544 
NATURE 
[APRIL 7, 1904 
party visited Emperor and Penguin Islands and surveyed 
Cape Crozier with complete success. The temperatures 
encountered by the parties were constantly below 50 degrees 
and frequently below 60 degrees. ‘The lowest recorded was 
68 degrees. <A third party found a new route to the west 
and established a depot 2000 feet up the glacier, sixty miles 
from the ship. : 
On October 6 a party started for the strait in latitude 
8o degrees south. ‘The strait was found to contain a large 
glacier formed from the inland ice. Detailed information 
was obtained as to the exact point of junction between the 
barrier ice and the land, and a depot established last year 
was found to have moved a quarter of a mile to the north. 
The party returned on December 13. 
A party started on November 10, with five weeks’ pro- 
visions, and reached a point 160 geographical miles south- 
east of the ship, travelling continuously over a level plain. 
No trace of land and no obstacles in the ice were en- 
countered, and evidence was obtained showing this vast 
plain to be afloat. A most uniform series of magnetic 
observations was secured. 
A party set out to the west on October 12, and reached a 
height of 5000 feet on the glacier, 80 miles from the ship, 
on October 18. The ship was reached again on October 21, 
and on October 26 another start was made. ‘The party 
gained the summit on November 11, and crossed 180 degrees, 
the magnetic meridian, on November 20 in about longitude 
155s degrees east. 
Commander Scott proceeded west with two men for eight 
and a half days, and reached a point 270 miles from the 
ship in latitude 78 degrees south and longitude 146} degrees 
east. He regained the glacier on December 14, and reached 
the ship on Christmas Eve. 
The interior of Victoria Land stretches continuously at 
a height of gooo feet. It is evidently a vast continental 
plateau. No land was visible after losing sight of the 
ranges which front the coast. The temperatures were low 
and the wind increasingly strong. ‘The glacier valley 
affords magnificent scenery and gives a natural geological 
section of the mountains. Mr. Ferrar and two men accom- 
panied Commander Scott to the summit, and on the return 
journey they explored the valley in detail and discovered 
sandstone with plant remains. 
In the middle of December a camp was formed eight miles 
north of the ship, and all hands were set to work on ice- 
saws in the neighbourhood to cut a passage out. Com- 
mander Scott arrived at the camp on December 30, and 
found that 180 yards of channel had been sawn in twelve 
days, through ice 7 feet to 8 feet thick. The open water 
was then 17 miles from the ship. As the canal cut had 
frozen over again in places, showing that the efforts were 
obviously futile, the men were sent back to the ship. 
The relief ships arrived simultaneously at the edge of the 
ice on January 5. As they had closed but little on the 
Discovery by January 15, all hands were employed in 
sledging and collecting the instruments. The ice began 
to weaken between the ships on January 20, and broke 
rapidly towards the end of the month. The opening came 
within 8 miles of the ship in the early days of February. 
Its advance was slow, but it was increased by systematic 
blasting with dynamite. The crews of the relief ships were 
employed in making holes in the ice for this purpose. On 
February 12 a general break-up of the ice began, and the 
relief ships reached Hut Point amid much excitement. On 
the night of February 14 two heavy charges were exploded, 
and these placed the Discovery in open water. 
On the morning of February 16 a heavy gale began. In 
the night the Terra Nova succeeded in finding shelter to 
the south, but in the morning was driven north. The 
Discovery dragged her anchor and was forced ashore, re- 
maining eight hours in a critical position. The ship 
eventually freed herself. On February 19, 75 tons of coal 
were obtained from the relief ships before a fresh gale drove 
the Discovery north. The ship was kept close in along the 
coast line, and in the morning parted company from the 
other ships at Cape Washington, with a clear sea to the 
north. 
The Discovery skirted the pack to the east and north, 
losing sight of the Terra Nova during a gale on February 
28. It proceeded west along parallel 693 degrees of lati- 
tude, and on March 2 the Balleny and Russell Islands were 
NO. 1797, VOL 69] 
found to be identical. It continued west to the 156th 
meridian of longitude. ‘The coast-line reported in this direc- 
tion was found to be a mistake. No such land exists. 
Auckland Island was reached on March 15. The Terra 
Nova and Morning rejoined the Discovery on March 19 
and 20, after experiencing terrific weather and being com- 
pelled several times to heave to, The results of the expedi- 
tion are eminently satisfactory. 
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
HERE was an especial appropriateness about the visit 
of Prof. Hele-Shaw, F.R.S., to the Cape of Good 
Hope University on the occasion of the degree day, on 
February 27, when he gave an address on the true function 
of a university and the directions in which university work 
in South Africa should be strengthened and developed. 
Prof. Hele-Shaw, it will be remembered, is in South 
Africa to organise technical education in the new colonies, 
and he is for the present acting as senior professor 
in charge of the department of mechanical and electrical 
engineering at the Transvaal Technical Institute. This 
institute will, it is hoped by the local authorities of the 
Transvaal, develop into a university, but the university 
authorities at the Cape of Good Hope naturally desire that 
the future shall see no undesirable competition and no over- 
lapping between the university work of Cape Town and 
that of the Transvaal when the latter becomes fully 
organised. There is in other quarters the fear that in the 
work of instituting new universities an undue prominence 
may be given to the subjects of study of a more technical 
kind, and that the branches of knowledge usually associated 
with the inculcation of cultured ideas may be neglected. 
All these questions were discussed at length by Prof. Hele- 
Shaw. 
The University of the Cape of Good Hope was incor- 
porated by an Act of the Legislature in 1873, and thereupon 
took the place of the Board of Public Examiners which had 
been similarly established in 1858 under the administration 
of the late Sir George Grey. In 1879 the late Queen 
Victoria granted a Royal Charter to the university de- 
claring that the degrees conferred by the university are 
entitled to the same rank, precedence, and consideration 
as the degrees of any university in the United Kingdom. 
But, as was pointed out by the Cape Times of February 29, 
reporting the proceedings on degree day, as it is at present 
constituted the Cape University is almost exclusively an 
examining body. It is not, in the commonly accepted sense 
of the term, a teaching university, and however valuable 
it is for South Africa to number among its educational 
institutions a body which has the power to confer degrees, 
and thereby to set the seal of its authority upon the intel- 
lectual attainments of its graduates, this is not the highest 
of all advantages which a university can offer. This was 
the ideal at which the University of London formerly aimed, 
but which it has been able to replace by a great teaching 
university which it is hoped will be soon worthy of the 
capital of the Empire. The need for a teaching university 
at Cape Town is beginning to be felt in South Africa—for 
a university at which the students will be brought into 
direct touch with the professors and lecturers, and not, as 
at present, an institution in which knowledge is 
tested wholly by examination papers. It is the influence 
and the teaching of the university as a whole which largely 
contribute to stimulate that affection for their college that 
is so distinguishing a feature of the great English and. 
Scottish universities. 
Prof. Hele-Shaw directed the attention of the authorities 
of the Cape of Good Hope University to the aspirations of 
those who are founding the Transvaal Technical Institute, 
and pointed out that their ultimate ideal is the foundation 
of a university for the Transvaal. Under existing con- 
ditions in South Africa, says the Cape Times, it may well 
be doubted if two university establishments could be 
effectively maintained without injury to the interests of one 
or the other. But if the country makes that progress in 
wealth and population and prosperity which it is hoped to 
see realised, the day when there will be ample room ior a 
Transvaal university may not be very far removed. There 
need be no friction between those at work at Cape Town 
and Johannesburg respectively. 
