FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 

 Personal Gear ... 



119 



5° 



Totals 



Several items in this list may be commented on. The 

 heavy steel sledge runners were designed to fit under the 

 wooden runners of the sledge, to take the wear and tear when 

 we were crossing the rough ice of the glaciers. No favour- 

 able occasion for their use arose until half our journey was 

 completed, and then, as will be seen, the trial resulted in the 

 smashing of the large sledge. We also carried the biscuit 

 tins enclosed in their stout wooden cases up and down the 

 Ferrar glacier, with the idea of preserving the biscuits from 

 breakage. The cases were discarded on our return to Butter 

 Point without any inconvenience from broken biscuit result- 

 ing. These two items alone constituted one-tenth of our 

 load, and we were glad when trials showed that we could get 

 along much better without them. 



It will be noticed that an exceptionally large photographic 

 battery was carried. This was necessitated by the character 

 of the problems which engaged our attention. For instance, 

 Wright was chiefly interested in the forms of ice structure 

 which we encountered. The most delicate ice-crystals, which 

 withered at a breath, must needs be photographed in situ. 

 There was no possibility of his bringing back specimens for 

 study in the hut during the dark winter months. For similar 

 reasons a somewhat bulky polariscope — in which sheets of ice 

 were examined in polarized light — formed part of Wright's 

 load, and accompanied him in a ruck-sack wherever he went. 

 Debenham was engaged on the more usual work of collecting 

 specimens, mapping their occurrence in the field, and studying 

 the relations of the various rocks. For this purpose another 

 camera was essential, since in general his investigations were 

 carried out in the cliffs at some distance from the rest of us. 

 The subject which primarily interested myself may be populariy 



