viii PREFACE 



Walker and Mr. C. Norniand of the India Meteorological Department have always 

 been ready to discuss my problems with me and to these discussions I owe 

 many clear views of problems which at first appeared dark and hazy. 



The greater part of the reduction of the observations has been done by Babu 

 Mohammad Bakhsh of the Simla Meteorological Office and his reliable work has 

 been a great relief to me, for it is good to be able to trust your chief computer. 



The diagrams have all been prepared by Mr. E. M. Batt of Simla and as 

 the excellency of his work is obvious to all readers, it is only necessary for me 

 to record my thanks. 



The work, begun ten years ago, is now finished and about to be submitted 

 to those who are interested in problems of Polar meteorology, but it leaves me 

 with a sense of sadness for the two men to whom it would have made the 

 strongest appeal and whose opinion I should have valued above all others are 

 no longer with us to receive it. 



Over and over again as point after point was cleared up I have longed to 

 be able to show the result to Captain Scott, for there was hardly a problem 

 of Antarctic meteorology which we had not discussed together. His interest in 

 every scientific problem with which the expedition was concerned was intense 

 and I do not think that I have ever met a man who had the true scientific 

 spirit so utterly unalloyed. To most of us who have given our lives to science 

 our investigations are frequently tinged with an unscientific desire to increase 

 our scientific reputations, but with him, it was the added knowledge alone 

 which gave pleasure. He was constantly looking forward to the successful 

 completion of the journey to the Pole, the exact value of which was perfectly 

 clear to him, in order that he might spend his remaining time in the Antarctic 

 in opening up new country and making new discoveries. 



And Professor H. Mohn has also passed away. Every meteorologist knows 

 how much Polar meteorology owes to Professor Mohn for his discussion of the 

 results obtained by Nansen in the Arctic, and only a few months before his 

 death he discussed the meteorological data brought back from the Antarctic by 

 Captain Amundsen. He gave to me liberally of his great experience on my visits 

 to Christiania, and after my return from the Antarctic he placed the whole of 

 Amundsen's data at my disposal, before even he himself had discussed them. 

 He was keenly looking forward to the publication of the results of Captain Scott's 

 expedition, and I feel confident that no one would have been able so well as 

 he to separate the sound from the unsound in this work. 



Simla : 



G. C, S. 

 March 1919. 



