FARTHEST SOUTH.

Evening Star, Issue 12163, 6 April 1904, Page 7

FARTHEST SOUTH.

[Copyright.]

To tho remarkably interesting, indeed fascinating, journal ‘ The South Polar rimes,’ which was published on board the Discovery in Antarctica, Captain Scott him»elf last year contributed a striking account of his great sledge journey towards the Pole, when he, with Dr Wilson and Mr Shack 1 cton, reached their “Farthest South” at 82deg 17min. “In essaying a brief account of (he wuthem sledge journey of last summer,” he jays, “it is impossible to forget tho disappointment of certain, perhaps too lively, hopes of reaching a higher latitude which were formed at its commencement. At the same time it must be remembered that, in throwing considerable light on the nature and origin of the Great Ice Barrier and in extending the coast of Victoria Land the journey contains points of great interest, and of an interest which might have been little enhanced had a higher latitude been reached. On the causes which, doubtless combined with inexperience, contributed to our disappointment I shall touch, though necessarily with brevity, since I must also endeavor to describe the points of interest to which I have refereed. “It may prove of interest to my readers to quote certain paragraphs from the instructions issued by the presidents of the Royal and Royal Geographical Societies, in the light of which our actions must, presumably, be judged. The following arc verbatim extracts from those instructions “ ‘ Such exploration (that of the first season) should, if possible, include an examination of the coast from Cape Johnson to Cape Crozier, with a view to finding a safe and suitable place for the operations of landing, etc.

“‘The chief points of geographical interest are as follow;—To explore Ihe Ice Barrier of Sir James Ross to its eastern extremity ; to discover the land which was believed by Ross to flank the Barrier to the eastward, or to ascertain that it does not exist, and generally to solve the very important physical and geographical questions connected with this remarkable ice formation.

“‘ If you should deckle that the ship shall winter in the ice, the following instruction* are to be observed :—(a) Your efforts as regards geographical exploration should be directed, with the help of depots, to three objects—namely, an advance into the western mountains, and an advance to the south, and the exploration of the volcanic regions.’ “ The above is somewhat of a digression, but it is well to keep in mind the objects our journeys were intended to achieve and to remember, amidst minor disappointment, that we must be considered as more strictly pioneers than the majority of polar travel lers in being the first to make extended journeys in the Antarctic regions. “ I must now confine myself more particularly to my object, which is a description of the ‘Advance to the South.’ The •arly stages of the southern journey are well known, and need not be dwelt on. The southern party left the ship on November 2, 1902, and overtook the supporting party, which had been delayed by bad weather, on the night of the same day. The rendezvous was Depot A, the depot established earlier in the season, some ten miles southeast of the Bluff. This was reached by the southern party by easy stages on November 10, but the travelling, owing to the slipperiness of the wind-swept sastrugi, proved flinch more arduous for the supporting party, who worked hard to rejoin on November 11. On November 12 the course was set due south, the parties in company, but the men slightly ahead of the dogs, and thereby greatly helping the drivers. On November 13 half the supporting party returned to the ship, with the satisfaction of having reached the highest latitude yet attained; the remainder continued south dur ing this and the following day. On November 15 preparation was made for the final parting. The day was gloriously bright and clear; along our western horizon stretched distant masses of land, till now unseen, the Bluff was already growing dim in the north, whilst to the east and south ' stretched the plain and unbroken horizon of the Barrier surface, which we were to find so monotonous and yet so inconstant. It was scarcely to be wondered at that our hopes ran high; preparations had been made with care, and, so far, plans had only been modified from the dogs’ capacity to pull a greater load than was expected. The hard, wind-swept sastrugi had disappeared, and, under toot, we had a light sun-crust, liberally powdered with softer snow; as yet such a surface had seemed to give us little trouble. j —Trials and Difficulties.— ! “We had provisions for thirteen weeks and a larger amount of dog food than was expected; our outfit appeared in good order and fully up to our requirements. Shortly after noon the last note was despatched, the last farewell said; we started on our journey, and without delay our troubles began. Our utmost efforts of coaxing and driving could on this day only produce short advances of a few hundred yards at a time; at each stoppage the rear sledges had to he pulled up to the front one, to make the effort of starting less severe. Finally, as each Stage grew shorter, the impossibility of proceeding in this manner became obvious, and we decided to camp and consider the situation. There seemed but one thing to do—namely, to advance with half the load at a time. This, of course, meant that each mile had to be traversed three times; hut we consoled ourselves with the though: that the weights were rapidly diminishing, and hoped that we should soon be able to start on the old system. Instead of improving, however, things went steadily from bad to worse. For the first few days we made good something over five miles daily, covering over sixteen miles in doing it; but later the distances crept down, until we were forced to be satisfied with an advance ol three or three and a-half miles Again and again we tried to make a start with tho whole load, but each effort seemed to prove more hopeless than the last. Needless to say, we discussed the situation from cvcrv point of view. At first we were inclined to attribute much to the surface, and undoubtedly this had greatly changed for the worse. It grew softer as we went south, and the light, powdery surface crystals ever increased in quantity, bringing greater friction, But it was soon evident that there was also something radically wrong with the dogs. Their spirit had disappeared, and we could see that their internal economy was altogether out of order. This, it was hoped, was only temporary, due to the work, the change of diet, or the sun. We tried night' marching without sign of imErovement A: rest was proposed, and a lizzard came seasonably, forcing us to spend a day in the tent. On the following morning the dogs were as listless as ever. At last we were reluctantly compelled to reajse that there was a deeper cause for their indisposition; there could no longer be a doubt that their food, the stock-fish, was entirely disagreeing with them, and was at the bottom of all the mischief. It would be unprofitable, as well as dismal, to give a close history of the further career of our wretched dog team. They failed us almost immediately after we had formed such high hopes of travelling a long distance. The failure was certainly due to the stook-fish, and as we could not correct the cause the effect was bound to go from bad to worse as time went on. The stock-fish was oriritally got from Norway, in which country "it is caught, split, sundried, and exported for human food. It has been used for dog food in the North with marked success” and under the circumstances it can only be supposed that ours hod deteriorated* from its passage through the tropics, giving another instance of the care which is necessary in preparing for polar work. On the 15th we were steering due south, but on the 21st, realising that there was little prospect ei a speedy ending to our relay work, wa

HOW IT WAS ATTAINED. CAPTAIN SCOTT'S ACCOUNT.

A GREAT SLEDGE JOURNEY.

turned towards the land, with the hope of being ablo to muke a, depot. For the first time we discovered that the land continued to rein as far as we could see to the south; it was difficult to estimate its distance at any point, but we made for what looked like the bluff c.iff of a sharp headland, but whicu proved to be a spur of a mountain range of considerable height. “The events of the month are not likely to be forgotten by any of us. Day after day we plodded on in the same monotonous manner, the routine being to advance half ■the load as nearly as possible two and a-half miles, and then to return for the second half. Then, after lunch, a similar advance was attempted, but usually resulted in a bare gain of one and a-hnlf miles. We ourselves could have worked longer hours and covered greater distances, but at each evening camp the dogs sank down thoroughly done, and each day their exhaustion increased, until only the strongest dogs put any weight at all on the traces, and no <>dvance would have been made had we not pulled ourselves. This, however, we were glad enough to do, taking it in turns to drive, a far more dreaded task.” The explorers made various attempts to reach the land along which they were coasting at a distance of some miles. Die broken ice and chasms, however, gave them great trouble. In latitude 80deg 50min south they established a second depot. —How They Fed and Hungered.— “ On fine days (continues the account) we had now a magnificent view of the land cn our right; in the background it rose to a height of 10,000 ft, outlined in occasional slightly elevated but sharp peaks rising above lofty, snow-covered ridges. The general direction of the high land was north and south, though it was interrupted with occasional hills of very regular pyramidal shape and some flat-topped table mountains, on the steep slopes of which the bare land was visibl’. Nearer to us the foothills rarely showed their heads through the deep undulating ice-cap which at places ended abruptly on the summit of high perpendicular cliffs, and at others descended in long neve slopes to the surface of the barrier. In general appearance the mountains and foothills closely resembled • the northern part of Victoria Land as we saw it from the ship. Starting at about ten miles from the coast at the depot, we crossed during the succeeding ten days an extensive bay, aiming to pass within a similar distance of the point at which the coast again advanced. A closer approach not only brought us a softer and more difficult surface, but revealed occasional undulations amongst which the up-grades proved very trying work. “ It was about this time that we first began to feel the discomfort of hunger, and knew that for many a day we could scarcely hope to better our allowance. No doubt all our travellers last year could have eaten a great deal more than their allowance on extended journeys, but from what I have gathered I do not think that any other party really suffered from shortage’of food as ours did. The reasons are too complicated to be discussed here. Our previous allowance was fixed on the same basis as that of other parties, but, whereas with vs the basis was the sum total, with others more or less considerable additions were made to it. Our arrangements were also modified by various causes, some of which tended to still .further shorten our allowance. We decided to lay by a week’s biscuit and other stores, taken equally from the bags to balance some seal meat, ’and we discovered much too late that after the first week we bad been considerably overrunning our allowance of biscuit.’ Some early scorbutic symptoms had caused Hr Wilson to suspect the bacon, which was accordingly renounced, and laid by for the end of the journey, but we increased the pemmican slightly in lieu. Even with all facts considered, it is a little difficult to understand why we were so very hungry, but the fact remains we were, and we never coiled down in our bags without feeling we could have swallowed at least two more suppers of the same nature as the one we had just finished. “ One of the worst drawbacks was the insufficiency of oil. It will be remembered that a galVm was calculated to last the ordinary tent party for ten days; our original estimate was for one to last us twelve days, but after wastage and some want of care during the first month, we oiscovsred that each gallon that remained would have to last us fourteen days. This not only cut off all chance of a hot meal in the middle of the day, but necessitated the greatest economy in the morning and in the evening. In both cases the Primus was carefully timed. For breakfast it was going, as a rule, less than twenty minutes, and for supper rarely more than half an hour. For lunch we served out a small piece of seal flesh, some biscuit, and a few lumps of sugar, and, with regard to the former, soon grew to welcome the pieces that contained the most blubber. I could scarcely have believed this possible had I not experienced the delight of finding those yellow streaks of blubber in one’s lump of dark, stringy flesh. Another somewhat curious custom arose indirectly from our famished condition. When serving out biscuit, seal meat, sugar, etc., it was often difficult to divide them in exact portions, and conscience compelled the distributor to appropriate that which looked the smallest. But this, for some reason, proved intensely annoying to the other members. To avoid this, at Air Shackleton’s suggestion, after the division was made, one of us shut bis ryes, another pointed to a portion, and said ‘Whose is that?’ This ingenious game of “shut eye’ was practised at each meal, and avoided all necessity of attempting to persuade your neighbor to take the largest share. From Depot B we depended on the ‘Primus.’ It served us well, giving little or no trouble, but it walked better, because it remained cleaner, when lit with spirit. Die only mishap was when I tried to light it with’ the caps off, and succeeded in burning a laree hole in the tent. c —A Strange Christmas.— “As the weather gradually cleared on our journey south, a very ’sharp conical peak showed up a little to our right, and in the uncertain light appeared a high mountain at a great distance. By .Christmas Day we were abreast of it, and found it to be a sharp eminence about 7,000 ft in height, arising out of the ice-cap of the foot-hills. Its solitary position made it a most conspicuous landmark, and in honor of the day we named it Christmas Mountain. Our Christmas Day was gloriously fine; the sun shone bright and clear throughout, and liad a most cheerin'* effect, which, no doubt, was much assisted - I* l ® that we looked forward to a special ration to celebrate the occasion. At lunch we had the exception of a hot meal, and in the evening, after a special wash-up _ and _ hrush-np, we cooked three N.A.O. rations and devoured a plum pudding about half the size of a cricket ball and the remains of a tin of jam specially reserved for this day. During the day the sledges had run extraordinarily easy, so that, though the dogs did little we were able to cover ten miles, an unusually long march, and when wo turned m we felt the satisfaction of having done a good day’s work as well as the still more practical comfort of a comparatively full stomach. J —Snow-blindness.— “On the following day, Dr Wilson had an exceedingly bad attack of snow-blindness. It is difficult to imagine an apter place for this painful ailment than the great, boundless plain of the Barrier, with its evervarying conditions of light. The general impression seems to he that the greatest danger of an attack is on a slightly dull veto* thin#* oca not clearly visible.

and tho eyes are strained to catch a difference of shade; but, curiously enough, we all seemed to find that there was a greater risk on the very bright, glaring days, when the sun was reflected in every crystal of the smooth snow-carpet. By this time we had grown exceedingly cautious, never travelling without goggles and using medicaments at the first sign of strain. But, in spite of this care, attacks came to all of us, and this attack, by far the most severe, came to the one who, probably, took the greatest care.

“ Snow-blindness is a serious matter to a small party on a Barrier journey. Not only is it intensely painful, as most of us have found by experience, hut, as happened later in our case, there are times when a good pair of eyes and constant o’ostrvation may be absolutely necessary for keeping the course, and if all pairs are affected at such a moment it is necessary to camp until they have recovered. Our experience show's that some require to he more careful than others in this matter, and also that there may be a considerable difference of opinion in regard to the various forms of goggles. The leather or wood goggles, with a narrow aperture, seemed to be the safest, but there are times when so little can be seen through them that they mast from time to time be removed. The glass goggles found much favor with the othets, but, for my own part, they seemed too liable to become frosted over. —Beautiful .Antarctic Scenery.— “ Die proportion of bright days was at no time great, and grew less as the season advanced. On the dull, grey days one’s vigilance in keeping the course was severely taxed, and our disappointments appeared in their worst colors; but when the sun shone forth they were more or less forgotten in the beauty and cheeufulncs; of the scene. Even an inartistic eye could admire the grandeur of the towering, snowclad land and derive some exhilaration from the thought that its lofty peaks and mighty masses of neve were now seen for the first time. Our Antarctic scenes have a delight which is all their own. There is rarely any intensity of color; one never sees that depth of blue familiar in sea and sky of tropical regions, and even the sunset color; are not so brilliant as those of more temperate climes; their beauty seems to rest on the purity and delicacy of coloring, and on the softness and distinctness of distant outline. The delicate blue of the shadows, the pure tones of pink and violet seen and doubtless admired by all about the ship, were often visible to us in our new land There were bright days with an absolutely cloudless sky ; others in which wisps r.i stratus or cirrus cloud hung about the peak* or travelled rapidly overhead ; and some in which heavy rolling cuirmlous clouds, like tangles of cotton wool, partly covered the high land. Often towards the evening of a clear day a thin sheet of white mist would arise along the coast like the evening mist of the waters at Home, but probably here due to the removal of the sun’s rays from the rocky and steep icy surfaces of the const line. Our dull days were dm’ to a more or less thin stratus which covered the sky above us; when thick enough to obscure the sun’s outline and not lower than a few hundred feet (it was rarely higher) the horizon line was indistinguishable, and the whole outlook from underfoot to the zenith one grey monotone unutterably wearisome to the eye. But dark objects such as the sledges and tent could at such times be seen for a long distance. Sometimes the stratus descended and enveloped us, making everything damp and unpleasant.

“About the ship the beautiful forms of snow-crystals are generally lost from th?ir being broken into minute irregular particles by the wind. On the Barrier, however, ice crystals would often fall and rest like thistledown on the crusted surface. Their form was quite easily seen, end uniformly consisted of a six-pointed star, whose radients were connected by innumerable feathery branches, the whole forming a hexagonal disc, varying in size, but sometimes nearly half an inch in diameter. One has often read of the picturesque likening to gems of dewdrops, frost or wood and flowers, but the simile could nowhere be so correctly applied as to the effect of sunlight on these ice-crystals. On their polished surfaces the white light was broken into its constituent colors, and each crystal, according to its relative position, reflected to the eye some pure prismatic color till (he appearance of walking over a glistening gem-e’.ad carpet was perfected. “With the first strong breeze these crystals were broken, and swept into heaps of powdery particles resembling the finest sand. At such time the surface was in its very, worst condition for travelling, the friction on the runners being enormous: hut when the sun’s rays again fell on it—and, possibly, with the assistance of the light packing wind—a thin surface crust was formed, rarely sufficiently strong to support the runners, but tending to reduce the friction. Often these crusts were so hard and brittle that they would crack ahead and around the sledges with a sharp report like a pistol shot, followed by a sighing sound as'the broken crust sank on the soft snow beneath. The dogs were at first very terrified by these reports, but soon grew accustomed to them, and Air Shackleton, digging down one night, fully explained their cause by finding successive crusts, about nine inches apart, separated by soft snow, and with an air space of about two inches under each one. In the space of this article it, is impossible to dwell on this and many other interesting phenomena, but I cannot refrain from noting some very beautiful atmospheric effects which were witnessed. They appear to he unique, since we can find nothing comparable in the observations of Northern travellers. The condition seems to be a very thin but deep and low stratus' of ice-crystals, with the result that at certain critical points the sun’s rays are reflected or refracted to the eye. On two or three such occasions the effect we observed was very beautiful; the whole arch of the heavens was traced with circles and lines of brilliant prismatic or white light; bright double halos about the sun were touched or intersected by rainhow-hued zenith circles of different altitudes, while brilliant mock suns appeared at the points of intersection. —The Farthest South.— “ Christmas Day was succeeded by several fine days, but on December 28 the weather again became misty and unsettled, and this was the more an »lying as we knew we were nearing the end of our tether, and during the past new aspects of the land had developed. Christmas Day had found us moderately close to the foothills on ou£ right, whose high cliffs and snow slopes consequently shut out the land beyond. From Chri.-tmas Alountain nothing very remarkable appeared until the eye rested on a high mountain evidently close to the. coast line, and bearing almost south. On the 28th, however, a sudden and unexpected break in the coast line revealed another huge strait, and gradually we opened out from behind its nearest cape a magnificent new range of mountains, in the centre of which a sharp doub.e peak rose to a greater height than anything we had yet seen on our journey. From the high, partially bare peaks the slopes of the range descended in gradual undulations of neve to the level of the strait. Unfortunately,

the positions from which I was able to observe the altitudes of the peaks were too close to give reliable data for calculating their height; yet though the absence of foot hills which increase their dignity may also have added to their apparent height, we were so struck by their loftiness in comparison with other calculated heights that I have little doubt that the highest peaks nearly approached, if they did not exceed, 15,000 ft. On the evening of this day (28th) we got our best southerly view. Across the open strait, but to the southward of it, lay the mountains I have already mentioned; to their left ran out more extensive snow-clad foot-hills, theirnorthern edge fringed with mighty cliffs, sometimes of a black and sometimes of a deep red color, which formed the southern limit of the strait. The coast line Continuing south wound around snowy headlands till it struck the flanking ridge of the spurs of our southern mountains, to the right, but behind the well-marked summit of which could be seen two other lots of peaks. When the southern mirage was greatest, beyond the cape to which we could trace the coast line, but very close to it, two tiny white patches indicated land at a much, greater distance, and showed that the coast line continued in the same general direction for many a mile. The cape on our right still obscured the channel of the strait, which appeared to turn towards the north, and we decided to push on with ski on the following day to get a better view of it. “ But the 28th brought wind and drift, and we were obliged to remain in camp, and on the 30th it was so foggy we dared not leave the sledges, but continued in a south-west direction with them. The surface soon changed entirely, and we found ourselves travelling over well-marked undu 'ations of increasing height, the crests of the waves becoming harder, and at length traversed by cracks and crevasses. Tin light grew worse, and at lunch time we were forced to camp for the night, deciding, moreover, that, as we hoped to pay a visit to the land on our return, this must be our farthest camp.” After a brief account of the attempts to reach the coast line along which the party had been traveling, the writer goes on to discuss the problem of the great Ice Barrier. —The Great Ice Barrier.— “ It will be rememb-rred,” he says. “ that the instructions In id the greatest stress on the question : What is that extraordinary ice formation, the Barrier? Can we now give a definite answer to the question? I fear that must txj considered we cannot; but, on the other hand, we have accumulated such strong presumptive evidence as to its nature and movement that there can femam little doubt with regard to it. Fifty years ago, Ross, examining its seaward face, concluded that it was afloat at its edge ; since then that face has broken away, in places as much as twenty or thirty miles. We have sounded far beyond the icy cliff which was visible in his day, and have obtained such depths os to prove that the part which was broken away was wholly afloat. If, as was evident, the edge of the Great Barrier was water-borne, how' far did it continue in that condition? Nothing bub a journey on the Barrier could throw light on this question, and even such a journey could not obtain positive proof unless, which was, of course, impossible, the actual stage of some southerly portion could be examined. We should willingly enough have abandoned many a mile to the southward for one glimpse of a section a quarter of a mile beneath our feet. As we advanced to the south we soon became convinced that we were not rising in level. Far from the land all was one unbroken horizontal snow plain. Closer to it we found occasional undulations, and closer still these undulations increased and bore evident signs of a connection with the disturbed ice in and about the straits in the coast line. The edge of the plain was never indistinct, but always bounded by a sharp, horizontal line, where cliff or snow-smpe rose abruptly to' the lands beyond, and the continued and uniform loftiness of the high peaks showed that we could not have increased our elevation to any extent. Throughout the journey careful aneroid readings. were taken and corrected by hypsometric measurements. With a rising level the atmospheric pressure decreases, but there is no sign of a decreased pressure when our mean barometric read.ngs are compared with those taken simultaneously in the ship. Everything seems to point to the fact that the Barrier was as freely water-borne at our most southerly point os it is at ‘its edge, and if this fact be assumed, all the other phenomena which wo witnessed can be easily explained, in a manner which does not appear possible under any other assumption. Thanks to the western journey, we now know> that Victoria Land is not a narrow ridge of mountains, but that these mountains only confine an immense ice-cap, covering an apparently extensive continental land, and the western party have seen that the overflow from this vast ice-field finds its way down in the great glaciers of the Ross Sea. There can be little or no doubt that the straits that we discovered to the south are glaciers of, the same origin, huge rivers of ice draining the lands of the interior. I have employed his word “ straits ” only becanse no land could be seen directly behind them, and they did not appear to rise in level. In countless years they have dug their channel deep and wide, and are now flanked by high, bold, and precipitous cliffs. As the confluent of the river swirls and eddies at its junction, so are these ice rivers twisted and torn on meeting the water-borne Barrier, and as the swirls and eddies die away in the main stream, so are the ice disturbances smoothed as they creep -towards the sea. Twice we attempted to reach the land, once immediately south and once immediately north of the strait. On both occasions we were confronted by a vast ebasra of broken ice. This would seem a natural result of the great moving mass of Barrier ice grinding past the ice foot of the coast, but everywhere being thrust from rather than towards it. The ice foot itself steadily spreads outwards from the lands above, breaks at its edge into huge blocks, the date of whose origin is relatively fixed by the accumulation of snow in their cliffs and interstices, an accumulation gradually increasing towards the Barrier. Thus we again see the cause which tends to level all inequalities, as the Barrier is pushed to the open sea, and to produce that level surface over which we have travelled far from the land. Some evidences of the Barrier movements are known—-the cracks and pressure ridges about the Bluff and the White Island, and the pressure on the sea ice at Pram Point; but in addition to this, and to the many other similar signs we saw, we heard, when in camp near the chasm, continual muffled reports caused by the ice movements. But it is equally evident that this movement is extremely slow. To say that our depot bearings did not alter between our visits to those spots is but a rough indication. More conclusive seems to be the manner in which the broader cracks are filled or bridged with snow, and the evidently small extent of their seasonal increase and the limited number of yards that the ioe has been pushed up at Pram Point. Under these circumstances, it must take very many years, even centuries, for the ice from our southern straits to reach the open sea, and it is curious to reflect that the original ice probably never does reach the sea; for, since the snow is constantly accumulating above and the ice presumably melting below, the sea face must be formed, as it looks to be formed, of layers of neve representing the seasonal snowfalls on the open Barrier surface. Long since all included boulders or earth must have dropped out of this mass. “The extent of thds Great Barrier must rest principally in surmise. We know that there is land to the eastward, and, what is of equal importance, that there are shallow banka which account for the disturbed appearance in that region. The rest mast be speculation. Possibly Victoria Land turns sharply to the eastward to meet the eastern land, but for my own part I am inclined to think that it does not, but that the lofty tectonic line, as has been suggested, curves more gradually till it joins to Graham Land; and that the Barrier is confined on the east, and possibly the south, by detached masses of land and shoals such as we have found.” —lncidents and Conclusions, Captain Scott then returns to the narrative of the journey, and gives further de-‘ .taik of the (hfliwhaes with the dogs. The

weather, too, is described, and blizzards get the same cheery matter-af-fact mention that is given, to important discoveries. About the end of this month (January) Air Shackleton suffered severely with his chest complaint, and his illness, resulting from another blizzard, caused his companions much alarm. The weather cleared again in a few days, and there was a consequent improvement in Mr Shackleton’s health. On the second day of February the party rounded the comer of White Island to see once more familiar points in the waste. “I have tried to be explicit in setting forth the difficulties and obstacles which v*e met during • our three months’ absence (he continues), but a word may be added in reflecting on what might have been done to secure a better result.

“ There can be no doubt that the failure of the dog team was mainly due to the stock-fish; some, which we left at Depot B, was found on our return to be covered with green fungus clearly showing a taint, and the symptoms of the wretched animals, the gradual sickening, and utter weakness, under which they collapsed, signified, without doubt, that they were being slowly poisoned. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine how this could have been foreseen, though it provides a warning for future travellers- But I think that we made a grave error in undertaking that unspeakably tedious month of relay work. We should, I think, at the beginning, have dropped the greater part of the dog food and everything that was beyond the capacity of the team to pull in one load. But it is easy to be wise after the event; at the time we had less evidence to go on, and never liked to give up hope that the sickness was but temporary.. As it was, this month absorbed the greater part of the energy of the dogs, with little enough to show for it. After leaving Depot B We might just as, well have despatched the whole team, as, indeed, would have been the loudest aot to them and certainly a great relief to us. Judging again by events, it would appear we should have dene better to make tlac whole journey on the wood-runners. When we started we had wood under-runners; when our difficulties commenced, we took these off on trial, and certainly at the time there appeared to be an improvement. It remained to us to return to wood again hv stripning the metal, but, as I have pointed out, this was a serious step, and our experiences on ski seemed to indicate that we should derive little benefit from the plain wood. “But apart from matters in which we might have taken action, there remains one factor, the surface of the Barrier, over which we could have no influence. It may sound an easy thing to advance over a level snow plain, but the details of the surface of that plain must largely influence an attempt to do so. I do not think it occurred to me to consider that the surface

might greatly change from that ■which we had traversed on our journey to the Bluff. Had it remained the same, we should, I think, have had a different tale to tell, Not until we returned towards the Bluff and once more planted our feet on firm crust did I realise how great a change there had been. The softness of the southern but-> faces, where a very light pressure would sink an ice axe to the head, might have been expected, and could not have been avoided; it was undoubtedly due to the comparative absence of wind. The surface near the land was probably, almost certainly, the worst of ad, not because the winds here are lighter, but because the snowfall is heavier. “ As I have once more spread the details of our journey on paper, I cannot but sum up by saying that despite our troubles and despite our hunger we enjoyed it. No lurking sense of disappointment can take from our memory the pleasure of having trodden new paths, found new lands, and looked upon new scenes. Something has been added to our knowledge, and so-’-'c-thiug to the settlement of those prob' .

which we were commissioned to solve. Men of the future will come and tread in our footsteps, and, I hope, pass far beyond, but it will be by the benefit of our experience, with the knowledge gained from our pioneer labors, hardships, and troubles.”