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twenty-inch transit telescope, and with this, in conjunction with wireless signals from the Melbourne Observatory, Webb and Bage fixed Cape Denison's longitude.

The strain of isolation, boredom and grief for the two lost comrades and the narrowly missed chance to return home took its toll on the remaining party. Mawson described it as a dreary and difficult time. Shortly after midwinter Jeffryes declared he was resigning his post, his mental illness requiring constant medical observation from McLean. This left Bickerton to teach himself Morse code and run the radio. The expedition's typewriter was pressed into regular service to draft scientific reports, and Mawson spent the long winter dealing with difficult personalities, preparing biological specimens, cultivating yeast to make bread, and compiling the expedition account which would become The Home of the Blizzard. McLean and Mawson produced the expedition's newspaper, The Adelie Blizzard.

The most pressing maintenance task was the wireless. Although two-way communication had been established in February, bad weather in May broke the upper mast. The weather was not sufficiently calm to repair the structure and resume communications until August.

In November 1913, having received news that the Aurora was headed south, the party gathered the remaining provisions they thought worthy of returning to the ship, and readied themselves to abandon the huts. It was imperative to return to Australia everything of value in order to recover the expedition's funding shortfall of several thousand pounds. For instance, the extensive library of educated gentlemen's reference books, novels and plays to which the men referred in their diaries was packed for home, and the disposable 'penny dreadfuls' left behind.

The same spirit gave rise to the year's only sledge journey of note, which unsuccessfully tried to retrieve valuable equipment from field depots. Back at the Main Base, Bickerton erected a memorial cross to Ninnis and Mertz on Azimuth Hill. Hodgeman inscribed a plaque constructed from part of the kitchen table that was cut in two in 1913.

Mawson and the remaining men had secured the huts and left Cape Denison by Christmas 1913.

The Aurora spent a further two months at sea before returning to a hero's welcome in Adelaide. Publishing the twenty two volumes arising from the outcomes of the expedition was delayed by war, lack of funds and tardy contributors.

AAE photography

Frank Hurley, a Sydney photographer working in the picture postcard industry, was the official photographer of the AAE, although other AAE members also recorded their observations. Hurley carried more than ten still cameras and one cine camera, recording 2500 images (many of these on glass plates and some in colour) and hundreds of metres of cine film in the first year. His images are a comprehensive visual