THE NIMROD EXPEDITION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 25 March 1909, Page 3

THE NIMROD EXPEDITION.

CABLE FROM PROFESSOR DAVID. Sydney, March 23. Mrs David received a cable from her husband reporting that all is well aboard the Nimrod. THE PARTY. Lieutenant Shackletou, leader of the expedition, had the following in his party of thirteen ;—Professor David (Sydney University), geologist; Mr Douglas Mawsou, physicist; Mr J. Muray, biologist ; Dr. E. Marshall, surgeon, maguetician, and surveyor; Mr N. Priesily, assistant-geologist; Dr. Forbes Mackay, surgeon, farrier, and surveyor ; Lieutenant J. H. Adams, meteorological and maguetician ; Sir Philip Brocklehurst, surveyor and baker; Mr Ernest Joyce and Mr Frank Wyld, “ handy men ” ; Mr B. Day, ebaffeur and electrician ; Mr G. E. Marston, artist; Mr C. Roberts, cook and assistant geologist and Mr B. Armytage, sledger. plan oe campaign. After the shore party was lauded on King Edward Island, in January, 1908, and winter quarters were set up there, it was intended to prosecute magnetic survey work with the Nimrod in the sea adjacent to Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile the exploring expedition was to send out sledge parties —one, under Professor David, to investigate the geology of the surrounding district, and another party, under Wyld, to travel southwest towards the great ice barrier. Thus till about the third week in April, when the polar night comes down, not to be dispelled till August. “dash for the pole.” With the new daylight the explorers were to push south as far as possible, and about the middle of October the “dash for the Pole ” was meditated. The attacking party was to comprise six men—three in the motor carrying the stores, and the other trio following with the ponies. The party would take meteorological observations during the journey. Said Lieutenant Shackletou : “If possible, the party would locate the Pole, and solve the question as to whether the vast ice barrier jealously blocking the way is the remains of sea frozen in the last glacial age, fed by snow year after year, or whether it is a great glacier coming from an enormous mountain range in the Far South.” Mr Shackletou hoped to locate the Pole by theodolite, taking various necessary observations of the sun, and the record of distance travelled southward —a record kept by the sledge meter (a toothed wheel appliance in contact with the snow or ice, after the manner of a cyclometer). ‘ ‘ The meleorological knowledge we will acquire,” said the leader, “ will be of great value to New Zealand in future.”

The expedition expected to return to the winter quarters about the 20th January, when the Nimrod would pick them up. Then, if circumstances permitted, it was intended to make investigations in Wilkes Land, to prove or disprove the existence of the land supposed to have been discovered by Wilkes in 1842.

The Nimrod has been sighted, and will arrive at Lyttelton to-day.