PRICELESS RELICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

PRICELESS RELICS.

THE " SOUL OF ENGLAND."

DEEDS OF BRAVE MEN.

There is a building in the Borough of Kensington which has been called the " Soul cf England." It is the museum of the Royal Geographical Society, housing a collection of articles whose monetary value J3 negligible, jet whose price is too high to be named, and whose appeal to the hearts and the imaginations of the English peoples is deathless. In one simple glass case is a little soiled bag of provisions and a few pages of manuscript diary. The bag contains three other small bags cf calico. In one there is tea, m another cocoa, in the other curt powder. The manuscript diary is dated January-October, 1911. and is in the handwriting of Captain Robert Falcon Scott. Not far away is the camel saddle on which General Gordon rode into Khartoum m his final entry into that city where he met his death in 1885. There are a few leaves taken from the tree under which the heart of Dr. Livingstone was buried in Central Africa, and a section of the tree itself. More personal and pathetic are Livingstone's cap, shabby and soiled, and a collar used by him. There is the sledge used by Admiral McClmtock during The Arctic expedition of 1557-59; a rusted knife and fork and a decrepit pannikin that are relics cf LeighSmith's expedition to Fran3 Josef Land; and a Burberry helmet worn by Shackleton.

A silk flag hoisted by Sir Edward Parry in latitude 82.45 N\ in 1827, lies not, far away from the Union Jack carried by Sir Herbert Wilkms' on his Sight from Point Barrow to Spitsbergen, one hundred and one years later. One of the most curious exhibits is a ship's biscuit, intact, and in a-perfect state of preservation. It was left at Port Leopold by Sir James Ros3 in 1349. and found there and brought home bv Admiral Sir Albert Markham in 1875.

On a high shelf overlooking the other exhibits is a sleeping bag and sledge equipment, with the half-sledge which Sir Douglas Mawson dragged for 31 miles after the death of his companions. There is not, in fact, an object here which does not illustrate the splendid, achievements of intrecid men.