“Much in the universe baffled me, yet I knew I could pry the answers out of books if I lived & studied longer. Geology, for example. Just how did these ancient sediments & stratifications get crystallised & upheaved into granite peaks? Geography — just what would Scott & Shackleton & Borchgrevink find in the great white antarctic on their next expeditions … which I could – if I wished – live to see described? … As I contemplated an exit without further knowledge I became uncomfortably conscious of what I didn’t know. Tantalising gaps existed everywhere. … What of the vast gulfs of space outside all familiar lands?”