nd there were passing
the scientific workers born in the early nineteenth century. Sir James
Clark Ross is an epitome of that expansive enthusiasm which was the
keynote of the life of Charles Darwin. The classic "Voyage of the
Beagle" (1831-36) was a triumph of patient rigorous investigation
conducted in many lands outside the polar circles.

The methods of Darwin were developed in the 'Challenger' Expedition
(1872) which worked even to the confines of the southern ice. And
the torch of the pure flame of Science was handed on. It was the same
consuming ardour which took Nansen across the plateau of Greenland,
which made him resolutely propound the theory of the northern ice-drift,
to maintain it in the face of opposition and ridicule and to plan an
expedition down to the minutest detail in conformity therewith. The
close of the century saw Science no longer the mere appendage but the
actual basis of exploratory endeavour.

Disinterested research and unselfish specialization are the phrases born
to meet the intellectual demands of the new century.

The modern polar expedition goes forth with finished appliances, with
experts in every department--sailors, artisans, soldiers and students
in medley; supremely, with men who seek risk and privation--the glory of
the dauntless past. A.L.M.

INTRODUCTION

One of the oft-repeated questions for which I usually had a ready
answer, at the conclusion of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Expedition
(1907-09) was, "Would you like to go to the Antarctic again?" In the
first flush of the welcome home and for many months, during which the
keen edge of pleasure under civilized conditions had not entirely worn
away, I was inclined to reply with a somewhat emphatic negative. But,
once more a man in the world of men, lulled in the easy repose of
routine, and performing the ordinary duties of a workaday world,
old emotions awakened. The grand sweet days returned in irresistible
glamour, faraway "voices" called:

...from the wilderness, the vast and Godlike spaces,
The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole.

There always seemed to be something at the back of my mind, stored
away for future contemplation, and it was an idea which largely matured
during my first sojourn in the far South. At times, during the long
hours of steady tramping across the trackless snow-fields, one's
thoughts flow in a clear and limpid stream, the mind is unruffled and
composed and the passion