i 9 ii] INDIVIDUALS AT WORK 183 



instructive experiments for any party which may get into diffi- 

 culty by being cut off from the home station. It is very well 

 to know how best to use the scant resources that nature pro- 

 vides in these regions. In this connection I have been studying 

 our Arctic library to get details concerning snow hut building 

 and the implements used for it. 



Oates' whole heart is in the ponies. He is really devoted 

 to their care, and I believe will produce them in the best possible 

 form for the sledging season. Opening out the stores, installing 

 a blubber stove, &c, has kept him busy, whilst his satellite, 

 Anton, is ever at work in the stables an excellent little man. 



Evans and Crean are repairing sleeping-bags, covering felt 

 boots, and generally working on sledging kit. In fact there is 

 no one idle, and no one who has the least prospect of idleness. 



Saturday, May 6. Two more days of calm, interrupted 

 with occasional gusts. 



Yesterday, Friday evening, Taylor gave an introductory lec- 

 ture on his remarkably fascinating subject modern physi- 

 ography. 



These modern physiographers set out to explain the forms 

 of land erosion on broad common-sense lines, heedless of geo- 

 logical support. They must, in consequence, have their special 

 language. River courses, they say, are not temporary in the 

 main they are archaic. In conjunction with land elevations they 

 have worked through geographical cycles, perhaps many. In 

 each geographical cycle they have advanced from infantile V- 

 shaped forms; the courses broaden and deepen, the bank slopes 

 reduce in angle as maturer stages are reached until the level 

 of sea surface is more and more nearly approximated. In senile 

 stages the river is a broad sluggish stream flowing over a plain 

 with little inequality of level. The cycle has formed a Peneplain. 

 Subsequently, with fresh elevation, a new cycle is commenced. 

 So much for the simple case, but in fact nearly all cases are 

 modified by unequal elevations due to landslips, by variation in 

 hardness of rock, &c. Hence modification in positions of river 

 courses and the fact of different parts of a single river being in 

 different stages of cycle. 



Taylor illustrated his explanations with examples: The Red 

 River, Canada Plain flat though elevated, water lies in pools, 

 river flows in ' V ' infantile ' form. 



