PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. LI 



or less heavily crevassed glaciers. Messrs. Taylor and Debenham 

 earlier in the year found themselves left in a somewhat similar 

 plight, but at a nearer distance to their base. By making back 

 inland a few miles up the slope of the Piedmont ice they were 

 enabled eventually to travel by a fairly practicable route back 

 to winter quarters. It is devoutly to be hoped that Lieut. 

 Campbell's party have been equally successful. 



Some little anxiety also exists in regard to Captain Scott's 

 party. When Lieut. Evans and his two colleagues were 

 despatched back to head-quarters by Captain Scott, when the 

 latter remained with his party within 127 miles of the South 

 Pole, there was not the slightest suspicion of any member of 

 either party being in any but the most robust state of health. 

 Unfortunately, about a fortnight after parting from Captain 

 Scott, when traversing the Great Ross Barrier, Lieut. E. R. G. R. 

 Evans, R.N., was attacked by scurvy, and, but for the extreme 

 heroism of his two comrades, one of whom became later also 

 affected by scurvy, though slightly, there is no doubt that he 

 would have forfeited his life in the cause of geographical 

 exploration. 



There is one consoling reflection to which Lieut. Evans attaches 

 great weight, when one considers the probability of any of Scott's 

 party, subsequent to their reaching the Pole, and on the return 

 journey, having been afflicted with scurvy, and that is that Lieut. 

 Evans, on account of six weeks of strenuous work on the Ice 

 Barrier laying depots, had to exist all this time with his party 

 on tinned provisions onl}^ whereas the remainder of Scott's party 

 were at the time supplied regularly with fresh meat at winter 

 quarters. 



Lieut. Evans considers his attack of scurvy was probably due 

 to pemmican — a meat and beef-fat paste — which had become 

 unfit for food, and induced scurvy, which is perhaps a species of 

 blood poison. In spite of this small room for anxiety, there is 

 every reason to hope that Scott and all his party, after accom- 

 plishing more scientific work, such as the rounding of the 

 boundaries of the Great Ice Barrier, &c., and completing other 

 research work in a manner never surpassed or equalled by any 

 previous antarctic expedition, will all return, like Shackleton's 

 expedition, without the loss of one single life. 



Next in reference to the Japanese expedition under Lieut. 

 Shiraze. They have appeared to have accomplished little beyond 

 landing on the Great Ice Barrier at the Bay of Whales, where 

 they met Amundsen, and studying the structure and crystallinity 

 of the ice of the Barrier, and sending inland a sledge party, under 



