THE ROSS SEA PARTY 
equipment for landing and sledging parties, stores and clothing 
of all the kinds required, and an ample supply of sledges. 
There were also dog teams and one of the motor-tractors. 
I had told Captain Mackintosh that it was possible the trans- 
continental journey would be attempted in the 1914-15 season 
in the event of the landing on the Weddell Sea coast proving 
unexpectedly easy, and it v/ould be his duty, therefore, to lay 
out depots to the south immediately after his arrival at his 
base. I had directed him to place a depot of food and fuel-oil 
at lat. 80"^ S. in 1914-15, ynth cairns and flags as guides to a 
sledging party approaching from the direction of the Pole. 
He would place depots farther south in the 1915-16 season. 
The Aurora had an uneventful voyage southwards. She 
anchored ofi the sealing-huts at Macquarie Island on Christmas 
Day, December 25. The wireless station erected by Sir Douglas 
Mawson's i\ustralian Antarctic Expedition could be seen on a 
hill to the north-west with the Expedition's hut at the base 
of the hill. This hut was still occupied by a meteorological 
stafi, and later in the day the meteorologist, Mr. TuUoch, came 
off to the ship and had dinner aboard. The Aurora had some 
stores for the Macquarie Island party, and these were sent 
ashore during succeeding days in the boats. The landing- 
place was a rough, kelp-guarded beach, where lay the remains 
of the New Zealand barque Clyde, Macquarie Island anchorages 
are treacherous, and several ships engaged in the sealing and 
whaling trade have left their bones on the rocky shores, where 
bask great herds of seals and sea-elephants. The Aurora sailed 
from the island on December 31, and three days later they sighted 
the first iceberg, a tabular berg rising 250 ft. above the sea. 
This was in lat. 62° 40' S,, long. 169° 58' E. The next day, 
in lat. 64° 27' 38" S., the Aurora passed through the first belt 
of pack-ice. At, 9 a.m. on January 7, Mount Sabine, a mighty 
peak of the Admiralty Range, South Victoria Land, was sighted 
seventy-five miles distant. 
It had been proposed that a party of three men should 
travel to Cape Crozier from winter quarters during the winter 
months in order to secure emperor penguins' eggs. The ship 
was to call at Cape Crozier, land provisions, and erect a small 
243 
