50 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' 



His career shows well the pertinacity which we all came to 

 recognise in his character, for during the years when he had 

 been tied to a business which he disliked, he had devoted his 

 spare hours with ceaseless diligence to scientific study. At 

 last his chance had come, and he had been appointed to a 

 small post in the Plymouth Biological Laboratory. From this 

 time until he joined the expedition in August 1900 his life had 

 been identified with Plymouth, at first in work connected with 

 the laboratory and with a science lectureship, and later as 

 curator of the Plymouth Museum, of which, in one sense, he 

 may be said to have been the creator, as he guided its first 

 tottering footsteps. Hodgson's task was to collect by hook or 

 by crook all the strange beasts that inhabit our Polar seas, and 

 of the manner in which he went about it these pages will tell. 



Koettlitz was forty years of age when he joined the 

 expedition, and Hodgson thirty-seven. The average age of 

 the remaining members of our wardroom mess was little over 

 twenty-four years, so that it may be said they had most of 

 their lives before them, and after my experience of their 

 services I have little doubt as to the value of youth for Polar 

 work. 



Charles W. R. Royds was our first lieutenant, and had all 

 to do with the work of the men and the internal economy of 

 the ship in the way that is customary with the first lieutenant 

 of a man-of-war. He had passed into the ' Britannia ' from 

 the 'Conway' in 1890, and so joining the Naval Service had 

 reached the rank of lieutenant in 1898. He joined us from 

 H.M.S. 'Crescent,' then serving as flagship on the North 

 America station, and came with an excellent record of service 

 for so young an officer. Throughout our voyage he acted as 

 our meteorologist, and secured the most valuable records in 

 this important branch of science in face of difficulties which 

 this narrative will present. 



Our second naval lieutenant was Michael Barne, who had 

 only recently been promoted to that rank. He had been 

 educated at Stubbington School in preparation for the Navy, 

 and had joined the ' Britannia 'in 1891. Later he had served 



