It was very good to eat in civilised
fashion, to enjoy the first bath for three months, and have contact
with clean, dry clothing. Such fleeting hours of comfort (for custom
soon banished their delight) are the treasured remembrance of every
Polar traveller. They throw into sharpest contrast the hardships of
the past and the comforts of the present, and for the time he revels
in the unaccustomed physical contentment that results.
I was not many hours or even minutes in the hut before I was haled
round to observe in detail the transformation which had taken place
during my absence, and in which a very proper pride was taken by
those who had wrought it.
Simpson's Corner was the first visited. Here the eye travelled over
numerous shelves laden with a profusion of self-recording instruments,
electric batteries and switchboards, whilst the ear caught the
ticking of many clocks, the gentle whir of a motor and occasionally
the trembling note of an electric bell. But such sights and sounds
conveyed only an impression of the delicate methodical means by which
the daily and hourly variations of our weather conditions were being
recorded--a mere glimpse of the intricate arrangements of a first-class
meteorological station--the one and only station of that order which
has been established in Polar regions. It took me days and even months
to realise fully the aims of our meteorologist and the scientific
accuracy with which he was achieving them.
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