THE DISCOVERY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7978, 6 April 1904, Page 4

THE DISCOVERY.

__ ». — _ FURTHEST SOUTH. HOW IT WAS ATTAINED. CAPTAIN SCOTT'S ACCOUNT. To the remarkably interesting, indeed 'fascinating, journal, "The South Polar . Times," which was published on board the Discovery in Antarctic^ Captain Scott hhn> self last year contributed a striking account of his great sledge journey' towards the Pole, when he, with Dr Wilson and Mr Shackleton, reached their "Farthest South" at 82deg 17min. " In essaying a brief account of the southirn sledge journey of last summer," he says, "it is impossible to forget the 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 exiending 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 onr disappointment I shall touch, though necessarily with brevity, since I must ako endeavour to describe the points of interest to which I have referred. " It may prove of interest to my readers to tj^ote certain paragraphs from the instructions issued by the Presidents of the Royal and Bx)y?l Geographical Societies, in the light of; which our actions must, presumably, be judged 1 . The following are jerbatim extracts from those instructions:— * "- ;: , . >'Such exploration (that of the first seaWffi) 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 ohi*f points of geographical interest? are as follow: — To explore the Ice Barrier of Sir James Ross to its eastern extremity ; Ho discover the land which was believed Ify 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 eonnsotad with this remarkable ice forma- \ ttOB. "--:;; ■ ' i " ' If you should decide that the ship shall winter in the ice, the following instructions are to be observed: — (a) Your! efforts as regards geographical exploration i should be directed, with the help of depots, j 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 £§ well to keep in mind the objects our journeys were intended to achieve and to remember, amidst minor <osappointment, that we must be considered as more strictly pioneers than the majority of polar trav«jlfciß 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 tne South.' The early stages of the southern journey are well known and need nob be dwelt on. The .Southern party left the chip on November 2, 1902, and overtook the supporting parfy, 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 southtest of the Bluff. This was reached) by the fcputhem party by easy stages .on November , JLO, but the travelling, owing to the slipjerinessof the wind-swept sastrugi, proved tnuch more arduous for the supporting party, who worked hard to rejoin on Nt>vember 11. On November 12 the course Was set due south, the parties in company, but the men slightly ahead of the dogs, and toercfoy greatly helping the> drivers. On ITovember 13 half the supporting party returned to the ship, with the satisfaction oi having reached the highest latitude yet attained ; the remainder continued south during 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 utretched the plain and unbroken horizon .of the Barrier surface, which we were to find oo monotonous and yet so inconstant. It was scarcely to be wondered at that our hopes ran high ; preparations had been jmade with cape, and, so far, plans had only been modified from the dogs' capacity to jjull a greater load* than was expected. The hard, wind-swept sastrugi had disappeared, and, under foot, w© had a lighi Bun-crust, liberally powdered with softer' «now ; as yet' such a surface had seemed to give us' little trouble. TRIALS AND DIFFICULTIES. "We had provisions for thirteen weeks and » larger amount of dog food than was expected j our outfit appeared in good order «nd» rally up to our requirements. Shortly after noon the last note waa despatched, tie last farewell isaid ; we started on our journey, and without delay our troubles be- j flan. Our utmost efforts of coaxing and 'driving could, on ttiis day, only produce short advances of a few hundred yards at * time ; at each stoppage the rear sledges bad to be pulled .up to the front one, to wake the effort of starting less severe. Finally, as/each stage grew shorter, the . jmpossibility of proceeding in this manner became obvious, and we decided to camp jnd consider the situation. There seemed tmt^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 ,hree times, but we consoled ourselves *ith the- thought 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 Brst 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 of three or three and d half miles. Again and again we tried td "make a start with the whole load, but each "effort seemed to prove more hopeless than the last. Needless to say, we discussed • (he situation from, every point of view. At Brsfc we were inclined to attribute much to fche 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 gnantity, bringing greater friction. But it waß soon evident that there was also somefcbing radically wrong with the dogs. Their* spirit /had , disappeared, and we could see; that there internal economy was alfcogethen out of order. This, it was hoped, was only temporary, due to the work, the change o| diet, or the sun. We tried night marchIng without sign of improvement. A rest was proposed, and a blizzard came seasonably, forcing us to spend a day in the tent. On the following morning the dogs were as littless as ever. At last we were reluctant"ly compelled to realise 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 farther career of our wretched dog team. They failed us almost immediately after we bad* formed such high hopes of travelling a^ long distance. The failure was certainly due to the stock-fish, and, as we could not "correct the cause, the effect was bound tq go' from bad to worse as time went on. The stockfish was originally got from Norway, in which country it is caught) split, sun- . dried and exported for human food/ & has

been used for dog food in the north with marked success, and, under the circumstances, it can only be supposed that ours had deteriorated from its passage through the tropics, giving another instance of the care which i 3 necessary in preparing for polar work. On the fifteenth, we wer* steering due south, but on the twenty -first,, realising that there was little prospect of a speedy ending to our relay work, we turned towards the land with the -hope of being able to make a depot. For the first time we discovered that the land continued to run 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 cliff of a sharp headland, but which 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 naif the load as nearly as possible two and a half miles, and then to return for the second half. Then alter lunch a .similar advance was attempted, but usually resulted in a bare gain of one and a half miles. We ourselves could have worked longer hours and covered greater but at eacii evening camp the dogs sank down thoroughly done, and each day their exhaustion increased, until only the strongest dogs pat any weight at all on the traces, and no advance would have been made had we not pulled ourselves. This, however, we were glad enough to, do, taking it m turns to) drive, a far more dreaded task. The explorers made variouus attempts to reach the land along which they were.coasting at a distance of some miles. The broken ice and chasms, however, gave them great [rouble. In latitude 80deg 30mm 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 on our right ; in the background it rose to a height of lO.dOOft, outlined in occasional slightly elevated but sharp peaks rising above lofty snow-covered^ xidges. The general direction of the .Hugh land was north and south, though, it was interrupted with occasional hills of very regular pyramidal shapft and some flat-topped _ table mountains, on the steep slopes ol which the bare land' w&s visible. Nearer to us the foothills rarely showed their heads througu the deep undulating ice-cap which at places ended abruptly on the summit of hign 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 i 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 amilax 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 idle same basis as that of other parties, but, whereas with us 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 had 'been considerably overrunning our allowance of biscuit. Some early scorbutic symptoms had caused Dr Wilson to suspect the bacon, which we 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 1 down, in our bags without feeling 1 we could have swallowed at least two more suppers of th© same nature as the one we had just finished. " One of the worst drawbacks was tho insufficiency of oil. It will ba remembered that a gallon was calculated to. last tbje ordinary timt party for ten days; our original estimate was for one to last us twelve days, but after wastage and some want of eire f during the first month, we discovered that | each gallon that remained would 1 have to* last xis fourteen days. This not- only cut off all chance ol 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 aj small piece of seal flesh, some biscuit and & few lumps of sugar, and, with regard to the former, soon grew to welcome the "pieces that contained tie most ! blubber. I could scarcely have believed this i 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. Wheto. serving out biscuit, seal meat, sugar, etc., it was often difficult to divide them in exact portions, and conscience compelled the ddsi tri'butor to appropriate that which looked the smallest. But this, for some reason, proved intensely annoying to the> other members. To avoid/ this, .at Mr Shackleton's suggestion, after the division was made, one of us shut his eyes, another pointed to a portion, and said, ' ' Whose ds that?' This ingenious game of ' Shut eye ' was practised at «aoh meal, and avoided! all necessity of attempting to persuade your neighbour to take the largest share. From depot B we depended on the 'Primus.' It served us well, giving little or no trouble, but it worked better, becaiuse it remained cleaner, when lit with spirit. The only mishap was when I tried to light it with the caps off, and succeeded in burning a large bole in the tent. • A STRANGE CHRISTMAS. " As the weather gradually cleared on, our journey south, a very sharp conical peak showed l up a little to our right, and, i« the i. uncertain light, appeared a high mountain 'at a great distance. By Christmas Day we were aJbreast of it, and found it to be a sharp eminence about 7000 ft in height, arisOta. -ant ol £h»/ — — "» ** *Jia foot-filla. H*

solitary position made it a most conspicuoiv landmark, and in honour of tlie- day we named it Christmas Mountain. ' " Our Christmas Day was gloriously fine ; the sun shone bright and clear throughout, and had a most cheering effect, which, no doubt, was much assisted by the fact 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 brush-up, we cooked throe ' N.A.O.' rations and devoured a plum pudding about ...half the size of s cricket ball and the remains of ai 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 uu usually long march, and when we turned jii 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. SNOW-BLINDNESS. "On the following day, Dr Wilson had an exceedingly bad attack of snow-blind-ness. It is difficult to imagine an apter place for this painful ailment than the great, boundless plain of the Barrier, with its every.-varying conditions of light. The general impression seems to be that the greatest danger of an attack is on a slightly dull day, when things are not clearly visible, and the 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 tho 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, but, as happened later in our case, there are times when a good pair of eyes and constant observation 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. Owr experience shows that some require to be more careful than others in this matter, and also ttoat 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 co little can be seen through them that they must from time to time be removed. 'JU« glass goggles found much favqur with the others, but, for my own part, they seemed too liable to become frosted over. BEAUTIFUL ANTARCTIC SCEImj&RY. "The proportion" of bright days waa at no time great, and grew less as the season advanced. On the dirll, grey days one's vigilance in keeping the course was severely taxed, and our disappointments appeared) . in their worst colours; but when the sun shone forth they were more or less forgotten in the beauty and cheerfulness of the scene. Even an inartistic eye could admire the grandeur of the towering, snow-clad land and derive some exhilaration from the thought that its lofty peaks and mighty masses of nevee were now seen for the first time. Our Antarctic scenes have a delight whioh is all their own. There is rarely any intensity of colour ; one never se^es that depth of blue familiar in sea and sky of tropical regions, and even the sunset colours are not so brilliant as those of more temperate climes; their beauty seems to rest on the* purity and delicacy of colouring, 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 tho ship, were often visible to us in our new land. There were bright days with an absolutely cloudless sky ; others in which wisps of stratus or cirrus cloud .hung about the peaks or travelled rapidly overhead ; and some in which heavy rolling cnmulous clouds, like tangles of cotton wool, partly covered the high land. Often towards the evening of a clear day a thin Hbeet of white mist woud arise along the coast like the evening mist df the waters at Home, but probably here due to the removal of the sun's rays from the rocky anfl steep icy surfaces of .the coast line. Our dull days were due to a more or less thin stratus which covered the sky above us; when thick enough to obscure the sun's outr line and not lower than a few hunderd feet (it was rarely higher) the horizon Jine was indistinguishable, and the whole outlook from underfoot to the zenith one grey monotone unutterably wearisome to the eye. Bat dark objects such as the sledges and tent could at such times be seen for at long distance. Sometimes the stratus desscended and enveloped us, making everything damp and unpleasant. "About the ship the beautiful forms of snow-crystals are generally lost from their being broken into minute irregular particle* 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, and uniformly consisted of a six-pointed star, whose radients were connected by innumeTabe feathery branches, the whole forming a hexagonal disc, varying in size, but sometimes nearly half an inch in dimeter. One has often lead of the picturesque likening to gems of dewdrops, frost or wood and flower's, 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 colours, and each crystal, according to its relative position, reflected to the eye some pure prismatic colour till the appearance of walking over a glistening gem-clad 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 ; 4ut when the sun's rays again fell on it,| md, possibly, with the assistance of the ight packing wind a thin surface -rust was formed, rarely sufficiently strong to support the rnnners, but] tending to reduce the friction. Often \hese crusts were so hard and brittle thatthev 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-be-neath. The dogs were at first very terrified by these- reports, but soon grew accustomed to them, and Mr Shackleton, digging down one nightj. fully explained their cause by finding successive crusts, about, nine inches apart, separated by soft snow, and with am 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 som? very beautiful atmospheric effects which were witnessed. They appear to be 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 tie sun's rays are re-floct-rKI 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 rainbow hued zenith circles of different altitudes, while brilliant mock suns appeared 1 at the points of intersection. THE FARTHEST SOUTH. "Christmas Day was succeeded by s&veral fine days, but on December 28 the weather again became misty and unsettled, shd this was. the more annoying as we knew we were nearing the end of our tether, and during the past few days new aspects of the land had developed. Christmas Day bad found us moderately close to the foothills on our right, whose, high cliffs and snow slopes consequently shitt out the lajid beyond. From Christmas Mountain nothing very remarkable appeared until the eye rested on a high mountain evidently close ' to the coastline, and bearing almost south. On tihe 28th, 'however, a sudden and unexpected break in the coast-line revealed anoth^eT huge strait, and' gradually we opened out from, behind its nearest cape a magnificent new range of mountains, in the centre ox which a sharp double peak rose to a greater height than anything we had yet seen ©a our journey. From the high, partially foare 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 crJculating 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 th© highest peaks nearly approached, if they did not exceed, 15,000 ft. On the evening of this day (28th) we got oux> best southerly view. Across the open strait, 'but to the southward of it, lay ( the mounfoins I hava already mentioned' ; to their left ran out more extensive snowrclad foot-hills, their northern edge fringed with mighty cliffs, sometimes of a black and sometimes of a deep red colour, whioh formed" the southern limit of the strait. The coast-line continuinor south wound around snowy headlands tifl it struck the flanking ridge of the spurs of our southern, mountains, to the ri^ht, but behind the well-market summit of which could be seen two other lots of peaks. When the southern mirage was greatest, beyond the cape to which we could 1 trace the coastline, 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 our right . still obscured the channel of the strait, which appeared to turn towards the north, and we decided to push on with ski 1 on tihe following day to get a better view of it. " But the 29fch 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, bub continued in a south rwest direction, with them. The surface soon changed entirely, and we found ourselves travelling over well-marked undu- i la.tions of increasing height, the crests of ! the waves 'becoming harder and at ' length traversed by cracks and crevasses*, The light grew worse, and at lunch-time we were forced to camp for the night, 1 deciding, moreover, that, as we hoped to pay a visit to the land "on our return; this must be our farthest damp." ' After a brief account of the attempts to reach the coast-line along which the paifcy had been travelling, the writer goes on to discuss the problem of the great Ice Barrier. * . I THE GREAT ICE BARRIER. "It will be remembered," he says, "that the instructions laid £he greatest stress on the question : What is that extraordinary ice formation, the Barrier? Can we now give a definite answer to the question? 1 fear that it must be considered we cannot ; but, on the other hand, wo have accumulated such strong presumptive evidence as to its nature and movement that there can remain 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, ia places as much as twenty or thirty milas. We have sounded far beyond the icy cliff which was visible in his day, and have obtained such depths as to prove that the part which wss "nroken away was wholly afloat. If, as was evident, the edge of tiie Great Barrier was water-borne, how far did it continue in that condition? Nothing but 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 6ome southerly portion could be examined. We should willingly enough have abandoned many a mile to the eouthward 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. alwaya bounded by a sharp, horizontal line, where' cliff or snow-slope 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 corf rented by hypsometric measurements.! - With a rising level the atmospheric pressure decreases, but there is no sign of a decreased pressure w*hen our mean, barometric readings 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 as it is at its edge, and, if this fact be assumed, all the other phenomena which we .witnessed can be easily explained, in a manner whieii does not appear possible under any assumption. Thanks to the western journey, we now know that Victoria Land is nob 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 has seen that tie over- ' flow from this vast ice . fi^i<j 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 tne same origin, luge rivers of ice draining the lands of the interior. I have employed this word ";steait " only because no land coold be seeat, directly behind them, end they did. nbfc appear to rise in level In counttees years- they have dug their channel deep and wi«fej aaid are now flanked by high, bold and precipitous cliffs. As the confluent of the river swirls **-&**&&>« ni.U>~. i,*a«+lnn» ■» :«.■— fjhnmi Job i

I rivers twisted and torn on meeting the j 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 chasm of broken ice. This would seem ! a natural result of the great moving mass of Barrier ice grinding past the ice foot of the i coast, but everywhere being tihrust 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 da relatively fixed i by the accumulation of snow in their cliffs ! and intenrtices, an accumulation gradually I increasing towards the Barrier. Thus we ■ aggin see the cause which tends to level all inequalities, as the Barrier is pushed to the I open sea, and to produce that level surface j over which we have travelled far from the i land. Some evidences of the Barrier move : i ments' axe known — the cracks and pressure j ridges about the Bluff and the White Island, ' and the pressure on the seai ice at Pram ; Poinf. ; but in addition to this, and to the many other similar signs we saw, we heard, 1 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 j 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 tho broader cracks are filled or bridged- with show, and the evidently small extent of their seasonal increase and the limited number of yards that the ice has been pushed up at Pram Point. Under these circumstances, it must take very many ■ years, even centuries, for the ice from our I 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 sno"w is constantly accumulating above and the ice presumably melting be- '■ low, the sea; face must be formed, as it looks to-be formed, of layers of nevee representing the seasonal "snowfalls on the open Barrier surface. Long since, all included boulders or earth must have dropped out of this mass. j " The extent of this great Barrier must ! rest principally in surmke. We know that there I's land to the eastward, and, what is of equal importance, that there are shallow banks which account for the disturbed appearance in that region. The rest must be speculation. Possibly Victoria- Land turns sharply to the eastward to meet the 1 eastern land, but for my own part I am inclined to think that it does not, but that the lofty tectonic line, as has be'en suggested, curves more gradually till it joins to Graham Land ; and that the Barrier is I confiued on the east, and possibly fhe south, by detached masses of land and shoals such as we have found," INCIDENTS AND CONCLUSIONS. Captain Scott then returns to the narrative of the journey, and gives further details of the difficulties with the dogs. The weather, too, is described, and blizzards get the same cheery matter-of-fact mention that is given to important discoveries. About the end of this month (January) Mr Shackteion suffered severely with his chest complaint, and his illness, resulting from another blizzard, caused his companions much alarm. Th© 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 porty rounded tie corner of White Island, to see once more familiaii points in the wake. "I have tried to be explicit in setting forth the difficulties and obstacles which we 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 stockfish ; 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 I it ise&sy to be wise after the event ; at tha 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 greafc&r part of -.the energy of the dogs, with little enough to show for it. After leaving Depot B we might just a^ well hay*> despatched the whole team, as, .indeed, would have been the kindest act to them a.nd certainly a great relief to us. Judging again by events, it would appear •vre -should have done better to make the whole journey on the wood- runners. When we. started we had wood uncer-runners j when our difficulties commenced, we took these off on trial, and certainly, at the time, there appeared to be ao improvement. It remained to us to return to wood again

by stripping 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 haye 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 surfaces, 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 all, not because the winds here are lighter, but because the : snowfall is heavier. " As I have once more spread the details of c-ur 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 *he pleasure of having trodden new paths,' found new lands, and looked upon new scenes. Something has been added to our knowledge, and pomething to the settlement of those- problems 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 ben fit of our experience, with the knowledge sained from our pioneer labours, hardships and troubles.-"