rs
and voters alike must learn to value knowledge that is not baited by
suffering and death. My own bolt is shot; I do not suppose I shall ever
go south again before I go west; but if I do it will be under proper and
reasonable conditions. I may not come back a hero; but I shall come back
none the worse; for I repeat, the Antarctic, in moderation as to length
of stay, and with such accommodation as is now easily within the means of
modern civilized Powers, is not half as bad a place for public service as
the worst military stations on the equator. I hope that by the time Scott
comes home--for he is coming home: the Barrier is moving, and not a trace
of our funeral cairn was found by Shackleton's men in 1916--the
hardships that wasted his life will be only a horror of the past, and his
_via dolorosa_ a highway as practicable as Piccadilly.

And now let me come down to tin tacks. No matter how well the thing is
done in future, its organizers will want to know at first all we can tell
them about oil, about cold, and about food. First, as to oil.

Scott complains of a shortage of oil at several of his last depots. There
is no doubt that this shortage was due to the perishing of the leather
washers of the tins which contained the paraffin oil. All these tins had
been subjected to the warmth of the sun in summer and the autumn
temperatures, which were unexpectedly cold. In his Voyage of the
Discovery Scott wrote as follows of the tins in which they drew their oil
when sledging: "Each tin had a small cork bung, which was a decided
weakness; paraffin _creeps_ in the most annoying manner, and a good deal
of oil was wasted in this way, especially when the sledges were
travelling over rough ground and were shaken or, as frequently happened,
capsized. It was impossible to make these bungs quite tight, however
closely they were jammed down, so that in spite of a trifling extra
weight a much better fitting would have been a metallic screwed bung. To
find on opening a fresh tin of oil that it was only three-parts full was
very distressing, and of course meant that the cooker had to be used with
still greater care."[349] Amundsen wrote of his paraffin: "We kept it in
the usual cans but they proved too weak; not that we lost any paraffin,
but Bjaaland had to be constantly soldering to keep them tight."[350]

Our own tins were furnished with the metallic screwed stoppers which
Scott recommended. There was no trouble reported[351] until