Packing sugar for sledging rations.

£750 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

Classic Ponting photograph from Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition (1910-1913), showing Cecil Meares and Thomas Clissold the cook, packing sugar for sledging rations, with six wooden boxes stamped Henry Tate and Sons 'cube sugar' in the foreground of the shot. The daily rations, which were soon found to be insufficient to offset the energy used in hauling sledges in the Antarctic cold consisted of: 340g pemmican, 450g biscuit, 57g butter, 20g tea, 85g sugar, and 16g cocoa. The Terra Nova expedition was supposed to be the high-water mark of the Golden Age of Antarctic exploration; led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition was to have been the first to reach the South Pole, marking the event with the planting of the Union Jack flag. However the more professionally equipped Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen got there first. Nevertheless Scott's expedition will always be the one best remembered on account of the tremendous courage and bravery shown by Scott and his companions, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, and Evans on their return from the Pole in appalling conditions - perhaps best exemplified by Lawrence 'Titus' Oates who walked from the tent into a blizzard whilst suffering from frostbite and gangrene, knowing that he was not going to survive the journey but hoping that his self-sacrifice might help the others survive. The photographs were originally published by the Fine Art Society in 1914 in larger format using a different process. It is difficult to date ima

• Binding: Hardcover

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