n the opinion of the majority. The
second winter with our very reduced company we had two a week, and I feel
sure that this was an improvement. No officer nor seaman, however, could
have had too many of Ponting's lectures, which gave us glimpses into
many lands illustrated by his own inimitable slides. Thus we lived every
now and then for a short hour in Burmah, India or Japan, in scenes of
trees and flowers and feminine charm which were the very antithesis of
our present situation, and we were all the better for it. Ponting also
illustrated the subjects of other lectures with home-made slides of
photographs taken during the autumn or from printed books. But for the
most part the lecturers were perforce content with designs and plans,
drawn on paper and pinned one on the top of the other upon a large
drawing-board propped up on the table and torn off sheet by sheet.

From the practical point of view the most interesting evening to us was
that on which Scott produced the Plan of the Southern Journey. The reader
may ask why this was not really prepared until the winter previous to the
journey itself, and the answer clearly is that it was impossible to
arrange more than a rough idea until the autumn sledging had taught its
lesson in food, equipment, relative reliability of dogs, ponies and men,
and until the changes and chances of our life showed exactly what
transport would be available for the following sledging season. Thus it
was with lively anticipation that we sat down on May 8, an advisory
committee as it were, to hear and give our suggestions on the scheme
which Scott had evolved in the early weeks of the winter after the
adventures of the Depot Journey and the loss of six ponies.

It was on just such a winter night, too, that Scott read his interesting
paper on the Ice Barrier and Inland Ice which will probably form the
basis for all future work on these subjects. The Barrier, he maintained,
is probably afloat, and covers at least five times the extent of the
North Sea with an average thickness of some 400 feet, though it has only
been possible to get the very roughest of levels. According to the
movement of a depot laid in the Discovery days the Barrier moved 608
yards towards the open Ross Sea in 131/2 months. It must be admitted that
the inclination of the ice-sheet is not sufficient to cause this, and the
old idea that the glacier streams flowing down from Inland Plateau
provide the necessary impetus is imperf