516 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Tortugas, under Dr. A. G. Mayer, offers 

 admirable facilities for marine biolog- 

 ical work of certain kinds of which 

 some ten investigators took advantage. 



The nutrition laboratory, under Dr. 

 F. G. Benedict, was last year in the 

 stage of construction and equipment. 

 It is adjacent to the Harv^ard Medical 

 School and several hospitals, which 

 will give opportunity to work with 

 pathological cases. In the new build- 

 ing, shown in the accompanying illus- 

 tration, work is now beginning with 

 the calorimeter and in other directions. 



The work of the institution in eco- 

 nomics, sociology and history has con- 

 sisted in the collection of data and the 

 classification of records. The depart- 

 ment of economics and sociology has 

 suffered through the recent death ot 

 the director. Dr. Carroll D. Wright. 

 No work, or hardly any, has been done 

 in anthropology, psychology, philology, 

 literature or art. 



Some twenty-four publications were 

 issued by the institution during the 

 year at a cost of about $64,000. The 

 administration building at Washing- 

 ton, erected at a cost of about $220,000, 

 at the southeast corner of Sixteenth 

 and P streets, is now nearly ready. 



LIEUTENANT SHACELETON'S 

 ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 



Lieutenant Shacbxeton's expedi- 

 tion has been remarkably successful, 

 whether viewed as adventure or as 

 scientific exploration. The results are 

 the more noteworthy in view of the 

 unofficial character of the expedition 

 and its somewhat modest outfit. The 

 expedition seems throughout to have 

 been accompanied by that kind of good 

 fortune which may properly be attrib- 

 uted to expert knowledge and skilful 

 foresight. 



The Nimrod, it may be remembered, 

 left New Zealand on January 1, 1908, 

 and included in its scientific staff 

 Professor Edworth David, F.R.S., of 

 Sidney University, and Lieutenant 

 Adams, R.N.A., geologists; Sir Philip 

 Brocklehurst, surveyor and map-maker, 



and other scientific men. It had been 

 Lieutenant Shackleton's intention to 

 find a convenient place on King Ed- 

 ward's Land at the eastern end of the 

 ice barrier, but the conditions were 

 unfavorable, and it was necessary to 

 take up quarters in McMurdo Sound, 

 close to the place occupied by the Dis- 

 covery in 1902. 



The first expedition started on March 

 5 and ascended Mt. Erebus, the great 

 Antarctic volcano, the summit of which, 

 at an altitude of 11,000 feet, was 

 reached on March 10. It was ejecting 

 vast amounts of steam and sulphurous 

 gas to a height of 2,000 feet. 



The Antarctic winter was made use 

 of for collections, observations and pho- 

 tographs. In the early spring, three 

 exploring parties set out, one under 

 Mr. Armitage going westward, gather- 

 ing geological and topographical data; 

 the second under Professor David going 

 southward and reaching the magnetic 

 pole on January 16 in latitude 72° 25" 

 and longitude 154° east. The party 

 journeyed 1,260 statute miles in a 

 hundred and twenty-two days, suffering 

 many hardships and making important 

 discoveries. 



The most dramatic expedition, in 

 which Lieutenant Shf^ckleton was ac- 

 companied by Messrs. Adams, Marshall 

 I and Wild, left Cape Royd on November 

 29, taking with them four ponies. On 

 December 26 they reached the Dis- 

 covery expedition's southernmost lati- 

 tude. Proceeding south and southeast 

 they reached a high range of mountains 

 and discovered a glacier 120 miles long 

 and forty miles wide, which they as- 

 cended, contending with deep crevasses. 

 On December 8 they discovered another 

 great mountain range. On December 

 26 they reached a plateau at an alti- 

 tude of 9,000 feet. During this time 

 there was a constant southerly blizzard 

 of wind and drifting snow, with tem- 

 perature ranging from 37 to 70 degrees 

 of frost. On January 9 they reached 

 latitude 88° 23" and longitude 162° 

 east, the most southerly point ever 

 i attained and 1° 17' nearer the pole than 



