ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH 



Late in January a relief ship, the "Morning," under 

 Captain Colbeck, reached MacMurdo Sound. Shackle - 

 ton returned home in her, being replaced by Mulock. 

 It was impossible to free the ''Discovery" and so a sec- 

 ond winter was spent in the Antarctic. After several 

 preliminary spring journeys Scott started on October 

 1 2th for his long plateau journey. He arranged for 

 Ferrar, the geologist, to spend several weeks in these 

 great glacial troughs. On October i8th Scott dis- 

 covered that the sledge runners were in very bad 

 condition and had to return to refit them. On the 

 twenty-ninth they were once more above Solitary 

 Rocks, on the Taylor Glacier, and reached their former 

 depot. Here the gales had resulted in the loss of vari- 

 ous articles, including Scott's mathematical tables. 

 They were held up for a whole week in a blizzard in 

 this locality. On the twelfth of November they reached 

 the great plateau and advanced steadily to the west. 

 Scott found that some of the party were in poor con- 

 dition and so he sent them back under Skelton, and 

 he proceeded west with seaman Evans and engineer 

 Lashley. They marched over an undulating ice sur- 

 face diversified only by marked sastrugi (snow ridges 

 due to wind). "These are shaped like the barbs of a 

 hook with their sharp points turned to the east, from 

 which direction many look high and threatening." ^ On 

 calculating Scott's positions on their return it was 

 found that he had reached 146° 33' E. and latitude 

 78° S. (see Figure 6). They had a ver>^ anxious 



1 See Scott's Voyage of the Discovery, Vol. II, p. 264. 



38 



