i 9 ] THE RAT PEST 267 



the running of a line of soundings from Banks Peninsula to a 

 point in Lat. 60 S., Long. 170 W. Thence the ship was to 

 proceed due south until the pack was reached, sounding twice 

 daily. After entering the pack she was to continue to force her 

 way southward, keeping approximately on the meridian of 

 165 W., to sound over the less known portions of the Ross Sea, 

 and to determine the nature and extent of the pack ice in this un- 

 explored region. 



The earlier southern voyages had mostly been made in more 

 westerly longitudes. 



In conjunction with the ambitious deep sea sounding pro- 

 gramme Lillie was to make a number of quantitative plankton 

 stations, and obtain trawls whenever the occasion was suitable. 

 We also hoped to add materially to our magnetic observations 

 for Variation, Dip and Total Force^ 



The programme was fairly well adhered to, and thanks to 

 Rennick's expert handling of the Lucas machine we obtained 

 several soundings of about 3000 fathoms, when less ardent hy- 

 drographers would have surrendered to the bad weather. 



On December 17 the Antipodes Islands were passed, the ship 

 labouring in the heavy sea and occasionally rolling 

 1912,49 her bulwarks under; it was not considered advisable 

 12' S., 178 to attempt a landing. These islands are visited twice 

 14 E ' a year by a government steamer, and have been ex- 



amined pretty thoroughly, although rather sketchily surveyed. 



On this voyage the ship was infested with rats, but Cheetham, 

 our boatswain, who has crossed the Antarctic circle fourteen 

 times, showed himself an adept at rat-catching and soon freed 

 the ship from the pest. He used to throw the rats over the side, 

 and the albatrosses and mollymawks would swoop down and 

 devour the vermin in an incredibly short time. We had all kinds 

 of rat-traps in use, and even used mouse-traps to catch the young. 



On December 26, in Lat. 63 S., we passed the first iceberg 

 of the voyage, an old disrupted berg, and as we ad- 

 De f'<? 6 '% vanced southward all kinds of icebergs were to be 

 4 /6' w* seen. The ice-log shows a greater number and va- 

 riety of bergs on this than on the two preceding 

 voyages. 



The great belt of Antarctic pack ice was not reached until 

 December 29, when we had attained the 69th parallel. 



