IN 1920 the Institution first experi- mented with a motor caterpillar tractor to be used in place of horses for launch- ing Life-boats on flat sandy beaches.

There are now eleven on the coast.

The type adopted was a Clayton agricul- tural tractor of 35 h.p., and for life-boat work it was necessary to have a number of alterations made to enable it to con- tinue running when partly submerged.

Having been first designed for agri- culture, and then adapted to Life-boat launching, this tractor is now under- going yet another transformation—for work over snow in the Antarctic. The following account of its trials for this new duty appeared in The Times, on 28th March: " Trials with a snow caterpillar trac- tor, which it is proposed to use on the Antarctic land ice during topographical work, have just been completed at Finse in Norway. Finse is on the Oslo- Bergen line, over 4,000 feet high, and the snow and temperature conditions were ideal; indeed, due to the pre- valence of a blizzard at the time, they were almost Polar.

"The trials were carried out by En- gineer-Rear-Admiral Skelton and Com- mander L. C. Bernacchi, both members of Captain Scott's first Antarctic Expedition in the Discovery, and the results were entirely successful and have created considerable interest in Norway.

" The caterpillar weighs 45 cwt., and will pull at least five tons at six to seven miles an hour over soft snow surfaces.

The tests were actually through snow, waist-deep in places, and also over hard snow surfaces and slopes of 1 in 5.

No trouble was experienced. The cater- pillar covered many miles over the Norwegian snow hills in the vicinity of the Hardanger Glacier, and once operated through a driving blizzard without any stoppage.

" The Antarctic Continent is still mostly unexplored. By means of specially designed engined tractors and aeroplanes, the days of journeys over the ice made by men on foot dragging sledges, or by men on sledges dragged by dogs or ponies, have, we hope, passed."