At the edge of the crater

Included among Sir Douglas Mawson's personal papers is a print of George Marston's At the edge of the crater, with a note in Mawson's hand 'From the Aurora Australis British Antarctic Expedition 1907-9' and his initials.

Aurora Australis was the first book produced in the Antarctic. The leader of the expedition, Ernest Shackleton, had arranged for a small printing press to be taken south and for two of his men, Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild, to be trained in printing before leaving England. The expedition artist, George Marston, received some training in lithography. Working under extreme conditions the men produced the book, copies of which were bound in venesta board by Bernard Day. A number of the contributions in the volume were illustrated by Marston, including this one of the crater of Mt Erebus which rose behind the base on Ross Island.

The active volcano was climbed for the first time by members of Shackleton's expedition and T W Edgeworth David, Professor of Geology from Sydney University and a member of the ascent party, wrote an account of the climb for Aurora Australis.

It is not known exactly how many copies of Aurora Australis were printed; some copies of the book appear incomplete but this has always been difficult to assess, as there are no page numbers in the book, and the table of contents does not detail the illustrations. At some time Mawson acquired a copy of the loose illustration of the crater of Mt Erebus, perhaps as a memento of the climb and scientific examination of the volcano.

Permission to use this item for any purpose, including publishing, is not required from the State Library under these conditions of use.

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