Paul’s Rocks 317 93. Gentoo Penguin with Two Chicks—Nesting Ground of the Mollymauk 320 94. Giant Petrel at Nest 321 95. The Surface of a Glacier, showing Numerous Crevasses 336 96. Sea-elephants in Tussock Grass 337 97. The Island Tree (_Phylica nitida_)—Sea-elephants among the Rocks 340 98. Commander Worsley taking Observations of the Sun by Sextant—Hussey (Taking Sea Temperatures), Commander Wild and McIlroy 341 99. Setting up Kites for the Taking of Meteorological Observations 348 100. An Apparatus for Bringing Up Specimens of the Sea Bottom 349 Shackleton’s Last Voyage CHAPTER I INCEPTION After the finish of the Great War, which had employed every able-bodied man in the country in one way or another, Sir Ernest Shackleton returned to London and wrote his famous epic “South,” the story of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Before it was finished he had again felt the call of the ice, and concluded his book with the following sentence: “Though some have gone, there are enough to rally round and form a nucleus for the next expedition, when troublous times are over, and scientific exploration can once more be legitimately undertaken.” For many years he had had an inclination to take an expedition into the Arctic and compare the two ice zones. He felt, too, a keen desire to pit himself against the American and Norwegian explorers who of recent years had held the foremost position in Arctic exploration, to win for the British flag a further renown, and to add to the sum of British achievements in the frozen North. There is still, in spite of the long and unremitting siege which has gradually tinted the uncoloured portions of the map and brought within our ken section after section of the unexplored areas, a large blank space comprising what is known as the Beaufort Sea, approximately in the centre of which is the point called by Stefansson the “centre of the zone of inaccessibility.” It was the exploration of this area that Sir Ernest made his aim. In addition he felt a strong desire to clear up the mystery of the North Pole, and for ever settle the Peary-Cook controversy, which did so much to alienate public sympathy from Polar enterprise.