ABSTRACT
SUNDAY, December 25, Christmas Day (1910).—Dead reckoning 69° 5′ S., 178° 30′ E. The night before last I had bright hopes that this Christmas Day would see us in open water. The scene is altogether too Christmassy. Ice surrounds us, low nimbus clouds intermittently discharging light snowflakes obscure the sky, here and there small pools of open water throw shafts of black shadow on to the cloud—this black predominates in the direction from whence we have come, elsewhere the white haze of ice blink is pervading.
