Amundsen was finally successful in first lo cating the Pole. On his ship From he reached Hobert, Tasmania, 7 March 1912, on his re turn voyage and announced that he had dis covered the South Pole 14 Dec. 1911. The win.. ter of 1910-11 he spent in quarters in the Bay of Whales, 164° W., 78° 48' S. On 10 Feb. 1911, he began to prepare for his winter's work and before 11 April had built caches as far south as 80°. The lowest winter- temperature which he here recorded was on 13 August, minus Celsius. The mean temperature for the year was minus 26° Celsius (14.8° below zero Fah renheit). On 8 September, with eight men, 90 dogs and seven sledges, provisioned for four months, he started for the Pole, but only got as far as the depot at 80°. There the party re mained until the middle of October when a fresh start was made with five men, 52 dogs, four sledges and four months' food. Victoria Land was reached 11 November. At 85° the land joins the Ross Barrier of ice and from that point the explorers had to climb through a region of land whose heights ranged from 2,000 to 11,000 feet high. In four days over the glaciers they reached a height of 10,600 feet, and their highest altitude, 10,750 feet, was attained on 6 December at 87 40'. On 8 De cember at 88° 23' they passed the farthest south record of Shackleton. From this point they found the going easy until on 14 December at 3 o'clock in the afternoon observations showed that they had attained their object. From 14 December to 17 December they remained at the Pole, taking observations and finally locating exactly 90° S. where they flew the Norwegian flag and named the land at the Pole King Haakon VII Plateau. Returning, winter quar ters were reached 25 Jan. 1912. The principal results of the expedition were locating the Pole, determining the extent of the Ross Barrier, as certaining the apparent connection of South Victoria Land and King Edward Land and the mountain ranges therein and the exploration of part of King 'Edward Land.
Thirty-five days after Amundsen had planted the flag of Norway at the South Pole, Capt. Robert F. Scott, R.N., unfurled the Union Jack of Great Britain, the exact points, as determined by observation, being not more than half a mile apart, and Scott took from the Amundsen tent the written message for King Haakon, which was subsequently delivered. Scott's southerly route had been practically that of his former discovery and of the Shackleton expedi tion and the return from the Pole was along the same track. Of the party of five, Petty Officer Edgar Evans was fatally injured soon after leaving the Pole and 11 miles from Camp, 155 miles from the Hut Point base in MacMurdo Sound, Scott, Dr. Edward A. Wil son, second in command, chief of the scientific staff, and Lieut. H. K. Bowers died in their tent of cold and privation. A few days before Capt. L. E. G. Oates of the Inniskillen dragoons, in desperate straits, bade his commander and comrades goodby, saying as he left them: aI shall be gone for some and upon a spot near may now be read the inscription: " Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman." Not until the following spring (1913) did Surgeon Anderson succeed in reaching the tent of the dead and recovering the bodies of Cap tain Scott and his comrade, with records, col lections and scientific data The last entry in the journal contained: " I do not regret this journey, which has shown that man can endure hardships, help one another and meet dr with as great fortitude as ever in the past.
" These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale. but surely, surely, a great rich country like oars will see that thew who are dependent on us are properly provided for.
Sir Douglas Mawson, of Yorkshire birth, Australian training and education and professor in the University of Sydney, accomplished in 1911-14 a memorable Antarctic work of adven ture and discovery. A member of the Shackle ton expedition, he was of the party which suc cessfully ascended the active volcano Erebus and penetrated to the floor of its crater and had demonstrated his fitness for field work and scientific research. Organizing a well-balanced
party, competent in each branch of investiga tion, sustained by his government and contribu tions from scientific societies of Great Britain, the expedition on its leaving Sydney tarried for some time at Macquarie Island, upon which a party in charge of a wireless telegraph station was left, while the main body pushed on to a permanent base on Adelie Land. From this point work in every direction was diligently prosecuted, the coast line to the eastward being mapped and connected up with that of the Scott party in Ross Sea, while far to the west ward a detachment under Capt. Frank Wild wintered, gathering valuable data. Sir Douglas himself at the head of an inland reconnaissance party accomplished one of the most difficult and perilous marches on record, losing in its early stages, through a crevasse, Lieutenant Ninnis, R.F., and later, through illness, Dr. Anton Merz, his two comrades, and narrowly escaping with his own life. A novel and interesting feature of the expedition was the maintenance, during a large portion of the time it was absent, of wire less communication with its Macquarie Island station, thence to Australia and the world, by means of which the news of the death of Cap tain Scott and disaster to his expedition was received. Sir Douglas' scientific work (in rec ognition of which and his exceptionally able conduct of it, and of his expedition, King George conferred upon him the order of knighthood) will require several years and a large amount of work for its complete and adequate publication.
The most ambitious and daring of all Ant arctic projects was that of Sir Ernest Shackle ton, launched in August 1914, after his offer of his services and that of his party to his country in the great war which had just broken out was declined. Sir Ernest's project contemplated a base on Coats Land and advance from that point directly over the ice barrier land mass and whatever might be met with to the South Pole, and thence keeping on to the familiar British Ross Sea base on the opposite side of the globe, employing for the purpose two ships, two parties, each working in support of the other, though only that headed by himself was to make the complete transcontinental traverse. Leaving Liverpool, Sir Ernest proceeded in the Endurance via Buenos Aires and the Falkland Islands to South Georgia, whence the last word was that the ice conditions were so unfavor able that the attempt un the main land must be deferred until the season. More than a year passed when Sir Ernest again re ported that though he had sighted new land he had been unable to reach it and compelled to abandon his main objective, the traverse of the great Antarctic land mass. The Endurance had been crushed and sunk and after a peril ous journey over the pack, followed by one in boats across the open sea of nearly 1,000 miles, he had left his party of 22 marooned on Elephant Island, with a short supply of provisions. Sir Ernest himself with two comrades had crossed the dis tance between Elephant Island and South Georgia, landing upon it at the peril of his life, and after the loss of his boat had made his way over its interior to the Norwegian whaling sta tion, whence his report was sent. Uruguay promptly placed a small vessel at Sir Ernest's disposal for the relief of his Elephant Island party, but the attempt was unsuccessful and at last a second and successful effort was made with a larger vessel under the Argentine flag. On the opposite side of the Antarctic continent results were equally unsatisfactory. The Au rora, having landed three parties to lay depots of food for Shackleton's advance, had torn from her anchorage and for nearly a year adrift in the pack with her wireless equipment most of the tune out of commission. Late in April 1916, however, a message from the ship was picked up in New Zealand, whence relief was promptly dispatched, and on 27 April Port Chalmers was finally made. See POLAR RESEARCH.