ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2067, 19 December 1907, Page 1

ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

LIEUT. SHACKLETON’S EXPEDITION. A AIODEST DONATION TOWARDS THE EXPENSE. (Special to Times). AVELLINGTON, Dec. 18. Lieut. Shackleton has had a very busy time, and has seen a great many people interested in his expedition during his brief sojourn in Wellington. This morning lie called upon Lady AVard, and in the afternoon he paid a visit to tile Hon. Air. AlcNab, in whose historical work regarding the early southern voyages he is greatly interested. A number of Wellington merchants have presented him with a quantity of N.Z. butter and cliecso for his expedition. A low days ago he received from a working man a letter enclosing a postal note for 2s Gd towards the cost of liis expedition. This was before tile- news of the Federal and Dominion Government votes had been made, and was in response to Lieut. Shackleton’s intimation that lie could do with another P-1000. The man, in sending his mite along, worked out a sum in subtraction to show that there was now so much less to collect. The leader of the expedition fully appreciates the donor’s interest In the work, which is apparently greater than that of some of the millionaires lie interviewed. The great hall in the municipal buildings last night was not only crowded in every part, but fully 500 people who could not get scats stood patiently listening to Lieut. Shackleton’s lecture from beginning to end. The audience was probably by far the largest that lias ever been drawn together by a lecturer in N.Z. During the course of his remarks Lieut. Sliackleton described King Edward VII. Land as the first territory to be added to the Empire during His Alajesty’s reign. It was not perhaps the most fertile of his dominions, but certainly tlio most peaceful—a piece of quiet humor which the large audience fully axipreciated. The audience showed great interest in the realistic pictures of the pack ice and the barrier—that great- wall of icc from which the bergs break off and float northwards. The lecturer referred to the cable in yesterday’s papers, stating that a multitude of icebergs had been encountered by a ship sailing from New York to Melbourne. He said that this, though it might be inconvenient to some navigators, was good news for the Antarctic expedition, because it betokened an open summer in those regions.