Editor Note: It's remarkable how well the group is getting along while living on a melting ice-floe. Orde-Lees notes that "many of us" are "anxious" to return. Hurley comments in his journal about a "pleasant evening." All thanks to Shackleton's leadership.
Orde-Lees' Journal - December 2, 1915
"Little is known of the area in which we now are. No previous explorers have been within two hundred miles of this forsaken spot. I don't blame them. I never want to get cast adrift on this barren waste of ice again myself, and I don't think anyone else will ever want to, though there are a good many of us only too anxious to come down again, armed as we are with the knowledge of the conditions maintaining in the Weddell Sea, and in order to carry out the original purpose of the expedition - the crossing of Antarctica.
This has been an unusually busy day.
We shifted camp about 50 yards, tents, boats, boxes & all as the continual wear on the original site had caused a noticeable depression & parts were getting water sodden from below the ice. The layer of smuts from the galley fire was also having its effect in causing so much heat ray absorption that the snow was practically thawing away down to the level of the ice."
Frank Hurley's Journal - December 2, 1915
"Had another concert in our tent. Wild, Wordie and McIlroy were our guests. A very pleasant evening was spent and many old favourites rendered by Hussey's banjo."
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