INTRODUCTION 



ever, rapidly weakened, but by December 30 the little 

 party reached latitude 82° 17' South, after fifty-nine days' 

 travelling from winter quarters in 77° 49' South. They 

 had passed over comparatively uniform snow-covered ice, 

 probably afloat, and their track stretched parallel to a 

 great mountain range which rose on their right. When- 

 ever they approached the position of the mountains the 

 surface was always found to be rougher, thrown into 

 ridges or cleft by great crevasses. Failing provisions 

 compelled them to stop at length, and a great chasm 

 in the ice prevented them from reaching the land; but 

 they had made their way to a point 3° 27' or 297 miles 

 farther south than Borchgrevink and were 463 miles from 

 the Pole. It was the greatest advance ever made over a 

 previous farthest in poleward progress in either hemi- 

 sphere, and the first long land journey in the Antarctic. 

 Great mountain summits were seen beyond the farthest 

 point reached ; one named Mount Markham rose to about 

 15,000 ft., another, Mount LongstafT, was lower but 

 farther south. The range appeared to be trending south- 

 eastward in the distance. The return journey was made 

 in thirty-four days, and the ship was reached on Febru- 

 ary 3, 1903; the dogs were all dead and had long been 

 useless, the men themselves had been attacked by scurvy, 

 the ancient scourge of polar, explorers, and Shackleton's 

 health was in a very serious state; but a journey such as 

 had never been made before had been accomplished, and 

 new methods of travel had been evolved and tested. Mean- 

 time shorter expeditions had been sent out from winter 

 quarters, and Armytage had pioneered away up one of the 

 great glaciers which descended from, the western moun- 

 tains. The relief ship Morning, under Captain Colbeck, 

 who had charted the Barrier on the Southern Cross ex- 

 pedition, arrived in McMurdo Sound on January 25,1903; 

 but unbroken sea ice prevented the ship from reaching the 



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