82. T. -6.3°. We marched off well after lunch on a soft, snowy surface, then came to slippery hard sastrugi and kept a good pace; but I felt this meant something wrong, and on topping a short rise we were once more in the midst of crevasses and disturbances.
A hypsometer to measure the height of the lunar mountains, a sextant to take the height of the sun, glasses which would be useful as they neared the moon, all these instruments were carefully looked over, and pronounced good in spite of the violent shock.
A hypsometer to measure the altitude of the lunar mountains, a sextant to take the height of the sun, a theodolite, an instrument for surveying, telescopes to be used as the moon approached all these instruments were carefully inspected and found in good condition, notwithstanding the violence of the initial shock.
A hypsometer, or instrument for ascertaining the heights of the Lunar mountains by the barometric pressure under which water boils, a sextant to measure the altitude of the Sun, a theodolite for taking horizontal or vertical angles, telescopes, of indispensable necessity when the travellers should approach the Moon, all these instruments, carefully examined, were found to be still in perfect working order, notwithstanding the violence of the terrible shock at the start.
Toward the west, impenetrable fog lay over the glacier and obscured even our immediate surroundings. A measurement by hypsometer gave 8,200 feet for the point lying at the foot of this, the "Devil's Glacier." We had therefore descended 2,600 feet since leaving the "Slaughter House." This was not an agreeable discovery, as we, no doubt, would have to ascend as much again, if not more.
To satisfy any doubts on this subject, Tucker took the wooden box in which we had brought the hypsometer, laid it on the snow, leveled it up carefully with the Stanley pocket level, and took a squint over it toward the north peak. He smiled and said nothing. So each of us in turn lay down in the snow and took a squint. It was all right. We were at least 250 feet higher than that aggravating peak.
I have previously had several severe attacks of snow-blindness. We had two photographic cameras, an air thermometer, two aneroids with altitude scale to 15,000 feet, and two hypsometers. The hypsometer is only an instrument for determining the boiling-point, which gives one the height above the sea. The method is both simple and reliable.
The hypsometer showed 8,000 feet above sea level. On November 30 we began to ascend the glacier. The lower part was much broken up and dangerous, and the thin bridges of snow over the crevasses often broke under us. From our camp that evening we had a splendid view of the mountains to the east.
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