APPENDIX 437 



serious and arduous course of study of abstruse navigational problems which 

 he found exceedinglj^ tough and now despaired mastering. Of course there 

 is not one chance in a hundred that he will ever have to consider navigation 

 on our journey and in that one chance the problem must be of the simplest 

 nature, but it makes matters much easier for me to have men who take the 

 details of one's work so seriously and who strive so simply and honestly to 

 make it successful.' 



And in Wilson's diary for October 23 comes the entry : * Working at 

 latitude sights — mathematics which I hate — till bedtime. It will be w'iser 

 to know a little navigation on the Southern sledge journey.' 



Note 20, p. 300. — Happily I had a biscuit with me and I held it out 

 to him a long way off. Luckily he spotted it and allowed me to come up, 

 and I got hold of his head again. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.] 



Note 21, p. 338. — December 8. I have left Nobby all my biscuits to- 

 night as he is to try and do a march to-morrow, and then happily he will 

 be shot and all of them, as their food is quite done. 



December 9. Nobby had all my biscuits last night and this morning, 

 and by the time we camped I was just ravenously hungry. It was a close 

 cloudy day with no air and we were ploughing along knee deep. . . . 

 Thank God the horses are now all done with and we begin the heavy work 

 ourselves. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.] 



Note 22, p. 339. — December 9. The end of the Beardmore Glacier 

 curved across the track of the Southern Party, thrusting itself into the mass 

 of the Barrier with vast pressure and disturbance. So far did this ice dis- 

 turbance extend, that if the travellers had taken a bee-line to the foot of the 

 glacier itself, they must have begun to steer outwards 200 miles sooner. 



The Gateway was a neck or saddle of drifted snow lying in a gap of 

 the mountain rampart which flanked the last curve of the glacier. Under 

 the cliffs on either hand, like a moat beneath the ramparts, lay a yawning 

 ice-cleft or bergschrund, formed by the drawing away of the steadily mov- 

 ing Barrier ice from the rocks. Across this moat and leading up to the gap 

 in the ramparts, the Gateway provided a solid causeway. To climb this 

 and descend its reverse face gave the easiest access to the surface of the 

 glacier. 



Note 23, p. 359. — Return of first Southern Party from Lat. 85° 7^ S. 

 top of the Beardmore Glacier. 



Party: E. L. Atkinson, A. Cherry-Garrard, C. S. Wright, Petty Officer 

 Keohane. 



On the morning of December 22, 191 1, we made a late start after 

 saying good-bye to the eight going on, and wishing them all good luck and 

 success. The first 1 1 miles was on the down-grade over the ice-falls, and 

 at a good pace we completed this in about four hours. Lunched, and on, 

 completing nearly 23 miles for the first day. At the end of the second day 



