wintered in 1902 and 1903. The ice showed no signs of breaking out, and on February 3 we proceeded to land stores and erect a hut on Cape Royds, the spot selected under pressure of circumstances, for the winter quarters of the expedition. On February 22 the Nimrod went north again, leaving the shore party at Cape Royds. The ship was to return the following summer.

The first work of importance undertaken after the winter quarters had been established was the ascent of Mount Erebus. This active volcano, which has an altitude of over 13,000 feet, was of particular interest from the geological and meteorological standpoint, and though the ascent was likely to prove difficult, it seemed that the attempt should be made. A party of six set out from the winter quarters on March 5, and on the morning of March 10 five of the men stood on the edge of the active crater, the sixth having been left at the last camp with frost-bitten feet. The scientific results of the journey were both interesting and important. The party found that the height of the active crater is 13,350 feet above sea level, the figures being calculated from aneroid levels and hypsometer readings, in conjunction with simultaneous readings of the barometer at the winter quarters. It was noted that the moraines left at the period of greater glaciation ascend the western slopes of Mount Erebus to a height of fully 1,000 feet above sea level. As the adjacent portion of McMurdo Sound is at least 1,800 feet deep, the ice sheet at its maximum development must have had a thickness of not less than 2,800 feet. Two distinctive features of the geological structure of Mount Erebus were the ice fumaroles, and the vast quantities of large and perfect felspar crystals. Unique ice mounds have been formed in the cup of the second crater, from which rises the present active cone, by the condensation of vapor round the orifices of fumaroles. Only under conditions of extremely low temperature could such structures come into existence. The felspar crystals, found in enormous quantities mixed with snow and fragments of pumice in the second crater, were from 2 to 3 inches in length, and very many were perfect in form. The fluid lava which had surrounded them had been blown away by the force of the explosions which had ejected them from the crater. The valuable meteorological observations made can not be stated within the scope of this article.

The most important event of the winter months was the discovery by the biologist of microscopical life in the frozen lakes of the Cape Royds district. Investigations showed that algæ grew at the bottom of the lakes, which are frozen during the greater part of the year, and in some cases thaw completely only in exceptionally warm seasons. The microscope showed that rotifers, water bears, and other forms of minute animal life existed on the weed. A shaft was sunk through 15 feet of ice to the bottom of a lake which did not thaw during the