CAPTAIN SCOTT AND PARTY,.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14588, 12 February 1913, Page 10

CAPTAIN SCOTT AND PARTY,.

DR. CHILTON'S APPRECIATION,

Dr. Chilton has written the following appreciation of Captain Scott and his party:— The good fortune that has previously characterised the history of Antarctic discovery has been broken by an appalling disaster. Hitherto the loss of life in the South Polar Expeditions has been extremely small —tho Southern Cross party lost one, tho zoologist Hansen; and Captain Scott's first expedition left only one lonely grave on the Antarctic continent. The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition ana the Swedish Expedition lost only one man each, and the German Expedition was nearly as fortunate. Now, however, we hear of the death of the leader of the party, Captain R. N. Scott, his chief zoologist, Dr. E. A. Wilson, and the three men who accompanied them on their perilous but apparently successful journey to the South Pole. How the news reached the base station in McMurdo Strait we do not yet know,

but presumably the whole souther." party pen_,_u __ „,„ mura Jgun ibe loss of tho leader not o_i»\>'l brings great grief to his many WeSS'r ■? but removes one who has proved, l__a -"' sen to be a great explorer, successful!* \ opening up an entirely now neld and "- r----meeting tae ui-icumes that presented' themselves with courage, ability ___ "'' groat judgment. His -uccessful _«_.' ' agement of tho expedition in the '"• Discovery, with his great march towards ; the Pole and his still greater sleddne ' journey across the Western Mountains • will be always notabio in tho history of Polar discovery while the histor* "• of the expe_itiou in "The Voyage of the Discovery" proved.that ho posiesscd a large measure of literary skill, knd was able to write an account that will take- a permanent place among notabhj works of discovery. Through it all ho ■ ' exhibited tho modesty that character- -. ised a great and powerrul man, and that made him so beloved by all his ' officers and men.

In Dr. W dson we lose a zoologist who . had already made a permanent namo tor himself as a keen and accurate ob- « server, while his unrivalled artistic skill " enabled him to add greatly to the value of his publications and to present them in a form that compelled attention and admiration. His report on tho mammals and birds collected during the voyage of the Discovery is a work of - careful erudition illustrated with mosS " j beautiful plates. When leaving New Zealand on the present expedition he was eagerly looking forward to* a renewed opportunity of solving some of tho problems that had been left uu- . finished before, nnd in particular was .. hoping to secure material for the his- •" tory of the development of the Emperor, penguin: some of this ho had alrendy ,> collected when tho Terra Nova returned - last, year, but now it will have to be worked up by another hand. His

kindly and genial disposition made him a great favourite with cveryono with/ whom he came in contact, and everyona on tho ship will deeply mourn the loss of him whom they familiarly, kuew as. "Uncle Billy." To me, personally, the news of tho d'snster comes as a peculiar grief and disappointment. At. Dundee, last September. I had the coed fortune to listen to Sir Clements Mn'khnm's ratw before the British Association, in which, ho gave ro enthusiastic an account ol the (successful performances of Captain Scott's expeditions in the past, and *6 hopeful a forecast of what he had still to do., There, too. 1 met Mrs Scott, eagcrlv looking forward to her visit to New Zealand to greet, ns hoped, her ' husband after the successful completion of his work. At a f«w weoks later I saw Dr. Wilson's n«ed , father nnd mother, nnd was entrusted by them with many tender mcs«i<reß for -.- their son," whom, in the natural course ~ of event?. I was likely to fee before.' they would —now these can only be laid - on his grave. ' '