16 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Nov. 



yet been. The announcement of the fact caused great 

 jubilation, and I am extremely glad that there are no fewer 

 than fifteen of us to enjoy this privilege of having broken the 

 record. Shackleton suggested that all should be photo- 

 graphed, whereat the men were much delighted, and we 

 all gathered about the sledges with our flags fluttering over 

 us. Then half our supporting party started to return, bearing 

 the good news of our present success, and the other half 

 stepped out once more on a due south line, with the dogs 

 following. 



1 This morning it was very bright and sunny except to the 

 far north, where probably those on board the ship are not en- 

 joying such delightful weather ; behind us only the Bluff 

 showed against a dark background, and that was already grow- 

 ing small in the distance. Away to the west the view was per- 

 fectly clear, and we now know that there is land beyond our 

 western horizon ; it is very distant, and appears in detached 

 masses, but it is evident that the general trend of it is in a more 

 southerly direction than we had supposed. At this great dis- 

 tance it looks to be completely snow-covered; we can only 

 catch the high lights and shadows due to irregularity of shape, 

 and can only say definitely that there must be many lofty 

 mountains. I took a round of bearings with the prismatic 

 compass, and then asked Barne to do the same ; he got 

 different readings, and on trying again myself I got a third 

 result. The observations only differed by a few degrees, but 

 it shows that these compasses are not to be relied upon where 

 the directive force is so small.' 



The needle of the prismatic compass carries a weighty 

 graduated circle with it ; it therefore bears heavily on the pivot, 

 and the friction produced is sufficient to prevent accuracy of 

 reading where the earth has such small influence on the needle. 

 After this I depended for all bearings on the compass attached 

 to our small theodolite, which possessed a simple light needle 

 and seemed to give greater accuracy. I record this fact, be- 

 cause it was important that we should obtain accurate observa- 

 tions on our extended sledge journeys, and it would be well 



1 



