January 16, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



101 



It is many years, if ever, since the civilized 

 world has been so stirred into homage to 

 courage and to sympathy for disaster, as were 

 displayed when the ocean cables spread over 

 the globe the fateful story of Scott's Last Ex- 

 pedition, which is now told in these beautiful 

 volumes. Suffice it to say that the detailed 

 record shows high planes of project and of 

 action, which should ensure to Commander 

 Evans and his surviving associates scarcely 

 less honor and credit than is given so fittingly 

 to Scott and his heroic dead. 



That recognized polar authority. Sir Clem- 

 ents R. Markham, outlines the aims and 

 scope of Scott's expedition as the " comple- 

 tion and extension of his former discoveries," 

 especially of " fossils, which would throw light 

 on the former history of the great mountains," 

 which bound the south-polar plateau. For this 

 work Scott had " the most completely equipped 

 expedition for scientific purposes connected 

 with the polar regions, both as regards men and 

 material," and " a fuller complement of geol- 

 ogists, biologists, physicists and surveyors than 

 ever before composed the staff of a polar expe- 

 dition." Science was the primary aim, so that 

 Scott had removed the taint of commercial- 

 ism, which caused Milton to qualify his praise 

 of the quest of a northern route to China by 

 saying it " might have seemed almost heroic 

 if any higher end than excessive love of gain 

 and traffic had animated the design." Thus a 

 twentieth-century sailor attained the seven- 

 teenth century ideal of heroism. 



Referring briefly to the south-polar journey, 

 it is clear that Scott's plans were perfected and 

 carried out with striking ability. Despite a 

 season <tf unprecedented severity as to bliz- 

 zards and cold, the party would have survived 

 but for other misfortunes. These were the 

 inability to originally occupy Cape Crozier as 

 a base, owing to ice-conditions ; the breakdown 

 and loss of motor sledges; and especially the 

 deep, soft snow that fell during the four-day 

 blizzard at Beardmore glacier on the outward 

 journey. Later came the death of Evans from 

 crevasse-injuries and sastrugi-falls, and the 

 freezing of heroic Oates, which followed close 

 on the time lost and delays caused by geologi- 



cal work, a primary aim be it remembered. 

 Let the readers of Science bear in mind that 

 these men perished indirectly as martyrs to a 

 sense of scientific duty. The day spent in col- 

 lecting the fossil volumes that may tell the 

 story of past geological history, and the 

 strength consumed in dragging these speci- 

 mens, nearly forty pounds in weight, ex- 

 hausted the fatal limit of time and so sealed 

 their fate. Yet no word is uttered suggestive 

 of abandoning their harrowing load, over 

 frightful mazes of sastrugi and of glacier. 



This is not the place to dwell on the ideals 

 of courage, of devotion, of unselfishness, which 

 ran like the King's red thread through the 

 warp and woof of their expeditionary duties — 

 of the living as well of the dead. Their recital 

 moves the hearts of the present, and will serve 

 as examplars to stir the souls of the future. 



Storm-bound and crevasse-injured, the 

 southern party perished to a man within 

 eleven miles of safety, while ending a sledge 

 journey of more than sixteen hundred miles, — 

 unprecedented for its length in polar annals. 

 As to conditions which prevented that short 

 march to food and fuel, they had for the ten 

 previous days traveled in temperatures aver- 

 aging sixty-eight degrees below freezing (this 

 in March, our Septemher), and were enveloped 

 in a blinding blizzard, which lasted continu- 

 ously for eight days. 



In these transcripts from Scott's diary are 

 no words of adverse criticism when he re- 

 ceived the astounding news that a rival was 

 in the field, — for south-polar travel only be it 

 noted. Amundsen's route being shorter, fore- 

 seeing the probability of being forestalled at 

 the pole, Scott recalls with becoming dignity 

 of soul the scientific scope of his work in the 

 sober statement, on September 10, 1911, that 

 " nothing, not even the priority at the Pole, 

 can prevent the expedition ranking as one of 

 the most important that ever entered the polar 

 regions." 



Severe as were the physical experiences of 

 the south-polar party in their dramatic ex- 

 plorations, they entailed relatively less bodily 

 discomfort and acute suffering than did the 

 midwinter journey for strictly scientific pur- 



