THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 417 
sea-ice in the previous year. After passing the glacier 
valley and the mountain border there was nothing to 
map, nothing to see but snow and sky, no sound of life, 
no gleam of colour: the visible scene, always bounded by 
the narrow horizon that a man’s height commands, was 
more uniform than the sea. From the nature of the 
surface Captain Scott concluded that on this lofty con- 
tinental plateau the evaporation from the frozen surface 
equalled if it did not exceed the fall of snow. 
Preparations had been made to commence cutting a 
channel to the ship through the ice from some islets nine 
miles to seaward, where open water was expected to be 
found in the middle of December; but at that date the 
open sea was still separated from the Discovery by seven- 
teen miles of ice, about seven feet thick. The progress 
of this work by means of sawing and blasting was so 
slow that it soon became clear that the ship could not be 
relieved in that way. Everyone however was in exuber- 
ant health and high spirits, and when on January 5th, 
1904, the Morning appeared at the ice-edge with peremp- 
tory orders from home to leave the Discovery and return, 
the pleasure of receiving news from the living world was 
changed to gloom at the thought of having to desert the 
finest polar ship ever built, in perfect condition, and sure 
of ultimate release. The Morning was accompanied by 
another and larger vessel, the Terra Nova, sent out by 
the Admiralty to ensure the relief of a party which hap- 
pily was in no need of assistance. Hard as it was to do 
so, steps were taken to obey orders, and by the end of 
January all the instruments, registers, collections and 
valuable books had been removed to the relief ships. 
This was no sooner done than the ice began to break up, 
and on February 3rd the open sea was only six or seven 
27 
