LECTURE BY CAPTAIN SCOTT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 959, 28 October 1910, Page 6

LECTURE BY CAPTAIN SCOTT.

ENTHUSIASTIC. AUDIENCE. Captain Scott as a lecturer is pleasant, easy, lucid and humorous. At the Town .Hall last night, he was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm by an audience of nearly '3000 people. He said afterwards that he .had never had such a closely 'attentive audience. . ..' After a brief introduction, by Sir Robert Stout (Chief Justice), the lecturer was soon in the midst of his subject. His vivid descriptions, combined _ with a splendid series of lantern slides, enabled those who heard him to feel almost that they were with him among the everlasting snows. At any rate, during the months that must elapse without any word being received from the Antarctic they will be able to see with the mind's eye the busy explorers in their winter huts.. They will think of those merciless winds that drive the snow like a sandblast against one's face, and they will hope for the success of the new device for reading tfie temperature of the outside air by drawing a.sample of it through a pipe into the. hut. They will not envy tho explorers' winter dietary, in which throe days.on seal meat and two on pemmican must precede the weekly two days on good New. Zealand mutton. And they-- will go,. in spirit, with the sledging' parties from MTVlurdo Sound across- the lower plateau, up the glacier, and over the upper plateau on that long nrarch, which is to be begun by IB men and finished by only four. "The honour of the country is so bound up in this," said Captain Scott, "that I don't want it to depend on any one man's effort. ..Whenever four men. have to be dropped behind, they will be the least fit of tho party, without fear or favour. With those sixteen men picked from all parts of the Empire, if 'we don't' get the four best men at the end, wo shall at least' hawe done our' best to 'get them, and if you knew the spirit of the' men who axe on the' Terra: , Nova, you would agree that,l havo someground for hoping that wo shall plant the flag that \vp all loyo somewhere near; that geographical spot which is called the South Pole." (Prolonged applause.). ' . ■ "Sir Joseph.Ward, in a short address, said that the people of New Zealand felt themselves, even more than upon the. occasion of Captain. Scotfs previous departure for Antarctica, closely entwined with his brave enterprise. (Applause.) ' A .vote of thanks; proposed by Mr. H. C. Tewsloy,'presidaat of the Chamber of Commerce, was.' carried with ,, enthusiastic acclamations.

. The proceeds, of the lecture will be devoted to the ' Boys' Institute Extension Fund. ''-.' V':.'-■■ • - -