THE RETURN OF THE NIMROD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3145, 24 March 1909, Page 5

THE RETURN OF THE NIMROD.

FROM THE FAR SOUTH. £ Yesterday" morning the Nimrod anchored for a short time in Halt Moon Bay. Stewart Island, with her stout planks showing the marks of the tueth of such gigantic "seawolves'" as the Antarctic raises for the distress, -li *of ships and sailors. The vessel's commander, Lieut. Shackleton, has been trying to locate the South Pole,';wuich he" confidently expected to reach (or thereabouts). Did he triumph? Did he win through to that goal for which so many brave and skilful navigators have trbd? His luck is known in London, but New Zealand people's curiosity cannot be satisfied just yet. A London paper, the "Daily Mail," secured the first rights of Lieutenant Shackleton's report. The ship is expected to reach Lyttelton on Thursday afternoon, and then superabundant details of the trip, the scientific investigations, the escapes —hair-breadth or otherwise—and other items of knowledge, gathered at considerable risk and cost, towards which the New Zealand Government gave £I,OOO, will be available. A Press Association message states:—lt is understood that the Nimrod brought back the expedition all well and successful. The ship is expected to arrive at Lyttelton on Thursday afternoon. At 4 p.m. punctually on New Year's Day of 1908 the little Nimrod, bearing Lieutenant Shackleton andhis South Polar exploring party, Antarctic bound, sailed out of LytteK, ton harbour, with the thunder of big guns and the cheers of 30,000 people to say her god-speed in her voyage into the unchartered South. At the Heads she was hitched up to the towing-boat the 'Koonya, which led her safely through some heavy weather to the ice-pack. On the 15th January the Koonya took off the towline, and the Nimrod, heading for the ice-bound solitudes of King Edward Land and the frozen Antarctic, stood off and said good-bye. Lieutenant Shackleton, leader of the, expedition, had the following in his party of thirteen:—Professor David (Sydney University), geologist; Mr Douglas Mawson, physicist; Mr J. Murray, biologist; Dr E. Marshall, surgeon, magnetician, and surveyor; Mr N. Priestly, assistant geologist; Dr Forbes Mackay, surgeon-farrier and Mirveyor; Lieutenant J. H. Adams, meteorological and magnetician; Sir Philip Brocklehurst, surveyor and baker: Mr Ernest Joyce and Mr Frank Wyld, "handy men"; Mr B. Day, chauffeur and electrician; Mr G. E. Marston, artist; Mr C. Roberts, cook and assistant geologist; and Mr B. Armytage, sledger. After the shore party was landed on King Edward Land, 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 south-west 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. 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 Shackleton: "If possible, the party will 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 the snow year after year, or whether it is a great glacier coming from an enormous mountain range in the Far South." Mr Shackleton hoped to locate the Pole by means of a theodolite, taking various necessary obser- j vations of the sun. and the record of ' distances 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 meteorological 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 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.