I902] SLEDGING CONDITIONS COMPARED 307 



the Southern traveller than the extremity of temperature is the 

 frequency of wind. It is perhaps too broad a generalisation 

 to say that Arctic journeys have usually been made under fine- 

 weather conditions, but few, if any, Arctic travellers have been 

 subjected to the distressing frequency of blizzards and strong 

 winds that added so much to our discomfort in the South. 

 Here again, therefore, the Southern traveller is at a disadvan- 

 tage from a climatic point of view, and the effect is to increase 

 his discomforts and reduce the distance he is able to march, 

 for it is only on the very rare occasions on which a sail may 

 be used that wind brings any compensating advantage. In 

 general, therefore, from a climatic point of view, the South is 

 at a considerable disadvantage as compared with the North in 

 sledge -travelling. 



The geographical difference between the work of the 

 Northern and the Southern sledge-traveller is as great as the 

 climatic, if not greater. With the exception of Nansen's and 

 Peary's journeys into the interior of Greenland, the sledge 

 journeys of the North have almost invariably been performed 

 over level if not smooth sea-ice, and it is especially to be 

 remembered that those record journeys to which Sir Leopold 

 McClintock refers were made amongst the frozen channels of 

 an archipelago. If sea-ice is much broken up and hummocked, 

 it may constitute one of the worst travelling surfaces, but if it 

 is smooth it is undoubtedly the best that exists. In very 

 general terms, therefore, with the exceptions I have men- 

 tioned, the travelling of the North has been carried on over a 

 comparatively good surface, and those travellers who constitute 

 the exception in having ventured on the inland surfaces have 

 made it abundantly clear that the difficulties are far more 

 formidable than are found on anything but the most hum- 

 mocked sea-ice. Turning now to the South, it will be seen 

 that everywhere the explorer's ship is brought up by solid land 

 or by some mighty wall resembling that of the Great Ice 

 Barrier ; to pass beyond his ship, therefore, the explorer must 

 either travel over land or over great and ancient snow-fields 

 which possess a similar surface. Judging from our present 



X 2 



