THE VOYAGE BACK 



425 



mechanics as well as geology ! So we decided to shift all the 

 coal and so leave the engineers and stokers free to attend to 

 the furnaces where they were somewhat shorthanded. 



Never was such an incongruous set of coal trimmers. 



Down in the hold a high official in the Indian Weather 

 Service shovelled the coal into baskets, assisted by our motor 

 expert (Day). A Cambridge M.A. (and the authority on 

 whales) hoisted the basket with the help of a well-known New 

 Zealand climber and stockowner. Ponting bent his artistic 

 intellect to the work of unhooking the basket and throwing 

 the coal through a door into the bunkers, and inside a 



Vdrrip WffH 



Shoot- t« 

 ©oilers 





Trimming coal in the starboard main hold, March 7, 19 12. 



Thibetan explorer and the Physiographer to the Common- 

 wealth " trimmed " the coal in the bunkers, packed it, and 

 raked it level ! 



Simpson and I were busy comparing meteorological data 

 before he took his notes back to India. I copied such 

 memoranda as seemed to affect Australian weather. The 

 " upper-air ' results were very interesting. The balloon 

 ascents showed that there is a gradual decrease of temperature 

 with elevation in summer, but that in winter it grows warmer. 

 Thus there is a tendency to approach the same temperature 

 in winter and summer at high elevations. He recovered one 

 record which had ascended nearly twice as high as Erebus, or 

 five miles. 



