Scott Of The Antarctic Quotes

...and that bastard Breckinridge Scott, yes, the Phalanx king, still hiding like a rat in his Antarctic Fortress of Scumditude. --Arthur Sinclair

In any age, there is no shortage of people willing to embark on a hazardous adventure. Columbus and Magellan filled eight ships between them for voyages into the void. One hundred and fifty years ago, the possibilities offered by missionary service were limitless and first-rate. Later, Scott and Shackleton turned away droves after filling their crews for their desperate Antarctic voyages. In 1959 ... sailor H.W. Tilman, looking for a crew for a voyage in an old wooden yacht to the Southern Ocean, ran this ad in the London Times: "Hand [man] wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure." Tilman received more replies than he could investigate, one from as far away as Saigon.

Men, as Amundsen liked to say, are the unknown factor in the Antarctic.

As it was he had moods and depressions which might last for weeks. And of these there is ample evidence in diary. The man with the nerves gets things done but sometimes he has a terrible time in doing them. " Written about Scott in Chapter 6

Note: Dr. Lawrence Polinkis who analyzed clinical data from American men and women at Antarctica's Mcmurdo station Amundsen Scott's South Pole station posits specifically that the memory loss and other cognitive impairments he observed were related to a decline in levels of the thyroid hormone T3, which helps determine how the body uses energy. Thyroid hormones help the body regulate temperature and set its circadian rhythms. It's not difficult to see how extreme cold and the prolonged absence of sunshine might throw a system off. This is just a hypothesis - the causes of the syndrome remain puzzling more the a century after Cook first described it.

For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton

They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the Antarctic world,” wrote Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a twenty-five-year-old adventurer who visited Cape Crozier in 1911 during Robert Scott’s ill-fated South Pole expedition. “Their little bodies are so full of curiosity,” he observed, “that they have little room for fear.

And at the end, when Scott himself lay dying, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson: "I can do no more to comfort you, than to tell you that he died as he lived, a brave, true man—the best of comrades and staunchest of friends.

For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organization, give me Scott; for a Winter Journey, Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.

A telegram was waiting for Scott: "Madeira. Am going South. Amundsen.

Five men went forward, Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates and Seaman Evans. They reached the Pole on January 17 to find that Amundsen had reached it thirty-four days earlier. They returned 721 statute miles and perished 177 miles from their winter quarters.

We did not pass that spot, without according our highest tribute of admiration to the man, who - together with his gallant companions - had planted his country’s flag so infinitely nearer to the goal than any of his precursors. Sir Ernest Shackleton’s name will always be written in the annals of Antarctic exploration in letters of fire.