ch. lvii] The Societies" Expedition 461 
Scott's arrangements for diet while travelling were 
adopted after careful study and much thought. Experts 
place our ordinary food under three headings — the 
nitrogenous food supplied by meats, the fats, and the 
carbohydrates or farinaceous foods. Supposing all to be 
water-free, the allowance he adopted was 29 ounces per 
man, 25 being the allowance in the army on war footing. 
For polar travelling a much larger allowance is necessary. 
Water cannot be entirely excluded, though it is a dead 
and useless addition to the weights. Ordinary cooked 
meat contains 54 per cent, of moisture. This moisture in 
food was reduced to a minimum, yet it increased the 
29 ounces of actual food to about 35 ounces 1 . Our ration 
in the Arctic Regions was 42 ounces per man per day. 
We could not do without 1 lb. of pemmican, and we 
also included lime-juice \ ounce, tobacco \ ounce, and 
3f ounces (f of a gill) of rum. Fanaticism has deprived 
Antarctic travellers of the latter most comforting and 
useful part of the ration. On the whole the pemmican 
allowance might well have been increased, by omitting 
plasmon and cheese. 
The manufacture of the best pemmican is a lost art. 
Scott obtained most of his from Beauvais of Copenhagen. 
It contained 20 per cent, of water, but that I sent out in the 
Morning made by the Bovril Company was better. But 
the substantial dish with the Discovery travelling parties 
was a mixture of pemmican, bacon, and other ingredients, 
forming a thick soup which they called "hoosh." 
Scott adopted the cooking apparatus invented and 
used by Nansen, made of aluminium for lightness. It 
takes as long to reduce ice to a liquid state at very low 
temperatures as it does to boil the water, so that double 
the quantity of fuel is needed. Boiling water was made 
from snow in twelve minutes. The ''Primus" lamp of 
Nansen's pattern was also adopted. Paraffin oil was used 
for fuel. Each tin contained a gallon, weighed 10 lb., and 
was the allowance for three men for ten days. 
The constant weights for two sledges were 56811b. 
1 The ration adopted by Scott was as follows in ounces per day:— 
Biscuit i2-o, oatmeal 1*5, pemmican 7-6, bacon and pea-flour 2-6, plasmon 
2-0, cheese 2-0, chocolate r-i, cocoa 07, sugar 3-8. In addition, J lb. of tea, 
h lb. of onion powder, J lb. of pepper and f lb. of salt was allowed per week 
to each unit of three men. 
