438 PEKSONALIA : 1898-1906 



apparatus for kindling a match by a stream of gas upon 

 platinum (I think), which your mother used to show us ? 

 That reminds me that none of the great scientific discoveries 

 of the century have been more utilised than the progressive 

 ones from the tinder-box flint and steel of our earliest days, 

 to the ' strike a lights ' of the present. 



The season here has been quite exceptional — as every 

 season is according to my experience in every part of the 

 world that I have visited ; in this year doubly exceptional, 

 in not being for the worse ! We have had frost at last 

 for two days, but it is passing over and threatens to snow. 



I should indeed like to visit you at Helensburgh. The 

 last time I was there was on a visit to Mr. Buchanan at 

 the Baths, some 30 years ago ! The time before that at 

 Ardincaple, when your mother was still alive, and Archie 

 and I paddled about in his skin canoe. 



Mrs. Paisley had an hereditary interest in Polar explora- 

 tion. Her second name was in honour of Douglas Clavering, 

 who commanded the Griper which took Sabine to Greenland 

 and Spitzbergen on magnetic work in 1823. Surveying an 

 unexplored part of the coast, he bestowed many Scottish 

 names on his discoveries. One of these was the familiar 

 Jordan^Hill ! 



To the Same 



December 12, 1899. 



You will be interested to hear that the measures for 

 another Antarctic Expedition x are progressing favourably. 

 It will not be on the scale of the last, not being undertaken 

 by Government, which however grants some £45,000 towards 

 it. The contract for building the ship is all but signed, and 

 it will absorb the Government Grant. I am on two Com- 

 mittees concerning it, the general and biological, so I shall 

 end my active life as I began it, in the interest of Antarctic 

 discovery ! Mr. Kiicker, 2 one of the Secretaries of the 



1 Under Captain Scott, in the Discovery. 



* Sir Arthur William Riicker, M.A., LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S. (1848-1915) ; 

 Fellow of Brasenose Coll., Oxford, of London University ; Prof, of Physics, 

 Yorkshire Coll., Leeds, 1874-85; R. Coll. of Science, London, 1886-1901; 

 Royal Medal, 1891 ; Secretary to the Royal Society, 1896-1901 ; Principal of 

 London University, 1901-8 ; knighted 1902. Sir Joseph's son Reginald married 

 the only daughter of Sir A. W. Riicker, in 1911. 



