a Nova' R.Y.S." Alas, some of
the letters were never delivered, for death not only laid his hand upon
certain members of the Expedition, but also upon some of our older
friends, supporters, and subscribers.

One passed out of the hut hourly at least and, on moonlight nights
especially, one found something beautiful in the scenery about Cape
Evans. At full moon time everything turned silver, from towering Erebus
with gleaming sides to the smooth ice slopes of Ross Island in the
north-east, while away to the southward the high black Dellbridge Islands
thrust up from a sea of flat silver ice. Even the conical hills and the
majestic Castle Rock, fifteen miles away, stood out quite clearly on
occasions. The weirdest thing of all was to hear the dogs howling in the
middle of the night, they made one think of wolves and of Siberia.

All things considered, the winter passed quickly enough: we had three
lectures a week, and our professional occupations, our recreations and
different interests soon sped away the four months' winter darkness. The
lectures embraced the technical and the practical side of the Expedition;
thus, besides each of the scientific staff lecturing on his individual
subject, Oates gave us two lectures on the care and management of horses;
Scott outlined his plans for the great southern journey, giving probable
dates and explaining the system of supporting parties which he proposed
to employ; Ponting told us about Japan, and illustrated his subject with
beautiful slides made from photographs that he himself had taken; Bowers
lectured on Burma, until we longed to be there; and Meares gave us a
light but intensely interesting lecture on his adventures in the Lolo
country, a practically unknown land in Central Asia.

In connection with the work of Simpson at the base station, I must not
forget the telephones. Certain telephones and equipment sufficient for
our needs were presented to us in 1910 by the staff of the National
Telephone Co., and they were very largely used in scientific work at the
base station as well as for connecting Cape Evans to Hut Point, fifteen
miles away. Simpson made the Cape Evans-Hut Point connection in
September, 1911, by laying the bare aluminium wire along the surface of
the snow-covered sea ice, and for a long time there was no difficulty in
ringing up by means of magnetos. However, when the sun came back and its
rays became reasonably powerful, difficulty in ringing and speaking wa