THE TERRA NOVA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 43, 19 February 1913, Page 5

THE TERRA NOVA.

HER FUTURE ITINERARY. (Per Press Association.) Christchurch, February 18. The members of the British Antarctic expedition are at present busily engaged in making preparations lor their early departure for England. Mr Francis Drake, secretary of the expedition, will leave on Thursday by the Moeraki for Sydney, where he will join the Otranto for Toulon and London. He will probably be accompanied by Lieutenant V. Campbell,) R.N. Commander E. R. G. R. Evans, R.N., will leave for Wellington next Tuesday to meet Mrs Scott, who will arrive in Wellington from San Francisco by the Aorangi on Thursday, the 27th inst. Lieutenant W. M. Bruce, R.N.R., brother of Mrs Scott, will also go north next Tuesday night to meet Ids sister at Wellington. Mrs Scott and Lieutenant Bruce will go to Sydney to join the P. and O. steamer Medina for England. Commandei Evans and Mrs Evans will leave next week for Sydney to join the Otranto for London. Dr. Atkinson, Lieutenant Gran, and Messrs Wright, Priestly Dohenham, Cherry and Garrard will also travel to England by mail steam-

Commander E. IE G. R. Evans, R.N., informed a reporter to-day that arrangements for . the homeward passage of the Terra Nova had practically been completed. The vessel will be dry-docked shortly, for rent and cleaning and painting, and, after .taking coal supplies, she will sail from Lyttelton for England on March 15. She will leave with about 500 tons of coal on board, and will proceed on a great circle track from Lyttelton to Magellan Straits, and will make a call at Punta Arenas, in the Straits. Thence she vv ill go to Rio do Janiero for bunker coal, and on to Cardiff. According to the programme mapped out, the Terra Nova will leave Punta Arenas on April 26, and Rio de Janiero on May 25, and she is expected to arrive at Cardiff on July 11. Tho above dates are approximate only, and, if she is ready in time, the Terra Nova will sail from Lyttelton on an earlier date than March 15.

She will proceed under steam and sail, and it is possible that she will improve on the dates mentioned on her homeward passage, if the weather conditions are favourable. The programme has been arranged on a speed allowance of 120 miles per day, and the distances are approximately: Lyttelton to Straits of Magellan, 5680 miles; Punta Arenas to Rio do Janiero to Cardiff, 5689 miles; total, 11,369 miles. The time allowed for the passage is 89 days, and the object is to get the Terra Nova to England as quickly as possible, but, if opportunity offers, soundings will be made and dredgings for plankton and other forms of sea life will be taken on the passage. Lieutenant H. L. L. Pennell, R-N will be in command of the Terra Nova for the passage to England, with Lieutenant H. E. Do P. Renwick, 11. N., second in command. Mr A. Cheetham will act as second mate, and Messrs G. Nelson and I). G. Lillie, biologists to the expedition will travel Home in the Terra Nova. Mr M. Williams, R.N., will continue as chief engineer, and Mr W. Horton, R.N ~as second engineer. All the Royal Navy men in the crew and most of the merchant service seamen at-j present on board will go to England i in the Terra Nova. |

Before the Terra Nova sailed to the Antarctic regions on the voyage from which she has returned bearing such sad news, the Scottish Society of Christchurch sent a box of heather sprigs to the vessel, with a request that they should bo distributed amongst the crew on New Year’s Day. Chief Mackintosh, at Thursday night’s ceilidh, read (says the Press) the following letter he had received since the vessel’s return; “McMurdo Sound South Victoria Land, January 18th, 1913. Dear Sir, —The bundles ot Scottish heather forwarded by you to this ship were distributed on New Year’s Day to the ship’s company. They wore very much appreciated by all hands, and, while their recipients are writing to the kind friends in Scotland whose names are on the labels attached to the heather, they ask mo to tell you on their behalf how grateful they are for your kind thought in sending the gifts.—l am, etc., William McDonald.” Captain Amundson is so far from seriously objecting to the intense solitude of polar regions, that he has declined the gift of a wireless installation for the Pram. “1 don’t care for it,” ho said in a recent interview in America. “It is very much better to be without news when you cannot be where the news comes from. Wo are always more contented if we get no news. A good book we like, we explorers—that is our best amusement and our best time-killer.”