learn, but a knowledge which was
quick to offer valuable suggestions. I remember Pennell condemning
anything but scientific learning in dealing with the problems round us;
'no guesswork' was his argument. But he emphatically made an exception of
Scott, who had an uncanny knack of hitting upon a solution. Over and
over again in his diary we can read of the interest he took in pure and
applied science, and it is doubtful whether this side of an expedition in
high northern or southern latitudes has ever been more fortunate in their
leader.

Wilson's own share in the scientific results is more obvious because he
was the director of the work. But no published reports will give an
adequate idea of the ability he showed in co-ordinating the various
interests of a varied community, nor of the tact he displayed in dealing
with the difficulties which arose. Above all his judgment was excellent,
and Scott as well as the rest of us relied upon him to a very great
extent. The value of judgment in a land where a wrong decision may mean
disaster as well as loss of life is beyond all price; weather in which
changes are most sudden is a case in point, also the state of sea-ice,
the direction to be followed in difficult country when sledging, the best
way of taking crevassed areas when they must be crossed, and all the ways
by which the maximum of result may be combined with the minimum of danger
in a land where Nature is sometimes almost too big an enemy to fight: all
this wants judgment, and if possible experience. Wilson could supply
both, for his experience was as wide as that of Scott, and I have
constantly known Scott change his mind after a talk with Bill. For the
rest I give quotations from Scott's diary:

"He has had a hand in almost every lecture given, and has been consulted
in almost every effort which has been made towards the solution of the
practical or theoretical problems of our Polar world."[137]

Again:

"Words must always fail me when I talk of Bill Wilson. I believe he
really is the finest character I ever met--the closer one gets to him the
more there is to admire. Every quality is so solid and dependable; cannot
you imagine how that counts down here? Whatever the matter, one knows
Bill will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal and quite
unselfish. Add to this a wider knowledge of persons and things than is
at first guessable, a quiet vein of humour and really consummate tact,
and you have some idea of