INTRODUCTION 



Returning to McMurdo Bay, Scott showed that the Parry 

 Mountains, running south from Mount Erebus, were not 

 in fact there; Ross had probably seen the southern range 

 across the Barrier. It soon became evident that Ross' 

 original impression that Mount Erebus rose from an 

 island was correct, and this land was named Ross Island. 

 McMurdo Bay also was found not to be a bay at all, but 

 the opening of a strait leading southward between Ross 

 Island and the mainland. By the middle of February, 

 1902, the Discovery had taken up winter quarters on the 

 extreme south of Ross Island, and a large hut had been 

 erected on shore with smaller huts for the magnetic and 

 other instruments. The winter, four hundred miles farther 

 south than any man had wintered before, was passed 

 pleasantly by all, a great feature being the appearance 

 of the South Polar Times, which owed much of its attrac- 

 tiveness to the editorship of E. H. Shackleton and to the 

 art of E. A. Wilson. 



With the spring a new era in Antarctic exploration 

 was inaugurated in the series of sledge journeys for which 

 elaborate preparations had been made. Here Captain 

 Scott showed himself possessed of all the qualities of a 

 pioneer, adapting the methods of Sir Leopold McClintock 

 and Dr. Nansen for Arctic ice travel to the different con- 

 ditions prevailing in the Antarctic. In preparation for the 

 great effort towards the south a depot had been laid out 

 on the ice, and on November 2, 1902, Scott, Shackleton 

 and Wilson, with four sledges and nineteen dogs stepped 

 out into the unknown on the surface of the Barrier. 

 It was necessary at first to make the journeys by relays, 

 going over the ground three times to bring up the stores ; 

 but the loads were lightened as the food was used and by 

 leaving a depot in 80° 30' South to be picked up on the 

 return journey. Snowy weather was experienced, but the 

 temperature was not excessively low. The dogs, how- 



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