THE SCOTT EXPEDITION.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1696, 12 March 1913, Page 5

THE SCOTT EXPEDITION.

Sir, —As a great amount of correspondenoa has liassed wifiiit Hie. unfortunate and ill-starred fate of some of the members of the Swill' exji-sdilion, SVolt inclnJive, T believe llial, in i'ainiths to I he leader of the above expedition, (lie followiiig paras rnjilis, out of the "OI.UK'i Witness," should bo piacoil in nrml'

locally; The paragraphs I rofer to arc from tho "Passing Notes/' and written by "Civis." Tho. additional suggestion, as to a memorial verse, is from iv. L. ktevciison, and I venture to suggest that V l ' are very appropriate. Stevenson s lines arc as follow:— Under tho wide and starry sky, Dig tho grave and let me lie; Glad did I live, and gladly die. And I laid me down with a will. This 1)9 t'ho verse you grave oor me: "llero lie lies where ho longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the ssa. And the hunter is homo from the nui. The paragraphs referring _to Captain Amundsen are certainly illuminating. Captain Scott and Professor David, as also tho other members of tho expcdit'ion, were too magnauimous to attribute ulterior motives to Captain Amundsen. The judgment of Scott in his reference lo th 3 questionable tactics of the prior expedition should bo final. However, 1 .submit it here for what it may kc worth. (Paragraphs from "Witness herewith): — "Amongst outside persons and personages great and small who would condole with tho British people in t'heir sorrow for Captain Scott and his comrades is the Norwegian explorer, Captain Amundsen. After all the civil things we have conspired to say about him,.it is natural, perhaps, that Captain Amundsen should now reciprocate with words of sympathy and commiseration. But if X may speak for one, it were better had he kept' silence. His name thrust in at this tinic of tense feeling, coincident with the inopportune arrival of his book just issued, jars upon us. Pacts - are facts, and it is idle #to ! pretend the facts about Captain Amundsen forgotten. The Scott expedition was weigh ted by a serious purpose; its ends were scientific. In the record of the parly that perished we read that again and again they 'halted for geological investigations/ We read that on their way back fjfom the Pole, when life or death was a question of hours, they 'spent some time at tho head of the Beardmore Glacier in making a large collection of fossil-bearing sandstones and also coal in ciuantity/ Finally we have tho heart-breaking detail that when hardly able to drag along their own bodies, these forlorn devotees of a foregone purpose were carrying with them, anil actually brought t'o their last camp, *35M>. weight of geological specimens, which are now in possession of tho expedition/ Contrast tho proceedings of Captain Amuiuben. When the Scott party were in actual march for the Pole, he cut in with the object of anticipating them. Travelling light, and owing no responsibilities to science, he succeeded in anticipating tlieni by 32 days—a narrow margin. Then, sticking up his Hag of triumph, he hurried back to forestall tho lccture market and get out his book ahead of any other. These aro the simple facts as I read them.

"It chances that we have Captain Scott's own judgment on a similar case. In the year 1839 the British Government were preparing ami about to dispatch to the Antarctic a scientific expedition under Sir James Jloss, its chief work to ba research on tho subject' of the earth's ■magnetism, for which it was specially equipped with magnetic instruments and appliances. At tho time there happened to bo sheltering in Australian waters two Antarctic expeditions, foreigners, the one American under Wilkes, the : other French under D'Urrille. These wero meritorious explorers of the ordinary or garden variety,,- with no special vocation for research •in magnetism, no special equipment in that b;hoof, no instruments, no experts, no nothing. Nevertheless on hearing, of the approaching I?ok< expedition, what did they' do? Captain Scott in his book, 'Voyage of tho Discovery,' ,IUOS, writes thus-.— ~

" 'News of the prospective British expedition had been spread abroad, and it was known that, fully equipped for magnetic' work, { it' proposed to sail directly fur the position assigned to the Magnetic' Pole by the calculations of the great German jnathomatician Gauss; this position was approximately in latitude '76 S., longitude 1-1 3j. It was known also that Rots could not bo in a position to reach it until tho following year. How far Wilkes and D'Urvillo were guided by this information ill .their future actions it is impossible to say; that they must have received it is certain, and considering that neither expedition was complete!}' equipped for magnetic work the fact" that -both immediately set sail in the direction of tho Magnetic Polo must be regarded .at least as showing questionable taste oil the part of the commanders.

. "'Arriving in Hobart', Eoss learned that others were already exploring: the route which he proposed to talre. . .

It was this alono which decided him to proceed south on a more easterly .direction, it' being'"inconsistent with the traditions of British exploration to follow in the footsteps of other nations." "Other nations, other codes of honour.. For his own, Captain Amundsen, I notice, obtains tho hijfh approval of 9r. Nanssn ; so there is nothing more to b'e said. All the same, I for one should prefei' that at this painful junct'uro he had avoided reminding lis of his existence."