THE ANTARCTIC QUESTION MACHAT. 479 



attractions, the large southern seas, bordered by an almost regular 

 belt of ice, are most favorable localities. Likewise, investigations 

 on the composition of the air, on terrestrial magnetism, and on the 

 intensity of gravity, so full of possibilities in the study of the form 

 of the geoide and the gaseous envelope, can, due to the immobility 

 of lands and ice fields, be studied as in a laboratory. The arctic 

 polar basin does not offer as great advantages. 



The best results, of course, may be obtained by the establishment 

 of a friendly cooperation between all the observers of different na- 

 tions preparing for study in the antarctic region, and this should be 

 done by laying aside the cause of national competition in the general 

 cause of science. 



Appendix, 

 the shackleton expedition. 



[The following account of the achievements of Lieutenant Shackleton is copied from 

 The World's Work, May, 1909, Vol. XVIII, No. 1. (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York).] 



Lieut. Ernest H. Shackleton, of the British Navy, left London on July 30, 

 1907, in search of the South Pole ; and he has returned after breaking previous 

 records by 3.52 miles and reaching a point 111 miles from the pole itself. The 

 party sailed in the ship Nimrod 2,000 miles due south of New Zealand, and 

 were left ashore in the frozen wilderness at McMurdo Sound, where they erected 

 the wooden house they had brought in sections from England. From this point 

 they traveled 1,708 miles inland, giving one hundred and twenty-six days to the 

 expedition. They crossed several mountains and reached a plateau 10,000 feet 

 above sea level. After passing the south magnetic pole, at a latitude of 72° 25', 

 longitude 154°, a party of four turned aside to ascend the great antarctic volcano, 

 Mount Erebus, 13,120 feet high, the southernmost volcano in the world. This 

 they ascended for the first time, and found its crater to be half a mile in 

 diameter, and SOO feet deep. It was throwing up great volumes of steam and 

 sulphurous gas to a height of 2,000 feet. 



Assembling at the base station at Camp Royd, a second party, including 

 Lieutenant Shackleton himself, with four Manchuriau ponies, started on October 

 29, 1908, for a final dash for the pole. They were stocked with provisions for 

 ninety-one days. The winter being mild, the lowest temperature they en- 

 countered was 40° below zero, Fahrenheit. At irregular intervals, they made 

 depots of food for their return. The snow was so soft that the ponies frequently 

 sank in up to their bellies. One by one they had to be shot, as they were 

 attacked by snow-blindness, and were needed for food. 



At a latitude of 85° the party discovered an enormous glacier, 120 miles long 

 and approximately 40 miles wide, running in a south-southwesterly direction. 

 Beyond the glacier, they came upon a great plateau 9,000 feet above sea level, 

 which rose gradually in long ridges to 10,500 feet. They had left all the 

 mountains behind and had entered upon a great plateau, which apparently 

 stretched unbroken to the pole, when on January 9 of this year, in the midst 

 of a violent blizzard, the whole party, weakened from the effects of a shortage 

 of food, fell ill with dysentery and were forced to turn back. This, the most 

 southerly point ever reached, was in a latitude of 88° 23', longitude 162° east. 



