I’m running behind on this week’s post, so I want to put an excerpt from a book I read researching the last article. It’s from a time when explorers were real explorers, and more importantly, real gentlemen:

In 1908 Enest Shackleton was leading an expedition to find the South Magnetic Pole, along with Edgeworth David (a man who had the apparent misfortune of being born with his names back-to-front), and Douglas Mawson. One evening, David left to sketch a range of hills, while Mawson was changing his photographic plates in his sleeping bag in the tent.

I heard a voice from outside—a gentle voice—calling:

“Mawson, Mawson.”

“Hullo!” said I.

“Oh, you’re in the bag changing plates, are you?”

“Yes, Professor.”

There was a silence for some time. Then I heard the Professor calling in a louder tone:

“Mawson!”

I answered again. Well, the Professor heard by the sound I was still in the bag, so he said:

“Oh, Still changing plates, are you?”

“Yes.”

More silence for some time. After a minute, in a rather loud an anxious tone:

“Mawson!”

I thought there was something up, but could not tell what he was after. I was getting rather tired of it an called out:

“Hullo. What is it? What can I do?”

“Well, Mawson, I am in a rather dangerous position. I am really hanging on by my fingers to the edge of a crevasse, and I don’t think I can hang on much lonber. I shall have to trouble you to assist me.

I came out rather quicker than I can say. There was the Professor, just his head showing and hanging on to the edge of a dangerous crevasse.

(p. 79)

Gratzer, W 2004 Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes, Oxford University Press, Oxford.