i 4 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



People have often asked me what attraction Antarctica had 

 for me personally. It was purely scientific at first, but now I 

 realize that the companionship with such ideal mates was the 

 chief joy in Antarctic life. I have not, up to the time of 

 writing, felt any of the "call to the Antarctic " that others 

 describe ; but travel anywhere with my mates of the South 

 would be equally attractive. 



At the risk of being tedious, I will try to describe the 

 chief problem in science which 1 hoped to help solve by my 

 sojourn in Antarctica. Briefly, it is the study of the effect 

 of ice (chiefly as glaciers) in carving out the features of the 

 earth's surface. It may quite legitimately be asked, " What 

 is the value of that knowledge ? What bearing has it on 

 science and human interests ? " 



Most people know that Europe has passed through an 

 Ice Age comparatively recently, but few — even among geo- 

 logists — would be prepared to agree that almost every factor 

 of human environment in Central Europe has been affected 

 by this ancient ice-cap. All inter-communication, much of 

 the agriculture, all the scenery ; nay, even the very possibility 

 of continuous habitation is due to the work of the ancient 

 glaciers. The Gothard, Simplon, and Mont Cenis railways 

 pass along deep glacier-cut gorges (see p. 9) until they 

 reach comparatively narrow ridges which can be pierced by 

 tunnels. The great Alpine passes are but cols due to glacial 

 erosion. The fertile uplands (the true " Alps "), where the 

 Swiss flocks pasture, and the extensive deep-lying plains of 

 deep rich soil are glacial debris. The magnificent waterfalls, 

 the tributary valleys " hanging " over the main gorge, are only 

 found in regions where ice has played an important part in 

 its past history. In winter it is only in these deep gorges, 

 excavated two thousand feet below the general level in 

 countries like Switzerland, that the inhabitants and their 

 flocks can hibernate until the grass covers the country in the 

 succeeding spring. 



There can be no more valuable branch of geology than 

 one which tries to chronicle the actions which have made the 

 Alpine countries of the world so different from the more 

 normal regions. But it is by no means universally allowed 

 that this work is principally due to ice. One school of 

 geologists maintains that water can carve out a land surface 



