THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 419 
cerned when, from its position on the chart, it should 
have been a conspicuous object. 
On March 5th the Discovery crossed the Antarctic 
circle northward, after having spent the unprecedented 
time of two years and two months within it, and on the 
19th she anchored in Laurie Cove, Auckland Island, with 
only ten tons of coal left in her bunkers. The Morn- 
ing and Terra Nova appeared at this rendezvous a few 
days later, and the fleet proceeded to Lyttleton in com- 
pany. 
The Discovery returned to England by Cape Horn and 
received an enthusiastic welcome on her arrival in Sep- 
tember, 1904. The Royal Geographical Society ex- 
pressed the general feeling of pride and gratification at 
the outcome of the work by presenting two gold medals 
to Captain Scott, and steps were immediately taken to 
have the large collections and series of observations 
adequately described and discussed. Scott showed that 
there were grounds for believing the great Southern 
Barrier to be the edge of an immense field of ice which 
in some previous period had filled the Antarctic Sea, but 
was now so far reduced in thickness as to be afloat. The 
great glaciers descending from the high plateau of Vic- 
toria Land were also found to have shrunk greatly. 
While the purely geographical achievements of the Dis- 
covery are things that take the eye and have their value 
instantly recognised, the more important researches on 
magnetism, meteorology, oceanography, geology and 
biology cannot be fully appreciated until they are set in 
the light of the simultaneous work done by the other 
national expeditions, and this requires time. Not the least 
important for purposes of comparison are the results of 
the German expedition, which were planned to be simul- 
