preface 



rpHE scientific results of the expedition can only be 

 * stated generally in the text. The expert members 

 in each branch have contributed to the appendices articles 

 which summarise what has been done in the domains of 

 geology, biology, magnetism, meteorology, physics, &c. 

 I will simply indicate here some of the more important 

 features of the geographical work. 



We passed the winter 1908 in McMurdo Sound, 

 twenty miles north of the Discovery winter quarters. 

 In the autumn a party ascended Mount Erebus and sur- 

 veyed its various craters. In the spring and summer of 

 1908-9 three sledging-parties left winter quarters; one 

 went south and attained the most southerly latitude ever 

 reached by man, another reached the South Magnetic 

 Pole for the first time, and a third surveyed the mountain 

 ranges west of McMurdo Sound. 



The southern sledge- journey planted the Union Jack 

 in latitude 88° 23' South, within one hundred geographical 

 miles of the South 'Pole. This party of four ascertained 

 that a great chain of mountains extends from the 82nd 

 parallel, south of McMurdo Sound, to the 86th parallel, 

 trending in a south-easterly direction; that other great 

 mountain ranges continue to the south and south-west, 

 and that between them flows one of the largest glaciers 

 in the world, leading to an inland plateau, the height of 

 which, at latitude 88° South, is over 11,000 ft. above 

 sea-level. This plateau presumably continues beyond the 

 geographical South Pole, and extends from Cape Adare 

 to the Pole. The bearings and angles of the new southern 



vii 



