DISCOVERY 



A MONTHLY POPULAR 

 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE 



Vol. IV, No. 46. OCTOBER 1923. 



PRICE Is. NET. 



DISCOVERY. A Monthly Popular Journal of Know- 

 ledge. 



Edited by Edward Liveing. B.A., 23 Westminster 

 Mansions, Great Smith Street, London, S.W.i, to whom 

 all Editorial Communications should be addressed. (Dr. 

 A. S. Russell continues to act as Scientific Adviser.) 



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Editorial Notes 



An account of the principal addresses at the British 

 Association's Meeting at Liverpool in September 

 appears in this number. This account will, we hope, 

 show the very definite work which scientists are doing 

 in the solution of the thousand and one problems of our 

 modern complex civilisation. It is evident to us 

 that a marked change of feeling has come over the 

 public in their attitude towards scientists during the 

 last year or so. They are beginning to be listened 

 to more seriously and the jokes about them in the press 

 are rapidly vanishing ! People are realising that the 

 word " scientist " is not synonymous with an old, 

 hairy, bespectacled professor surrounded by books 

 and bones or fumbling about with evil-smelling liquid 

 concoctions. There is less opposition, too, than there 

 was in Darwin's day between science and religion, and 

 we have recently seen in the press the Dean of St. 

 Paul's patting Mr. Julian Huxlej^, the well-known 

 young Oxford biologist, on the back for an essay of his 

 on " Science and Religion," albeit be made some errors 

 in interpreting parts of this essay ! 



***** 



Moreover, many of our modern scientists are 

 adventurers not only in theories or in laboratory work, 

 but in foreign lands and the few remaining unknown 



regions of the earth, and their deeds in such a role 

 cannot fail to appeal to the British psychology. In this 

 number of Discovery Mr. R. W. James writes on the 

 subject of pack-ice, recording carefully and unostenta- 

 tiously his examinations of the vast ice-floes and their 

 movements in the Antarctic made when he was a 

 member of the Endurance expedition. His narrative is 

 purely scientific and, therefore, we cannot publish it 

 without filling up some of the gaps of adventure and 

 peril. The expedition of the Endurance commanded by 

 the late Sir Ernest Shackleton performed some of the 

 most astounding feats recorded in the annals of polar 

 exploration. At the time these feats were eclipsed by 

 the world-war, and despite Shackleton's account ' and 

 the cinematograph records shown subsequently, they 

 are perhaps still sufficiently unknown to merit being 

 described here. After voyaging south from South 

 Georgia, the Endurance was beset in the ice on January 

 18, 1915. The members of the expedition remained 

 on the vessel, which drifted northwards in the vast 

 drifting ice-floes till she was crushed on October 27. 

 They then took to the ice with their tents, boats, and 

 stores, watching their refuge of many months dis- 

 integrating till she sank on November 21. Till 

 January 2, 1916, they drifted northwards for 350 miles 

 on an ice-floe, which with the increasing warmth 

 broke up into countless fragments till one night they 

 found themselves on a piece of flat ice 200 ft. long and 

 100 ft. wide. At last there was sufficient room be- 

 tween the bergs to take to the three boats, which were 

 launched on April 9, 1916, and reached Elephant Island 

 six days later, after some narrow "shaves" with 



onrushing ice debris. 



***** 



This was the first landing ever eft'ected on the 

 island. Shackleton set off in his famous open-boat 

 journey to South Georgia to obtain relief, while twenty- 

 two members of the expedition, including Mr. R. \V. 

 James, were left on the island under Commander Wild. 

 There they lived for nearly five months under pre- 

 carious conditions, sleeping under the two remaining 

 upturned boats and eating seal, penguin meat, limpets, 

 and seaweed tiU, after various unsuccessful attempts, 



' South, by Sir Ernest Shackleton. (Heinemann.) 



253 



