44 



1892-3 : — " Like our predecessors, we found it to be a region 

 of gales and calms — gales from the north, with wet fog ; 

 gales from the south, with blinding snow ; calms with fog, 

 and calms with brilliant sunshine." Then, after giving a 

 glowing description of a beautiful Christmas eve, he 

 proceeds :— -" This is the picture of a calm midnight in 

 midsummer, different, indeed, from the heavy weather we 

 experienced at other times, when for days we sheltered behind 

 bergs and streams of pack during black nights thick with 

 fog and snow. One of the gales we encountered the skipper 

 described as the hardest that ever blew in the Arctic and 

 Antarctic ; and, indeed, it was stiff. For ten hours we steamed 

 as hard as we could against it, and at the end had made only 

 one knot. Picture to yourselves a sailing vessel : What a 

 different agency we have now ! Where Cook, Eoss, Weddell, 

 and others would have been in the greatest peril, we with 

 steam were comparatively safe." 



And Dr. Donald, of the same expedition, after referring to 

 Ross's experiences of storms in the stout old Erebus and 

 Terror, speaks in terms similar to those of Mr. Bruce as to 

 the changed conditions due to steam. 



But it is not only with regard to safety in storms that the 

 use of steam has altered the conditions under which Antarctic 

 exploration can be undertaken, it is a yet more important 

 factor in connection with the power it gives to take advantage 

 of opportunities and to contend with circumstances. Polar 

 navigation, and especially Antarctic navigation, is the subject 

 of what, until we know more of the laws that govern seasons 

 and climatic and other conditions that affect it, we must call 

 luck or good fortune. For instance, in 1823 Weddell found 

 a clear sea which enabled him to push his little cutter to the 

 75th deg. of south latitude, four degrees farther than the limit 

 fixed by Cook when he said, " I can be bold enough to say 

 that no man will ever venture farther than I have done." 

 And yet when Boss with his well found ships tried to surpass 

 Weddell, he could on the same longitude get only to the 65th 

 parallel. And again in 1841 Boss entered the main pack 

 south of Campbell Island at the 67th parallel of latitude and 

 got through it in four days. The next year he encountered 

 the pack in 61 deg. 15 min., and it took him forty-four clays to 

 get through it. Now amidst all this uncertainty as to the 

 conditions in which the polar ocean will be found there can be 

 no doubt Boss did all that a skilful and daring seaman could 

 do with the means at his command, and it is beyond all 

 praise that he did so much. But what if he had had steam 

 power? During all that terrible gale in the pack he so 

 wonderfully describes in the extract I have given, the S.S.W. 

 wind was driviug him, together with the pack, back to the 

 northward. If he could have done what the Balcena did last 



