Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/253

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AIMS AND OBJECTS
249

Group being included; a double or treble line of soundings, with a regular series of physical observations at each station, should be made, and the trawl should be lowered two or three times every week. No haste is required on this voyage; the vessel would be going before the westerly winds under sail the whole time, coal being husbanded for handling the vessel during sounding, trawling, etc. Cape Town would be the first port of call, and thus a belt of 1,000 miles in width, over 3,500 miles in length would be covered, where (with the exception of some soundings and trawlings made by the Scotia in 1904) no oceanographical work has been done at all. Whilst crossing the "Scotia Rise," which the Scottish Expedition discovered as an extension of the Mid-Atlantic rise 1,000 miles farther to the south, it would be interesting and important to attempt by means of grippers to obtain samples of the rocks in situ of which this rise is built. At Cape Town all the scientific material and the first copy of the scientific logs should be sent home in case of accident to the ship in her second voyage, a precaution that should always be taken by every expedition. The ship and all her gear would be thoroughly overhauled, and she would be filled up with coal and provisions. Her next course would be for the South Sandwich Group, and an arrangement