During the second year of their stay, a discovery was made, which, from a geological point of view, exceeded in value all the others put together. It was in October that a sledge party set out to penetrate into the interior of Victoria Land. They travelled over the ice plain at an average altitude of 9000 feet until, in 78° S. and 146° 30' E., they were at a distance of 270 miles from the ship. The interior of the land seemed to stretch in a vast continental plateau continuously at a height of 9000 feet. In one of the many ravines examined, sandstone strata were discovered, in one of which there was a narrow seam of fossil plants. The "coal measure" was only one-eighth of an inch in thickness, but within it were found specimens of plants belonging to the Miocene period. In February 1904 the relief ship _Morning_ arrived at the station, and, with the explosives she brought with her, the _Discovery_ was freed from the ice and commenced her homeward journey. She had completed a stay of two winters in a latitude 500 miles further South than any other ship had wintered, while the expedition had reaped a success such as no other expedition has ever achieved in either Arctic or Antarctic regions. THE END Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London End of Project Gutenberg's The Romance of Polar Exploration, by G. Firth Scott