Discovering the unknown continent - Antarctica: Global Science from a Frozen Continent - page 12

Figure 1.10 Chicks of two Antarctic birds - snowy petrel to the left and sheathbill to the

right - painted by H. Goodchild on the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 1902-04.

the first Australian expedition led by Douglas Mawson and the second Shackleton

expedition whose attempt to cross the continent was defeated by the sinking
of the Endurance in the Weddell Sea. Much has been written about all of these
heroic attempts to map, chart and describe this inhospitable continent and
the privations they suffered. It is hard in the twenty- rst century to imagine

how they managed to achieve so much with inadequate clothing, transport
and equipment.
Most of the Heroic Age expeditions aimed to contribute to science as
well as explore the Antarctic. The thrust of the British effort was to be rst to

reach the South Pole but, despite that, both of R. F. Scott ' s expeditions made

substantial contributions to a wide variety of scienti c fields. Although Roald

Amundsen s party to the South Pole, his triumph

was eclipsed by the tragic death of Scott and his men on the way back to the
coast. Amundsen

' s Norwegian party beat Scott '

' s planning and techniques were far superior to Scott ' s and for

him it was enough simply to be first. He refused to be encumbered by the

requirements of science and whilst history reminds us that he won the race, it is
the legacy of the science from the British expedition that has contributed so
much to modern Antarctic science.