nine o’clock
The thermometer then marked 32 ° Fahrenheit . The atmosphere was misty , but the weather was perfectly calm . The sun was now above the horizon for seven or eight hours a day , and its oblique rays afforded plenty of light . At nine o'clock , after a short halt , the party descended the slope of Cape Michael and made their way across the ice-fields in a southeasterly direction . On this side the ice wall rose not three miles from the cape . The march was of course very slow . Every minute a crevasse had to be turned , or a hummock too high to be climbed .