As to the accuracy of his drawing it is
sufficient to say that in the Discovery Expedition Scott wrote on his
Southern Journey:
"Wilson is the most indefatigable person. When it is fine and clear, at
the end of our fatiguing days he will spend two or three hours seated in
the door of the tent, sketching each detail of the splendid mountainous
coast-scene to the west. His sketches are most astonishingly accurate; I
have tested his proportions by actual angular measurement and found them
correct."[136]
In addition to the drawings of land, pack, icebergs and Barrier, the
primary object of which was scientific and geographical, Wilson has left
a number of paintings of atmospheric phenomena which are not only
scientifically accurate but are also exceedingly beautiful. Of such are
the records of auroral displays, parhelions, paraselene, lunar halos, fog
bows, irridescent clouds, refracted images of mountains and mirage
generally. If you look at a picture of a parhelion by Wilson not only can
you be sure that the mock suns, circles and shafts appeared in the sky as
they are shown on paper, but you can also rest assured that the number of
degrees between, say, the sun and the outer ring of light were in fact
such as he has represented them. You can also be certain in looking at
his pictures that if cirrus cloud is shown, then cirrus and not stratus
cloud was in the sky: if it is not shown, then the sky was clear.
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