2o Recent Antarctic Exploration 



change in the character of the scenery, it is impossible to 

 guess how much farther it may stretch. There was no 

 appearance of this mer de glace being delimited by a coast on 

 the east. In the latitude of the Barrier, which may be taken 

 as 78 S., the ice lies between longitude 160 E. and 160 W. 

 It extends therefore over 40 of longitude, or about 480 

 nautical miles. In latitude 83 the same distance in longitude 

 would equal 290 nautical miles, a distance which would pre- 

 clude the possibility of seeing land, even if of great height. 

 The possibility of the existence of a deep inland sea, such < 

 as that discovered by Nansen in the north, with a depth of 

 perhaps 2000 fathoms, is not excluded ; but the source, if a 

 source be required, of the ice that forms the sheet which ends 

 in the Great Barrier, becomes more and more puzzling the 

 further south it is shifted. It may lie on the other side of 

 the Pole; for instance, on the southern declivities of Coats' 

 Land. If the observed dislocation of depot A is to be taken 

 as any indication of the movement of the ice-sheet as a whole, 

 the supply of ice must be enormous ; and, bearing in view 

 the scarcity of precipitation in those high polar latitudes, it 

 is almost impossible to imagine where the supply is to be 

 found. The subject is full of difficulties, but all of them are 

 fascinating ; and before long the solution of the problem will 

 attract not one or two but many, who will have to thank 

 Captain Scott and his brave companions, Dr Wilson and 

 Lieutenant Shackleton, for having shown the way. 



Not less remarkable than his journey to the farthest south 

 was Captain Scott's expedition in the spring of 1903 to the 

 high continental plateau behind the lofty mountains which 

 bounded the view from the winter-quarters towards the west. 

 In the preceding season an important expedition had been 

 carried out in the same direction by his second in command, 

 Mr Armitage, who performed a mountaineering feat which 

 would daunt most Alpine guides. He took his expedition, 

 dragging everything in the way of provisions and shelter for 

 fifty-two days, on sledges up glaciers and over ridges never 

 before trodden by man, to a height of 9000 feet, at a tempera- 

 ture generally about that which freezes quicksilver. Captain 



