18 November, 1997

Hi Everyone,

It is another beautiful day on the ice.  We have spent most of the day
surveying to find the sustrugi again.  It is nice to be outside when it is
not real cold or windy.   The clouds in the blue sky  are very high and
feathery.    Do you know what kind of cloud that is? Sometimes the clouds
are an indication of  a change in the weather.   I wonder what tomorrow
will be like?

As we surveyed 200 meters of  sustrugi, the Hercules C130 landed again at
the base camp.   It is a neat plane that I love to watch land.   Todayís
view was from a distance.  As the plane landed the skis on the bottom
causes all kinds of snow to kick up around it.  When the plane opens its
back doors, the snow kicks up even more.   The C130 makes a funny load
noise as it slowly goes down the runway.  Again we could see the cargo
being dropped out of the back end.    When it comes in more people are
added to the camp and they bring new supplies.

Joe, Hannah and Brent were working on chemistry to find the peroxide in
snow.    They had to dig small samples  of snow and then put them in small
bags.   They let them melt and the tested them with a machine to find the
peroxide.   They also can find the amount of liquid in the snow by melting
it and measuring it.   Snow does not always have a lot of liquid in it when
it melts.    You could find the amount of liquid in an ice cube much like
the way they do it here.   Take an ice cube and place it in a plastic
sandwich bag and close the bag.   Let it sit on your kitchen counter until
the ice cube has melted.   Pour the liquid in a measuring cup and read the
amount off of it.     Place that liquid back in the ice cube tray that it
came from.    Does it fill the whole part of the tray?