THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8352, 12 February 1913, Page 8

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT

Dr E. A. Wilson, who shared th* fate of his comrades, said in an iuterjiew at Christchurch: "You know that the general plan we have is that there are to be two stations. One will consist of twentyfour people, located at McMurdo Sound, where they will build a hut I and stay while the ship goes on and establishes another base, with six men, lander Lieutenant Campbell, R.N., at 'King Edward Land, 600 miles away from McMurdo Sound, and at the other extremity of the Great Barrier. Then the ship goes back home, via the Balleney Islands and Cape North, round to the west and along the shelf where the Antarctic continent drops into deep water. The ship's party will do biological work at these places until the winter comes on, and then come on to New Zealand. Instead of laying up at New Zealand, the ship will afterwards work round some of the subAntarctic Islands, and we hope to gel a good deal of help from the membert of previous sub-Antarctic expedition! as to the work still to be done there. After that, of course, the ship coinei back for us the following summer. That moans that we shall have thiJ summer laying depots towards th« South Pole, and the following summer there will be the big journey to the pole. No one knows yet who will be in the pole party—it will be chosen from the fittest men in the expedition. It will be a big party because we hare a lot of horses and dogs, and the motor pledges, and they will require some looking after. The interesting part ot our work will be the meteorology of the ice barrier, the ice itself, and the geology of the South when we get to the Beardmore glacier." To the natural question, "Will science be advanced by the expedition's labours?" Dr Wilson gave a confident affirmative. They expected, he said, to get some absolutely new results. The magnetic and meteorological work were very important, and new methods were to be applied. Then the expedition expected to do some embryological work with the penguins, and that might produce interestine results. "'