THE CONQUEST OF MOUNT EREBUS 



HPHE arrangement of all the details relating to settling 

 * in our winter quarters, the final touches to the hut, 

 the building of the pony stables, and the meteoro- 

 logical screen, and the collection of stores, engaged 

 our attention up to March 3. Then we began to seek 

 some outlet for our energies that would be useful in 

 advancing the cause of science, and the work of the 

 expedition. I was very anxious to make a depot 

 to the south for the furtherance of our southern journey 

 in the following summer, but the sheet of open water 

 that intervened between us and Hut Point forbade all 

 progress in that direction, neither was it possible for us 

 to make a journey towards the western mountains, where 

 the geology might have been studied with the probability 

 of most interesting results. 



There was one journey possible, a somewhat difficult 

 undertaking certainly, yet gaining an interest and 

 excitement from that very reason, and this was an 

 attempt to reach the summit of Mount Erebus. For 

 many reasons the accomplishment of this work seemed 

 to be desirable. In the first place, the observations 

 of temperature and wind currents at the summit of 

 this great mountain would have an important bearing 

 on the movements of the upper air, a meteorological 

 problem as yet but imperfectly understood. From a 

 geological point of view the mountain ought to reveal 

 some interesting facts, and apart from scientific con- 

 siderations, the ascent of a mountain over 13,000 ft. 



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