Staining to blue cloth boards and also to foot of sketch map facing page 1 (see photos). Otherwise internally in very good condition.
The Erskine Press - Archival Facsimiles: 2002
Synopsis: In August 1914 Shackleton set sail for the Pole on board the Endurance. His expedition, with the rather imposing title of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was to make a trans-continental journey from the Weddell Sea on one side of the continent to the Ross Sea on the other. Shackleton was doubtful if enough provisions could be carried by the trans-continental party for the complete journey so his plan called for a second ship to land a team in McMurdo Sound whose task it would be to lay food depots every 60 miles, as far south as the Beardmore Glacier. This party, on board the Aurora, sailed late in the same year. In January 1915 they landed at McMurdo. However, after a fearful storm their ship was ripped from its moorings and along with it went most of their supplies. Refusing to give up, the men scavenged enough from an earlier expedition and set out to do their work. They trekked across some 2000 miles, always convinced that when they completed their task Shackleton would have sufficient supplies for the latter part of his journey. Three men died along the way. The story of the Ross Sea Party s struggles has been almost ignored - unfairly so. It is one of the really notable polar journeys; ten men marooned with none of their own fuel, clothes or stores, yet by improvisation managing to stock depots for a party that would never come. R.W. Richards, a young Australian physicist, set down his personal story for the Scott Polar Research Institute. This is a facsimile copy of their Special Publication No. 2, long out of print. ...in making this journey the greatest qualities of endurance, self-sacrifice and patience were called for, and the call was not in vain