THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



on the basis of supplies for ninety-one days, would 

 therefore be 77Sy 2 lb. The staple items were to be 

 biscuits and pemmican. The biscuits, as I have stated, 

 were of wheatmeal with 25 per cent, of plasmon added, 

 and analysis showed that they did not contain more 

 than 3 per cent, of water. The pemmican had been 

 supplied by Beauvais, of Copenhagen, and consisted 

 of the finest beef, dried and powdered, with 60 per 

 cent, of beef -fat added. It contained only a small per- 

 centage of water. The effort of the polar explorer 

 is to get his foods as free from water as possible, for 

 the moisture represents so much useless weight to be 

 carried. 



The daily allowance of food for each man on the 

 journey, as long as full rations were given, was to be as 



follows: 



Oz. 



Pemmican 7.5 



Emergency ration . . . . . . . 1.5 



Biscuit 16.0 



Cheese or chocolate 2.0 



Cocoa .7 



Plasmon 1.0 



Sugar 4.3 



Quaker Oats . 1.0 



34.0 



Tea, salt and pepper were extras not weighed in with 

 the daily allowance. We used about two ounces of 

 tea per day for the four men. The salt and pepper 

 were carried in small bags, each bag to last one 

 week. Some of the biscuit had been broken up, 

 and 1 lb. per week for each man was intended 

 to be used for thickening the hoosh, the amount so 

 used to be deducted from the ordinary allowance of 

 biscuit. 



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