THE FIRST WINTER 205 
Western Mountains: of lights reflected in the freezing sea 
or in the glass houses of the ice foot: of the steam clouds 
on Erebus by day and of the Aurora Australis by night. 
Next door to Scott he rigged up for himself a table, con- 
sisting of two venesta cases on end supporting a large 
drawing-board some four feet square. On this he set to 
work systematically to paint the effects which he had seen 
and noted. He painted with his paper wet, and neces- 
sarily, therefore, he worked quickly. Anadmirer of Ruskin, 
he wished to paint what he saw as truly as possible. If he 
failed to catch the effect he wished, he tore up the picture 
however beautiful the result he had obtained. There is no 
doubt as to the faithfulness of his colouring: the pictures 
recalled then and will still recall now in intimate detail the 
effects which we saw together. As to the accuracy of his 
drawing it is sufficient to say that in the Discovery Ex- 
pedition Scott wrote on his Southern Journey: 
‘Wilson is the most indefatigable person. When it is 
fine and clear, at the end of our fatiguing days he will 
spend two or three hours seated in the door of the tent, 
sketching each detail of the splendid mountainous coast- 
scene to the west. His sketches are most astonishingly 
accurate ; I have tested his proportions by actual angular 
measurement and found them correct.’”’! 
In addition to the drawings of land, pack, icebergs 
and Barrier, the primary object of which was scientific 
and seographical, Wilson has left a number of paintings of 
atmospheric phenomena which are not only scientifically 
accurate but are also exceedingly beautiful. Of such are 
the records of auroral displays, parhelions, paraselene, lunar 
halos, fog bows, irridescent clouds, refracted images of 
mountains and mirage generally. If you look at a picture 
of a parhelion by Wilson not only can you be sure that the 
mock suns, circles and shafts appeared in the sky as they 
are shown on paper, but you can also rest assured that the 
number of degrees between, say, the sun and the outer ring 
of light were in fact such as he has represented them. You 
can also be certain in looking at his pictures that if cirrus 
1 Scott, Voyage of the Discovery, vol. ti. p. 53. 
