February 5, 1920] 



NATURE 



603 



scientific experts and Sir EIrnest Shackleton's own 

 representatives, helped the explorer with official 

 assistance to secure the vessels he finally obtained. 

 Even before news of the loss of the Endurance 

 came to hand, it had begun the organisation of a 

 relief expedition, and secured and re-conditioned 

 the Discovery, which actually sailed so far as 

 Buenos Aires, involving the expenditure of a large 

 sum of public money, better given earlier to the 

 expedition. 



The Endurance was crushed in approxi- 

 mately 69° S. after being beset off Caird Coast, 

 the south-west coast of Coats Land, whence 

 she drifted west, north-west, and north until she 

 sank. Sir Ernest Shackleton and his party later 



that heavy and light conditions of ice existed 

 there, calling it "the worst portion of the worst 

 sea in the world," enough to imprison, crush, 

 and lose his ship ; but Sir Ernest Shackleton 

 and Capt. Worsley allowed themselves to be 

 too much entangled in it, which probably a 

 veteran ice-master like Robertson would not 

 have done. 



Mr. W^ordie usefully and ably summarises the 

 scientific work done in the Weddell Sea, and says : 

 "The work undertaken and accomplished by each 

 member was as wide as possible, but it was only 

 in keeping with the spirit of the times that more 

 attention should be paid to work from which prac- 

 tical and economic results were likely to accrue." 



r 



Pk;. 2. — The last of the Endurance before she sank. From Sir Ernest Shackleton's " South." (W. Heinemann.) 



escaped on floating ice, drifting in a track almost 

 parallel to, but a little west of, the Deutsch- 

 land ; and, like the Swedish ship Antarctic, the 

 Endurance was totally wrecked, and the biological 

 collections and most of the records were unfor- 

 tunately lost. With the Deutschland she thus con- 

 firmed the drift of the ice to the west of the 

 Weddell Sea, as originally observed by the Scotia 

 and others. She also confirmed the Scotia's ob- 

 servations regarding Coats Land and the southern 

 part of the Weddell Sea, and refuted Sir Clement 

 Markham's opinion that it was an open sea from 

 which warm winds drove across by a strait to 

 McMurdo Sound. Sir Ernest Shackleton plainly 

 demonstrated that the reverse was the case, and 

 NO. 2623, VOL. IO4I 



He also gives an excellent but too short sum- 

 mary on "Ice Nomenclature." 



Mr. Clark proved the faunistic richness of the 

 coastal Antarctic waters, but, unfortunately, all 

 his collections were lost with the ship. Doubt- 

 less he has brought home some notes of which we 

 shall hear more in time, for he was already well 

 acquainted with the Weddell Sea fauna. He gives 

 an excellent summary of South Atlantic whales 

 and whaling, which should, be particularly useful 

 to the Colonial Office now that it is considering 

 the commercial value of the industry to the Falk- 

 land Lslands colony and its dependencies. 



Mr. Hussey follows with a good summary on 

 the meteorology, but, unfortunately, the valuable 



