FAMOUS RELICS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 39, 15 February 1930, Page 20

FAMOUS RELICS

"Sou^ Of England"

There is a building in the Borough of Kensington which has been called the "Soul of England." It is the museum of the Eoyal Geographical' Society, housing a collection of articles whose monetary value*'is negligible, yet whose price is too high to be named, and whose appeal to the hearts and the imaginations of the English peoples is deathless.

In one simple glass1 case, writes the London correspondent of the Sydney "Morning Herald/ is a little soiled bag of provisions and a few. pages of manuscript diary. The bag contains three other-small bags of calico. In one there is tea, in another cocoa, in the other curry powder. Tho manuscript diary is dated January-October, 1911, and is in the handwriting of Captain Eobert Falcon Scott. Not far away is the camel saddle on which General Gordon rodo into Khartoum in his final entry into that city where he met death. ■ Thero are a few .leaves taken from the tree under which tho heart of Dr. Livingstone was.buried in Central Africa, and a section of tho tree itself. More personal and pathetic are Livngstone's cap, shabby and soiled, and a collar used by him. There is the sledge used by Admiral M'Clintock during the Arctic expedition of 1857-59; a rusted knife and fork and a decrepit pannikin that are relies of LeighSmith's expedition to Franz Josef Land; and a Burberry helmet worn by Shackleton.

A silk flag hoisted by Sir Edward Parry in latitude.B2.4s N, in 1827, lies not far away from the Union Jack carried by Sir Hubert Wilkins on his flight from Point Barrow to Spitzbergen, one hundred and one years later. One ■of the most curious exhibits is a ship's biscuit, intact, and in a perfect state of preservation. It was left at Port Leopold by Sir James Koss in 1849, and found there and brought home by Admiral Sir Albert Markham, in 1873. On a high shelf overlooking the other exhibits is a sleeping bag and sledge equipment, ■ with the haUNslodge which Sir Douglas Maws,on dragged for 31 miles after the death of his companions. There is not, in fact, an object here- which doe 3 not illustrate the splendid achievements of intrepid men