REVIEWS • 369

successfully integrated reconnaissance using traditional sledging techniques with aerial photography and surveys from a motorboat, and Rymill ensured that aerial discoveries were always supported by accurate ground control surveys. A major achievement of the expedition was the discovery and mapping of George VI Sound and Ice Shelf: Rymill unself-ishly withdrew from this survey party in order to provide back-up depot support. The BGLE also confirmed that Graham Land was a peninsula rather than a series of islands as suggested by Wilkins, and Rymill completed a sledging trip across the spine of the Peninsula to within sight of the Weddell Sea. The work of this expedition set the scene for many of the postwar government expeditions. Rymill planned further polar explorations, but marriage in 1938, the Second World War, and the death of his mother intervened. He spent the rest of his life restoring the business and property at Old Penola Estate, and in a developing interest in equestrian sport. Not even Sir Douglas Mawson’s entreaty that he be involved in establishing an Australian presence in Antarctica convinced him otherwise. John Rymill, like his father, was killed as a result of a car accident, in 1968. The book is thoroughly researched and an accurate and complete biography. Béchervaise is precise and correct in his use of English, but his style is somewhat formal and stilted, and the result is a volume that is thorough, but not exciting. He uses his own knowledge of Antarctic condi-tions to provide background information, in footnotes, on the physical environment experienced by Rymill. These are not always strictly scientifically correct, but they provide a useful lay description. A fuller appreciation of the achievements of Rymill’s expeditions would have been helped by the inclusion of simplified and better maps, rather than the poorly reproduced versions taken from the original expedition reports. But overall, this biography provides an excellent portrait of a great polar explorer and fills a void in polar history. It will provide a valuable resource for the polar specialist and enthusiast, but will probably do little to popularize Rymill with the general reader