I started the preparations in the middle of 1913, but no public announcement was made until January 13, 1914.  For the last six months of 1913 I was engaged in the necessary preliminaries, solid mule work, showing nothing particular to interest the public, but essential for an Expedition that had to have a ship on each side of the Continent, with a land journey of eighteen hundred miles to be made, the first nine hundred miles to be across an absolutely unknown land mass.

On January 1, 1914, having received a promised financial support sufficient to warrant the announcement of the Expedition, I made it public.

The first result of this was a flood of applications from all classes of the community to join the adventure.  I received nearly five thousand applications, and out of these were picked fifty-six men.

In March, to my great disappointment and anxiety, the promised financial help did not materialize, and I was now faced with the fact that I had contracted for a ship and stores, and had engaged the staff, and I was not in possession of funds to meet these liabilities.  I immediately set about appealing for help, and met with generous response from all sides.  I cannot here give the names of all who supported my application, but whilst taking this opportunity of thanking every one for their support, which came from parts as far apart as the interior of China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia, I must particularly refer to the munificent donation of £24,000 from the late Sir James Caird, and to one of £10,000 from the British Government.  I must also thank Mr. Dudley Docker, who enabled me to complete the purchase of the ‘Endurance’, and Miss Elizabeth Dawson Lambton, who since 1901 has always been a firm friend to Antarctic exploration, and who again, on this occasion, assisted largely.  The Royal Geographical Society made a grant of £1000; and last, but by no means least, I take this opportunity of tendering my grateful thanks to Dame Janet Stancomb Wills, whose generosity enabled me to equip the ‘Endurance’ efficiently, especially as regards boats (which boats were the means of our ultimate safety), and who not only, at the inception of the Expedition, gave financial help, but also continued it through the dark days when we were overdue, and funds were required to meet the need of the dependents of the Expedition.

The only return and privilege an explorer has in the way of acknowledgment for the help accorded him is to record on the discovered lands the names of those to whom the Expedition owes its being.

Owing to the exigencies of the war the publication of this book has been long delayed, and the detailed maps must come with the scientific monographs.  I have the honour to place on the new land the names of the above and other generous donors to the Expedition.  The two hundred miles of new coast-line I have called Caird Coast.  Also, as a more personal note, I named the three ship’s boats, in which we ultimately escaped from the grip of the ice, after the three principal donors to the Expedition—­the ‘James Caird’, the ‘Stancomb Wills’ and the ’Dudley Docker’.  The two last-named are still on the desolate sandy spit of Elephant Island, where under their shelter twenty-two of my comrades eked out a bare existence for four and a half months.