440 



Some of them were veritable chasms, but they faded into insignifi- 

 cance when compared with the one which opened before the 

 explorers at the end of the march. For a time they examined this 

 mighty ice ravine to see if it were not possible, one way or another, 

 to get across. The descent might have been possible, and there 

 was no great difficulty in crossing the floor of it, but the far side 

 rose in an unbroken precipice, and they recognized it as insur- 

 mountable, even to such daring and intrepid climbers as them- 

 selves. They therefore returned to the ship. The greatest speed 

 made by them was as high as thirty-two miles in a day, a speed 

 unsurpassed except by one of their own parties, which, with heavy 

 sledges and without dogs, made thirty-three miles in a day over 

 the inland ice. 



During the second year of their stay, a discovery was made, 

 which, from a geological point of view, exceeded in value all the 

 others put together. It was in October that a sledge party set out 

 to penetrate into the interior of Victoria Land. They traveled 

 over the ice plain at an average altitude of 9,000 feet until, in 78 

 degrees south and 146 degrees 30 minutes east, they were at a 

 distance of 270 miles from the- ship. The interior of the land 

 seemed to stretch in a vast continental plateau continuously at a 

 height of 9,000 feet. In one of the many ravines examined, sand- 

 stone strata were discovered, in one of which there was a narrow 

 seam of fossil plants. The "coal measure" was only one-eighth of 

 an inch in thickness, but within it were found specimens of plants 

 belonging to the Miocene period. 



In February, 1904, the relief ship "Morning" arrived at the 

 station, and, with the explosives she brought with her, the "Dis- 

 covery" was freed from the ice and commenced her homeward 

 journey. She had completed a stay of two winters in a latitude 

 500 miles further south than any other ship had wintered, while 

 the expedition had reaped a success such as no previous expedition 

 had achieved in the Antarctic region. 



