THE TERRA NOVA GOES SOUTH 23 



below. But most of the officers, after their four months' 

 voyage, were staying in Christchurch some eight miles away, 

 and came into the ship by early train. Lyttelton is a mag- 

 nificent harbour of extraordinary origin. Port Phillip, it is 

 well known, is a drowned coastal plain, hence its low banks 

 and rounded contour ; Port Jackson is a drowned river valley, 

 as is obvious from its winding outline and deep frontage ; 

 while Wellington Harbour occupies earthquake landslides. 

 But Lyttelton Harbour is a drowned mountain valley, with 

 hills rising fifteen hundred feet almost continuously around 

 the elongated basin. The eastern flanks of this isolated 

 mountain (Banks Peninsula) are drowned in the Pacific ; the 

 western flanks are buried, several thousand feet probably, in 

 the silts and shingle of the Canterbury Plains. The fair city 

 of Christchurch, which has arisen on an even plain stretching 

 twenty miles north, south, and west, has a wonderful harbour 

 at her door, owing to this unique juxtaposition of plain and 

 buried mountain. Most of the members of the Expedition 

 tramped over the old bridle-track to see the view from the 

 top, but all traffic passes through the railway tunnel — one and 

 a half mile long — cut deep in the volcanic rocks of the 

 Peninsula, 



The office of the Expedition was close to the cathedral 

 in Christchurch, almost in the shadow of the steeple, which 

 has a habit of toppling down under the stress of earthquake 

 shocks. Here was the secretary struggling with a mass of 

 correspondence — very largely letters asking for autographs, 

 penguin eggs, and rocks from the south. These modest 

 requests, however pathetically they are worded, cannot be 

 attended to in the last few days of preparation of a large expe- 

 dition. More annoying were the sheaves of letters sent later 

 on board the Terra Nova, addressed in such terms as " Mr. 

 Wood-B. Pole-seeker, King Edward VII. Land." The 

 addressees not being known, they will probably languish in a 

 New Zealand Dead Letter Office. 



Captain Scott arranged that those scientists who were 

 specially engaged in glacier investigation should immediately 

 proceed to the New Zealand Alps to study polar conditions 

 amid somewhat less strenuous circumstances than in Antarc- 

 tica. I do not propose to do more than give a brief outline 

 of the features of this region, which may reasonably be 



