38o 
SCOTTS LAST EXPEDITION 
[August 
takes them out with a leader borrowed from Mearcs, 
usually little * Noogis.' On Saturday the sledge capsized 
at the tide crack ; Clissold was left on the snow whilst the 
team disappeared in the distance. Noogis returned later, 
having eaten through his harness, and the others were 
eventually found some two miles away, * foul 5 of an ice 
hummock. Yesterday Clissold took the same team to 
Cape Royds ; they brought back a load of 100 lbs. a dog 
in about two hours. It would have been a good per- 
formance for the best dogs in the time, and considering 
that Mearcs pronounced these two dogs useless, Clissold 
deserved a great deal of credit. 
Yesterday we had a really successful balloon ascent : 
the balloon ran out four miles of thread before it was 
released, and the instrument fell without a parachute. 
The searchers followed the clue about z\ miles to the 
north, when it turned and came back parallel to itself, 
and only about 30 yards distant from it. The instrument 
was found undamaged and with the record properly 
scratched. 
Nelson has been out a good deal more of late. He has 
got a good little run of serial temperatures with water 
samples, and however meagre his results, they may be 
counted as exceedingly accurate ; his methods include 
the great scientific care which is now considered necessary 
for this work, and one realises that he is one of the few 
people who have been trained in it. Yesterday he got 
his first net haul from the bottom, with the assistance of 
Atkinson and Cherry-Garrard. 
Atkinson has some personal interest in the work. 
