12 



NA TURE 



[May 7, 1908 



ANTARCTIC ICE. 



THE following interesting account of Antarctic 

 experience is from a letter bv Prof. Edgevvorth 

 David, F.K.S., to Prof. W. J. Sollas, F.R.S. Prof. 

 David i^ a member of Lieut. Shackleton's expe- 

 dition : — 



Great Ice Barrier, East Antarctica. 

 Lat. 78° 8' S., Long. 173° 43' W. 



British Antarctic Expedition, 1907. 



January 27, 190S. 

 S.Y. Niinrod. 



We had some fearfully heavy gales alter leaving New 

 Zealand. Our little ship is only 200 tons, and if she had 

 not been an excellent sea-boat and been -.plendidly handled 

 she might not have survived it. At last we reached the 

 belt of Polar Calms, and were at peace for a day or two : 

 then sighted the heavy brigade of the Ice Knig, such 

 a sight as I doubt whether any mortal man had seen 

 before. We met, not pacU-ice, but countless great tabular 

 icebergs. It was like threading one's way through the 

 streets of Venice with the Doge's Palace and blocks of 

 buildings represented by the purest white alabaster inlaid 

 with liquid sapphire and resting on a foundation of limpid 

 eaierald. 



The bergs were mostly about 50 to 80 feet high, rarely 

 over a hundred feet ; many only about 30 or 40 feet high. 

 Often we had to pass close between them, with a wall of 

 ice on this side and a wall of ice on that. Frequently we 

 seemed to be jammed into a cul~dc-sac, but always there 

 was some narrow channel into which our ship could be 

 headed. We were about 20 hours steaming through 

 them, the belt being altogether fully 100 miles wide, and 

 probably of much greater dimensions from E. to W. 



We knew after this experience that we should get no 

 pack-ice at all between us and the Great Ice Barrier, 

 towards which we were steering almost on the 180° 

 meridian, and our anticipations were fully realised. We 

 arrived at the Great Barrier on January 23. It is a sight 

 that beggars all description. Imagine a continuous wall 

 from Land's End to John o' Groats, 500 miles long and 

 100 to 200 feet high, the exquisite blue of the crevasses 

 contrasting finely with the dazzling white of the weathered 

 ice on either side of them. We followed it eastwards for 

 about So miles, making for an intended base on the tireat 

 Barrier, Balloon Inlet. On arriving there the following 

 day we found that Balloon Inlet, fully 10 miles long in 

 1901, had now completely disappeared, on a piece of ice 

 over 12 miles in width, nothing but more or less high ice- 

 cliffs. 



Shackleton, our leader, then tried to force his way along 

 the Great Barrier westwards, so as to get to King 

 Edward VII. Land, but we were blocked by impenetrable 

 pack-ice. Then we followed the pack north for about 

 100 miles, but it started slowly to envelop us, and we only 

 just escaped in time. Shackleton was very disappointed 

 at not being able to get to King Edward VII. Land, and 

 now we are making for the only base available to us. 

 that of the National .\ntarctic Expedition of 1901, 

 MacMurdo Sound. 



Shackleton is a very capable leader, and I believe that, 

 bar serious accident, lie will get to the Pole. 



INAUGURATION OF THE NEW CHANCELLOR 

 OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. 



ACCORDING to custom the inauguration of the 

 new Chancellor of the I'niversity of Cambridge 

 took place in London. The Rev. E. .S. Roberts. 

 Master of Gonville and Caius College, the present 

 vice-chancellor, accompanied by a certain number of 

 members of the Senate, proceeded on Friday last. 

 May I, to 4 Carlton Gardens, where the Chancellor- 

 elect received them in the house of his brother-in-law, 

 Mr. Balfour. At noon the vice-chancellor took the 

 chair, and the Senior Esquire Bedell escorted the 

 Chancellor into the room. The train of the black and 

 gold gown of office was carried by Lord David Cecil, 

 the voung son of Lord and I^ady Salisbury. 



In his address to the Chancellor, the vice-chancellor 



lirst dwelt upon the loss the University had sustained 

 in the death of the late Duke of Devonshire. In re- 

 ferring to the new Chancellor, .Mr. Roberts spoke as 

 follows : — 



It is of happy omen, my lord, that you yourself as a 

 student attained to the highest possible academical honours 

 in ihe oldest and most distinctive of our academical studies. 

 This fact is not without significance for our University 

 in the opening years of a new century. For you afford 

 in your own person a conspicuous example, on the one 

 hand, of reverence for a study which has in former genera- 

 tions made our Lniversity famous, and on the other hand of 

 devotion to those newer outgrowths of that study in which 

 Cambridge holds an eminent, if not a preeminent, rank. 

 It is, therefore, with the more ready confidence that we 

 look forward to the period of your Chancellorship as one 

 in which the just balance between the old and the new 

 may be stoutly maintained, and in which the studies of 

 literature and social science may thrive and expand no less 

 exuberantly than that of the natural sciences. One in- . 

 estimable function of our University has been to quicken 

 the intellectual life of the nation by lessons derived from 

 the history and thought of the ancient world, and to hand 

 on from generation to generation the humanising influence 

 of literary culture. It would be a strange and cruel irony 

 of fate that our generous and whole-hearted welcome of 

 every development of modern science should in any way 

 tend to alienate from us the sympathy and loyalty of those 

 to whom the ancient studies have been dear. Yet it has 

 at times appeared as if the danger of such alienation were 

 no unreal one ; as if the honest desire of Cambridge to 

 meet national and Imperial needs were likely to entail 

 consequences which would be deplored by the most ardent 

 enthusiasts in modern science. In passing through such 

 a crisis, if it is a real one, it is well and fortunate that 

 we should have for our chief one whose public life and 

 scientific reputation command the attention conceded only 

 to an authority that is unquestionable. 



Towards the end of his speech, the vice-chancellor 

 announced that Lord Rayleiy^h had consented to 

 occupy the chair of the Cambridge University Asso- 

 ciation which the Duke of Devonshire so ably and 

 wisely filled. 



The senior proctor then read the patent, which 

 was handed by the vice-chancellor to the Chan- 

 cellor, together with a copv of the statutes. The vice- 

 chancellor read the " aftirmation," to which the Chan- 

 cellor replied " Ita do fidem." The vice-chancellor 

 then handed the Chancellor to the chair, and the 

 public orator read the following Latin speech : — 



Dignissime Domine, Domine Cancellarie, — Kalendis 

 Mails, Floralium nostrorum festo et sollenni die, animo 

 laeto agnosci'nus, auspiciis quam bonis, " quo praebente 

 domum," non iam .Academi inter umbras sed urbis magnae 

 in luce, Cancellarii novi in honorem purpura nostra vestiti, 

 hie potissimum simus congregati. Tibi vero, vir honora- 

 tissime, quod .\cademiae officium summum a nobis libenter 

 oblatum tam benigne accepisti, senatus totius nomine 

 gratias propterea et agimus et habemus maximas. In 

 honoribus quidcm .\cademicis Duci Devoniae septimo, 

 quondam Cancellario nostro, comparandus, inter nosmet 

 ipsos illam ipsam scientiarum provinciam per quin- 

 quennium illustrasti, quae Henricum Cavendish, alumnum 

 nostrum, inter conditores suos numerat, quae Willelmi 

 Cavendish. Cancellarii nostri, munificentiae et officinam 

 splendldam et experimentorum omnium supellectilem 

 amplam iamdudum debuit. Cancellarium alterum, Can- 

 cellarii illius'filium illustrem, virum de nobis praeclare 

 meritum nuper amisimus, qui quails in Academiam et in 

 patriam universam quantusque vir fuerit, non est quod 

 iongius inter peritos exsequamur. Te vero, muneri illi 

 insigni suffragiis nostris unanimis designate, virum salut- 

 amus et Regiae Maiestatis concilio privato et virorum 

 optime mcritorum ordini adscriptum, Regiae Societatis 

 praesidem, scientiarum in republica principem, qui lucis 

 sonitusque leges penitus indagasti, qui vis electricae 

 modulos accuratissime determinasti, qui aeris ipsius partem 

 inertem illam prius ignotam detexisti, qui scientiarum 

 ' physicarum in provincia praemium orbi terrarum toti pro- 



NO. 2010, VOL. 78] 



