214 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
glimpses into many lands illustrated by his own inimitable 
slides. Thus we lived every now and then for a short hour 
in Burmah, India or Japan, in scenes of trees and flowers 
and feminine charm which were the very antithesis of our 
present situation, and we were all the better for it. Ponting 
also illustrated the subjects of other lectures with home- 
made slides of photographs taken during the autumn or 
from printed books. But for the most part the lecturers 
were perforce content with designs and plans, drawn on 
paper and pinned one on the top of the other upon a large 
drawing-board propped up on the table and torn off sheet 
by sheet. 
From the practical point of view the most interesting 
evening to us was that on which Scott produced the Plan 
of the Southern Journey. The reader may ask why this 
was not really prepared until the winter previous to the 
journey itself, and the answer clearly is that 1t was impos- 
sible to arrange more than a rough idea until the autumn 
sledging had taught its lesson in food, equipment, relative 
reliability of dogs, ponies and men, and until the changes 
and chances of our life showed exactly what transport 
would be available for the following sledging season. Thus 
it was with lively anticipation that we sat down on May 8, 
an advisory committee as it were, to hear and give our 
suggestions on the scheme which Scott had evolved in the 
early weeks of the winter after the adventures of the Depot 
Journey and the loss of six ponies. 
It was on just such a winter night, too, that Scott read 
his interesting paper on the Ice Barrier and Inland Ice 
which will probably form the basis for all future work on 
these subjects. The Barrier, he maintained, is probably 
afloat, and covers at least five times the extent of the North 
Sea with an average thickness of some 400 feet, though it 
has only been possible to get the very roughest of levels. 
According to the movement of a depdt laid in the Dis- 
covery days the Barrier moved 608 yards towards the open 
Ross Seain 134 months. It must be admitted that the in- 
clination of the ice-sheet is not sufficient to cause this, and 
the old idea that the glacier streams flowing down from 
