to the
interior. In order to be able to advance as far as possible, sledge
journeys were made along a selected route to establish provision depots.
This being done, Captain Scott with two companions and nineteen sledge
dogs started for a protracted journey into the interior. They travelled
three hundred and fifty miles inland over the great ice-field but did
not even then reach the end of it. Then, having lost most of the dogs,
and the provisions being low, the party set out on their return to the
ship.

The few remaining dogs being disabled, the men were obliged to haul the
sledges. Having suffered great hardships, the party reached the vessel
after an absence of three months.

On this journey a long range of mountains with many high peaks was
discovered. The highest peak, fifteen thousand one hundred feet, was
named Mount Markham. The latitude reached was 82 deg. 17' south, being the
farthest distance south attained. On a subsequent journey a plateau of
nine thousand feet elevation was reached, where the evenness of the ice
surface for miles seemed scarcely broken. The length of this journey was
three hundred miles.

At the end of the second winter two relief ships appeared at the edge of
the ice with orders that Captain Scott should return home at once. The
_Discovery_ was still sealed up in the harbor with solid ice from twelve
to seventeen feet thick, and it was a problem how to free the vessel.
The solid ice extended out more than six miles from the harbor.

The crews set resolutely to work making holes in the ice in a direct
line from the imprisoned vessel to the open water. In these holes
powerful explosives were placed which cracked the ice. This labor
consumed some nine days. Then the great ocean swells broke up the ice,
freeing the vessel. The _Discovery_ forthwith sailed for England by way
of Cape Horn, arriving home in September, having gathered much valuable
information during her sojourn in the south polar regions.

Although practically no vegetable life has been found in these regions,
an abundance of animal life exists in or contiguous to the sea,
dependent on shrimps, fish, and such other life as the sea affords.
Seals, penguins, petrels, cormorants, and gulls are found in
considerable numbers. In fact, no persons tarrying in these regions need
starve for lack of food, such as it is.

[Illustration: The penguin defies the cold]

During the two years spent by the _Discovery_ in the south polar i