THE DINING TABLE 



on the blankets. Mawson's bed consisted of his two 

 boxes, in which he had stowed his scientific apparatus on 

 the way down, and the Professor's bed was made out of 

 kerosene cases. Everything in the way of tin cans or 

 plug-topped, with straw wrappers belonging to the 

 fruit bottles was collected by these two scentific men. 

 Mawson, as a rule, put his possessions in his store-room 

 outside, but the Professor, not having any retreat like that, 

 made a pile of glittering tins and coloured wrappers at 

 one end of his bunk, and the heap looked like the nest of 

 the Australian bower bird. The straw and the tins were 

 generally cleared away when the Professor and Priestley 

 went in for a day's packing of geological specimens; 

 the straw wrappers were utilised for wrapping round the 

 rocks, and the tins were filled with paper wrapped round 

 the more delicate geological specimens. The name given, 

 though not by the owners, to this cubicle was " The Pawn 

 Shop," for not only was there always a heterogeneous 

 mass of things on the bunks, but the wall of the dark- 

 room and the wall of the hut at this spot could not be 

 seen for the multitude of cases ranged as shelves and 

 filled with a varied assortment of note-books and 

 instruments. 



In order to give as much free space as possible in the 

 centre of the hut we had the table so arranged 

 that it could be hoisted up over our heads after 

 meals were over. This gave ample room for the 

 various carpentering and engineering efforts that were 

 constantly going on. Murray built the table out of the 

 lids of packing-cases, and though often scrubbed, the 

 stenciling on the cases never came out. We had no 

 table-cloth, but this was an advantage, for a well- 

 scrubbed table had a cleaner appearance than would be 

 obtained with such washing as could be done in an 

 Antarctic laundry. The legs of the table were detach- 

 10 145 



