National Heritage

Geography and cartography

1. The successful navigation by the `Aurora' of the Antarctic pack-ice in a fresh sphere of action, where the conditions were practically unknown, resulting in the discovery of new lands and islands.

2. Journeys were made over the sea-ice and on the coastal and upland plateau in regions hitherto unsurveyed. At the Main Base (Adelie Land) the journeys aggregated two thousand four hundred miles, and at the Western Base (Queen Mary Land) the aggregate was eight hundred miles. These figures do not include depot journeys, the journeys of supporting parties, or the many miles of relay work. The land was mapped in through 33 degrees of longitude, 27 degrees of which were covered by sledging parties.

3. The employment of wireless telegraphy in the fixation of a fundamental meridian in Adelie Land.

4. The mapping of Macquarie Island.

Douglas Mawson, Home of the Blizzard (1915)

Snotsicle – natural result of extreme conditions

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