SOME RESULTS OF THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC

EXPEDITION, 1907-9.

[With 6 plates and 3 maps.]

By E. H. SHACKLETON, C. V. O.

The British Antarctic expedition, 1907-9, left Port Lyttelton, New Zealand, on January 1, 1908, for the south. In this article I will not attempt to deal in detail with the preliminary arrangements and with the equipment. The amount of money at my disposal had been limited, and economies had been necessary in various directions; but I had been able to get together a small body of well-qualified men, and we were fully equipped as far as food, clothing, sledges, etc., were concerned. We had a motor car, ponies, and dogs for haulage purposes. The generosity of the admiralty in lending the expedition a number of instruments enabled me to make the scientific equipment fairly complete. The Nimrod, in which the journey to the winter quarters on the Antarctic Continent had to be undertaken, was certainly small for the work, and left Lyttelton with scarcely 3 feet of freeboard, a somewhat serious matter in view of the fact that very heavy weather had to be faced. On the other hand, the ship was very sturdy, well suited to endure rough treatment in the ice.

The shore party consisted of fifteen men, my companions being as follows:

Lieut. J. B. Adams, R. N. R., meteorologist.

Bertram Armytage, in charge of ponies.

Sir Philip Brocklehurst, assistant geologist.

Prof. T. W. Edgeworth David, F. R. S., geologist.

Bernard Day, electrician and motor expert.

Ernest Joyce, in charge of general stores, dogs, sledges, and zoolog

ical collections.

Dr. A. F. Mackay, surgeon.

Dr. Eric Marshall, surgeon, cartographer.

G. E. Marston, artist.

a Reprinted by permission from The Geographical Journal, London, vol. 34, No. 5, November, 1909.

Douglas Mawson, mineralogist and petrologist.

James Murray, biologist.

Raymond Priestley, geologist.

William Roberts, cook.

Frank Wild, in charge of provisions.

Professor David, of Sydney University, joined the expedition at the last moment, and the services of such an experienced scientific man were invaluable. Douglas Mawson was lecturer in mineralogy and petrology at the Adelaide University. James Murray had been biologist on the Scottish Lake survey, and had made a special study of microscopic zoology, a circumstance that led to most important discoveries in the frozen lakes of Ross Island. Joyce and Wild, like myself, had served on the National Antarctic Expedition.

My original intention was to winter on King Edward VII Land, a part of the Antarctic Continent at present quite unknown. The Nimrod was towed to the Antarctic circle, a distance of 1,500 miles, in order that her small supply of coal might be conserved, and we were soon in the belt of ice that guards the approach to the Ross Sea. The navigation of the ice was not more than usually difficult, and on January 16 we entered the Ross Sea in 178° 58′ E. long. (approximate). Keeping a southwesterly course, we sighted the Great Ice Barrier on January 23, and proceeded to skirt the ice edge in an easterly direction toward Barrier Inlet (Balloon Bight), the spot selected by me as the site for the winter quarters. I knew that the inlet was practically the beginning of King Edward VII Land, and that it would be an easy matter for the ship, in the following summer, to reach us there, whereas the land sighted by the Discovery expedition might be unattainable if the season were adverse. In 165° E. long., near the point where Borchgrevink landed in 1900, we sighted beyond 6 or 7 miles of flat ice, steep-rounded cliffs, having the appearance of ice-covered land. We could not stop to investigate.

The plan proved impracticable, for we found that Barrier Inlet had disappeared. Many miles of the Barrier edge had calved away, and instead of the narrow bight there was a wide bay joining up with Borchgrevink's Inlet, and forming a depression that we called the Bay of Whales. We accordingly made an attempt to reach King Edward VII Land, but here again we were unsuccessful. The way was barred by heavy consolidated pack, into which bergs were frozen, and this ice stretched for to the north. The season was advancing, the Nimrod was leaking, as a result of severe gales on the journey south, and I decided that we had better proceed direct to McMurdo Sound and establish the winter quarters there. The Nimrod entered the sound on January 29, and was brought up by fast ice 20 miles from Hut Point, the spot at which the Discovery expedition