meant they were doing better than we had anticipated, but we caught
them at Danger Cliffs. “They had just done six miles and were very
bucked in consequence.”
We were of some assistance in the next few miles. We would drag the
three huge trailer-sledges forward so as to relieve the motor sledge
at its first plunge. Then “she’d start with a jerk, Day sitting for
the moment in the chair of state and kicking up the floorboard to work
the levers. Then she’d stop; then we’d curse. He would light up the
petrol lamp round the carburettor to warm her, and try various
alterations to an undercurrent of our fervid remarks. Then she’d go
harder than we could walk for seven minutes. We got hot again, and
would then have to wait a quarter of an hour, stamping round and
freezing off, till she was affable once more.”
We slept at the 1902 Hut, and Meares and Bowers gave us a grand seal
hoosh next morning, cooked on the greatly improved blubber stove.
“Lashley’s motor got under weigh after twenty minutes with the blow
lamp on the carburettor, but Day’s was mulish. Gran, Evans, and I
waited with him.” The huge loads dragged were mostly oil and tent
gear, but their food-transporting power increases as the fuel load is
used up. “However, as the day grew the motor took heart of grace and
started, doing half-mile bursts, and at 12.45 we foregathered below
the Barrier edge. Lashley would have been up an hour earlier, but he
ran out of lubricant.” Unfortunately being on different gears they
couldn’t keep together readily. “I walked up on to the Barrier very
near where we crossed the big crack on March 12th. There was a
beautiful snow ramp up the twelve feet above the sea-ice.
“At 1 p.m. Day moved on to tackle this. We all pushed behind, though
it was not a bit necessary. She went up in great style, though I think
most of us had dreaded this test considerably. At 1.5 the first motor
stood on the great Barrier. Lashley’s then ran up quite easily, and
after cheering them we streaked back to the 1902 Hut for lunch. Scott
and Wilson ran two miles of the distance; Bowers and I walked on
together until Crean and Evans passed us. I joined them, but gave them
best ultimately, for they were both powerful pacemakers.”
We hit off for Cape Evans after lunch at a hot pace and didn’t stop
for eight miles, when we had tea off Razorback. “All around us were
seals and their young. The latter are longer in proportion, and are
lighter in colour and woollier. The mothers make a noise like a
dyspeptic sheep, and one big beggar _would_ nose around the sledges
until the Owner drove her away. Bill went off to get a dead young one
he espied, and found it alive, but frozen fast by its umbilical cord!
He freed it and left it, but Nelson saw the little idiot frozen again
two days later.”
On the 28th Wilson examined the three Emperor penguin eggs obtained at
such peril in July. To his delight they showed three different stages
in development, and were much more developed than he expected. The
embryos were rather long, but very like fledgling sparrows. There were
little tufts on the tail already, and their long, flapper-like wings
were not a bit bird-like. The shells were very thick and about the
diameter of a swan’s, but somewhat elongated. They were light buff
outside and bluish inside. Bill said only about fifteen shells had
been obtained, and no embryos.
Household duties have been somewhat disorganized. I have laid and
cleared the tables, while Atkinson has been chief cook. He succeeded
splendidly for the most part. “He made excellent coffee; Deb tasted
first cup, and nearly died, for it was pure cayenne!”
Erebus gave us a fine demonstration from 9 to 9.30 on the 30th of
October. The steam cloud rose like a huge mushroom at first, then was
branched like a yew-tree, and ultimately settled down into a huge
pall.
On the 31st October the pony parties started. Two weak ponies led by
Atkinson and Crean were sent off first at 4.30, and I accompanied them
for about a mile. Crean’s pony rejoiced in the name of “Jimmy Pig,”
and he stepped out much better than his fleeter-named mate Jehu. We
heard through the telephone of their safe arrival at Hut Point.
Next morning the Southern Party finished their mail, posting it in the
packing case on Atkinson’s bunk, and then at 11 a.m. the last party
were ready for the Pole. They had packed the sledges overnight, and
they took 20 lbs. personal baggage. The Owner had asked me what book
he should take. He wanted something fairly “filling.” I recommended
Tyndall’s Glaciers—if he wouldn’t find it “coolish.” He didn’t fancy
this! So then I said, “Why not take Browning, as I’m doing?” And I
believe that he did so.
Wright’s pony was the first harnessed to its sledge. “Chinaman” is
Jehu’s rival for last place, and as some compensation is easy to
harness. Seaman Evans led “Snatcher,” who used to rush ahead and take
the lead as soon as he was harnessed. Cherry had “Michael,” a steady
goer, and Wilson led “Nobby”—the pony rescued from the killer-whales
in March. Scott led out “Snippets” to the sledges, and harnessed him
to the foremost, with little Anton’s help—only it turned out to be
Bowers’ sledge! However he transferred in a few minutes and marched
off rapidly to the south. “’Christopher,’ as usual, behaved like a
demon. First they had to trice his front leg up tight under his
shoulder, then it took five minutes to throw him. The sledge was
brought up and he was harnessed in while his head was held down on the
floe. Finally he rose up, still on three legs, and started off
galloping as well as he was able. After several violent kicks his
foreleg was released, and after more watch-spring flicks with his hind
legs he set off fairly steadily. Titus can’t stop him when once he has
started, and will have to do the fifteen miles in one lap probably!”
Dear old Titus—that was my last memory of him. Imperturbable as ever;
never hasty, never angry, but soothing that vicious animal, and
determined to get the best out of most unpromising material in his
endeavour to do his simple duty.
Bowers was last to leave. His pony, Victor, nervous but not vicious,
was soon in the traces. I ran to the end of the Cape and watched the
little cavalcade—already strung out into remote units—rapidly fade
into the lonely white waste to southward.
That evening I had a chat with Wilson over the telephone from the
Discovery Hut—my last communication with those five gallant spirits.
We settled down in the Hut, a small and rather silent party. I was now
awaiting Debenham’s recovery from the injury to his knee, for our
start was already overdue. Nelson was cook, though Clissold was
beginning to move about more easily. As lately, I continued to lay and
clear the table, while Simpson was coal-whacker. The night-watch was
now unnecessary—it was too light for auroræ—and the ponies no longer
inhabited the stable. Nelson used to take the 4 a.m. observations, and
Simpson those at midnight.
On the 2nd of November we had some stove trials in the deserted
stables. Day’s last work had been to make us a blubber stove from
sheet iron, with a door grid and cover complete. We lengthened the
chimney (by adding asparagus tins) and then tested it. The cooker was
filled with snow, a “fid” of blubber lit on the grid, and in
twenty-seven minutes the water was boiling! There was very little
smoke, and it gave a pleasant heat all the time. Later we found that
it did not work so well in a draught, and was a trouble in the open;
but we cooked most of our meals on it in December and January, as will
appear.
[Illustration:
WILSON PACKING HIS PONY SLEDGE THE DAY BEFORE THE START FOR THE POLE,
OCT. 31, 1911.
The tins of oil, Alpine rope, large biscuit tins, sleeping-bag and
tent poles show up well. Behind is the outer door of the hut looking
north to the Barne Glacier.
]
[Illustration:
THE HUT AFTER THE WINTER, NOV. 20, 1911.
Great snowdrifts cover the porch and all the gravel before the hut. At
the back is the Ramp, and low-level stratus is enveloping the base
of Erebus.
[See p. 320.
]
That evening I had a walk round High Cliff and found a regular
“Niagara” rushing down the face of the glacier in a tinkling stream as
much as an inch deep! This was at midnight on the 2nd of November, and
the temperature was seventeen degrees below freezing! It shows the
strong radiant effect of the sun on black rocks even at midnight.
This event—marking the oncoming of reasonable weather—closed our
sojourn at winter quarters during 1911.
VI
THE GRANITE HARBOUR EXPEDITION
SECOND WESTERN EXPEDITION
NOVEMBER 1911–FEBRUARY 1912
[Illustration:
RELIEF MODEL OF THE REGION TRAVERSED IN THE SECOND SUMMER.
C.B. = Cape Bernacchi. Mt. G. = Mount Gran. G. = Gondola Ridge. C.R. =
Cape Roberts. D. = Cape Dunlop. N. = Nussbaum Riegel (across Taylor
Valley).
]
THE GRANITE HARBOUR EXPEDITION
(_Vide_ large folding map at end.)
During the winter the four members of the western party often used to
gaze to the north-west across McMurdo Sound and wonder what adventures
we should meet in the coming summer. We could make out the hills
behind Cape Bernacchi fairly well, some fifty miles off; but beyond
that was a greyish mass of land which, north of our horizon, was
broken by the large inlet of Granite Harbour just about latitude 77°.
We read up what little was known of it, and Wilson told us his
memories—of a sort of bluff-ended peninsula where we could reach
_terra firma_, of ice-falls filled with crevasses, and not very
promising as a route to the interior.
We expected to get away by October 22nd, but Debenham, as has been
told, injured his knee a day or two before, and spent most of the next
three weeks in his bunk trying to reduce the inflammation sufficiently
for him to walk.
The western party were unfortunate in having another cripple. Forde’s
right hand was still in bandages from his severe frostbites, but they
were progressing favourably, and though he never was able to use it
for delicate operations, it did not handicap him greatly.
On the 5th of November we packed the sledges. Our delay had one
advantage—we needed less food, and so our load was lighter. In fact, I
don’t know how we could have managed much more than our “half ton.” I
omitted three weeks’ supplies, but packed all the remainder on to the
sledges. In the huge canvas bag—called a tank by the seamen—were put
the weekly bags of stores. Here a little pile of butter, there smaller
bags of tea, etc. A few small bags of pepper, salt, etc., were placed
in the “Ready-Bag.” This latter was a smaller canvas bag which held
just a week’s food, and was kept separate from the main “tank,” so
that the latter was only opened once a week when the cooks changed
duty.
A document which was consulted more frequently than any other which we
carried was Bowers’ list of our stores. It was headed, in a last flash
of his humorous verbosity, “The Western PHYSIPHOGEOPETROVULCANOLOGICAL
PARTY,” and gave me careful notes as to the stores at Butter Point,
and tips as to taking tin-openers, and bags for the cocoa and pemmican
tins we should find there. It got very frayed with continual use, and
this led to some anxiety later. All the items were entered like this:—
“Biscuit for 20 weeks at 24·5 lbs. = 490 lbs.” The entry for _tea_ I
read as—
“Tea for 20 weeks at 1·75 lbs.,” but it was nearly illegible, and
later, after wondering why the tea was so rapidly diminishing, I saw
that his note really read 1·75 _for ten days_ (instead of “per week”).
This was one of the most welcome discoveries on our journey, for I
thought I had lost some bags of the precious beverage, and we soon
evened matters by greater economy.
On the Sunday afternoon (5th November) Gran, Forde, and I pulled the
big sledge over the sea-ice to the west. We had very heavy work
dragging it over the snow near Cape Evans, but owing to the track we
had cut through the walls at the great shear crack we crossed this
quite easily. We came on some mirror ice, where the runners positively
flew along, but a film of snowdrift about a quarter of an inch deep
made us nearly lie down in our traces. We took the sledge about three
miles out and then returned to the hut. _En route_ our collie bitch
worried a seal almost to death, and though Gran gave her a tremendous
beating, I doubt if that even made the dogs refrain from tormenting
the helpless animals.
Perhaps they felt that the seals were fair game, as they were so much
bigger than themselves!
On Monday a blizzard came up, in which superstitious little Anton had
a wild time reaching the hut. He had left Ponting encamped at Little
Razorback, and much preferred to find his way back, rather than spend
a night among the howling demons of the Antarctic!
[Illustration:
THE SECOND WESTERN PARTY THE DAY THEY WERE PICKED UP BY THE SHIP.
Taylor, Debenham, Gran, and Forde.
]
We had a council in the hut with Simpson and Nelson. The latter very
kindly volunteered to take Debenham’s place and help my party across
to Butter Point with most of our gear. Then we could rapidly return
and pick up Debenham if the rest had sufficiently cured his disabled
leg.
On the 7th of November we started off on our first relay. We left
about ten o’clock, taking a small sledge from the hut with our
sledging gear. We soon picked up our main load on the big sledge, and
then began really heavy work. One is always soft and out of condition
after the winter, and it takes about a week to get into sledging trim
again. It was not very cheering to find we could only get along at the
rate of about one mile an hour, for a large part of the gear to be
dragged to Granite Harbour, lay thirty miles west at Butter Point! In
fact, even with this light load, the surfaces made us relay at times,
and the effect on one’s body muscles seemed at first almost
unbearable. By lunch-time we had only left the hut about four and a
half miles behind.
It was blowing strongly from the south-east, and I saw a snowdrift
rushing along the ice. When we reached a patch of snow suitable for a
camp site, I pitched our tent, and this halt for lunch unfortunately
served for supper and breakfast also. It was blizzing hard in ten
minutes, and we were only just able to get the tent up in time. Forde
was able to help greatly, though his hand was still in a sling.
We were now no longer new chums, and it was pleasant to find that
sledging was so much more comfortable than on our first expedition. We
now realized that if we could keep out the snow, we should help the
human furnace enormously. For every snowflake in or on one’s garments,
first melted and then turned to ice, and all this had to be thawed
each night before one could get warm enough to sleep. So this trip we
carried a shilling scrubbing brush, and every one was most assiduous
in its use.
It was amusing how little trouble we had in donning our frozen boots
now. Some one had hung his on the peak of the tent, while the cooker
was going for breakfast, and now they were almost too pliant when we
needed to put them on. It was a greater comfort to have a wider
floorcloth. Now the outside men were not pushed into the snow, and our
instruments and notes were kept much more securely than on the former
journey.
As the blizzard increased it drove snow on to the windward side of the
tent, and the lee sides flapped violently so that the “stocking” door
vibrated incessantly. The snow piled higher and higher, and under the
ventilator collected a great ball of ice.
We were pretty comfortable very soon in spite of the snow, which
covered the sledges a foot deep. A rapid journey to Butter Point was
out of the question, and we turned in hoping for better weather in the
morning. The temperature was +23° as I ascertained by swinging the
sledge thermometer. My last camp in April on Little Razorback had been
in −23°, some 45° lower!
Nelson read Poe for awhile in his bag; I read Browning. We were rather
jammed together in the drifted tent, and poor Forde next morning said
he had been too crushed to sleep! For myself I had never before slept
so well at the start of a trip.
At 6 a.m. on the 8th it was still very thick to westward. However, at
7.30 we turned out for breakfast, and after digging up the sledges we
got away about 9.40. It is curious how long it took to start off every
morning. With no dressing or washing and a simple breakfast of two
pots of food, one would have expected a party to be ready in an hour;
but two hours was by no means unusual after a blizzard.
The heavy winds had compacted the snow, and also, I believe, covered
some of the sticky salty surface. At any rate, we went along better
than I had dared to hope, and could do more than a mile an hour.
I soon learnt that it was better to go a long way round rather than
cross new snow, and at lunch-time we had done over three miles. Very
stiff it made us! The sky cleared, and seemingly a short way ahead lay
Butter Point, a face of ice about 50 feet high in which small
crevasses showed quite clearly. Yet it was still 20 miles away! To the
south-west was a group of dark castles. These were the little volcanic
Dailey Isles, which were miraged up into huge squat keeps, very
different from their true conical shape.
Far to the north we could see the locale of one of the wildest
Antarctic exploits—the mighty crevasses near Mount Bird. Macintosh and
a mate managed to cross these during Shackleton’s expedition in 1908,
after abandoning their tent and losing their food in a crevasse.
How anxiously we watched the little dial of the sledge-meter. Very
slowly the miles rolled away, and when we had done four more stages I
stopped for a cup of tea and some block chocolate. These short halts
did not make one stiff like a longer wait. Finally, we halted at 8.30
after eleven hours on the move. We had sledged eight miles as the
result of the day’s work, and were already feeling fitter and enjoying
our pemmican. How greasy and thick it tastes at first! and yet how
soon it seems to vanish almost at sight!
The sun came out and there was a tremendous glare from the snow.
Goggles were donned and were not an unmixed blessing. The hot glare
disappeared, but sweat rolled down one’s forehead and fogged the
glasses so that it was impossible to see through them.
On the 8th we continued our “trek” towards Butter Point. There is very
little variety on these journeys; you pull till you are tired—not
talking much, for that uses too much breath, but thinking of all sorts
of topics. As long as one leans forward in the belt and keeps time
there is not much else to engage one’s attention. Even the leader
merely notes some object in his line of march and plugs steadily on
until it is time to halt for the five minutes’ spell!
At 4 o’clock we were nearly 20 miles from the hut, and therefore, as
we halted for tea, still ten miles from Butter Point. It was gloomy
and soon started drifting again, always from the south-east and always
giving but a short warning of low driving snow before the full blast
struck us.
This blizzard lasted thirty-six hours. We lay in our bags and slept
most of the time. It is wonderful how one’s appetite decreases during
these enforced waits. The normal amount of thirty-three ounces of
_dried_ food per day would be enormous in ordinary life; when lying
snug in one’s bag, no energy is used in work and little in heat, so
that about twenty ounces seems sufficient, and one of the meals can be
cut out with ease.
On Saturday morning I turned out at 3 a.m., and a little later it was
obviously clearing. The drift was deep over the sledges and nearly
over the door. We had been delayed so much that I felt we must now
turn back, so we packed the tent and one meal on the small sledge and
left a large flag on a bamboo by the larger sledge.
We had only about 100 lbs. to pull and yet the twenty miles
(twenty-three statute) was a hard journey. I hoped to be in by noon,
but the surface was very bad. We had tea and a biscuit at six and
another short meal at noon. We could see the four isles off Cape Evans
all the time, and I think our chief occupation while sledging was in
watching them take up various angles in front of the Cape as we
gradually got nearer the hut. We crossed some landmarks in the shape
of the huge shear cracks. One at nine miles, one at four and a half,
and a small one two and a half miles from the hut. The last six miles
were awful, for the erstwhile mirror-like ice near the Cape was now
covered with a sticky film of snow over which we could hardly pull the
empty sledge.
However we began to see dead penguins, and then we knew we were within
a “dog’s walk” of the hut—for these were relics of their occupation.
Next we reached the triangular area to leeward (north) of the hut,
which viewed from the Ramp was of a yellow tinge from the straw and
other debris blown there by the blizzards. And so at 4.30 p.m., just
twelve hours after starting we arrived. I immediately rushed Clissold
the cook for tinned pears, and found none left. So I started on three
rounds of toast. We then had soup, rissoles, and fruit tart. I had
three helps of the former and two of the latter and still felt hungry.
Debenham’s leg had not been going on very well, but was better than on
Wednesday. They had had no drift at the hut on Tuesday!
After another council I decided to take advantage of Nelson’s kind
offer. He would accompany us with the little Russian groom Anton. If
all went well they could return; if Debenham were too lame to proceed
they could bring him back, and Gran, Forde, and myself would push on
to Granite Harbour as a three-man party.
Sunday and Monday passed quietly in the hut though the weather was bad
outside. On Tuesday it was very unpromising until 3 p.m., when we
could just make out the Western Mountains. At 3.20 we made our final
start with Nelson and Anton as a convoy. Debenham hobbled alongside,
and as the surface was better than previously and the wind blew to the
west we made fair progress. This time we took on our cameras and Day’s
blubber stove. At six miles we pitched camp and were starting supper
when I discovered that we had left the can of spirits behind. This
fluid was necessary to start the primus stove in low temperatures, so
Gran and I tramped back to the hut for it. It was a stiff walk, for we
were afraid of thick black clouds to the south and the wind rose to
sixty miles an hour, luckily without drift. After some supper I turned
into my bunk for the last time that year. Gran slept in the bunk
above, and as the result of some salmon and a recent perusal of Jules
Verne’s “Mysterious Island,” suffered from nightmare. He explained
next morning that he thought Erebus had overwhelmed the Cape with
red-hot lava, wherein Simpson had been engulfed, but the geologists
had calmly climbed up to the crater! Was this a forecast of his own
escape on the summit a year later, when Gran was nearly choked by the
fumes?
We found the spirits where we had been packing the sledges, and
trudged out to the tents to find the others having breakfast. However,
we started at 10 a.m. and did nine miles by 5.30. I camped early to
prevent Debenham overstraining his leg.
On the 16th we awoke to find snow falling, though there was not much
wind. We had been so much delayed that I determined to try marching
through the thick weather lying ahead of us. Although we were fairly
close to the magnetic pole, and the compass consequently had very
little “horizontal pull,” yet I determined to try steering by it,
especially as we had a spare man to steer us. We wanted to go almost
due west, but the compass direction, owing to the variation, was S.
65° E.! So Debenham marched some fifty yards behind us, and signalled
to Nelson, who repeatedly turned to observe him. Meanwhile I tried to
steer a course by any object which I could see looming up through the
mist ahead. We serpentined considerably at first, but moved steadily
westward. Our surprise and gratification may be imagined when we
suddenly saw footprints ahead of us, and realized that we had exactly
hit on our route of the week before. We had not seen any trace of our
track since leaving the hut, and this encounter was as marvellous as
finding a needle in the proverbial bottle of hay. On we went into the
thick of it till 1 p.m. My eyes soon tired with looking at huge crags,
which turned out to be ice splinters twenty yards away. Finally the
western hills appeared, and we were all on the _qui vive_ to be the
first to spot the depôt flag. Nelson offered his raisins as a reward,
and then won them himself! We reached our depôt at 2 p.m.
The sledge was not buried, though a great lee had been built by the
blizzards. We had a merry lunch, all six sitting in one tent. Anton’s
plans caused much amusement. We gathered that he was going back to
Russia to marry a rich wife, and so long as she were wealthy we
understood that he had no objection even to a wooden leg!
The clouds began to roll away _en masse_, leaving behind a magnificent
Italian blue sky, as if the blizzard had purged it of all impurity.
The resulting contrast with the dazzling white mountains had something
of a Japanese effect, and the afternoon was one of the finest I saw in
the Antarctic.
We camped within seven miles of Butter Point. I was delighted to catch
Debenham surreptitiously helping with the back sledge, for he found
that his leg was certainly no worse for the rough work he was giving
it.
On the 17th we moved on with another sledge added. They pulled
stiffly, and we met with soft snow every few yards. Moreover, we
encountered some “screw-pack,” which is a very formidable obstacle,
and of which we met more than enough in the next week or so. I suppose
that here the sea-ice had been broken up and jammed together before
finally freezing into a continuous sheet. However, by zigzagging we
made steady progress, and reached Butter Point about 5 p.m.
We pitched the two tents first thing, on the thick snowdrifts near the
tide crack. Then we walked up to the depôt, where our boxes stood out
boldly, some three hundred yards away.
We dragged up the small sledge and loaded it with cocoa, sugar,
pemmican, etc., and then a second time took down 330 lbs. of biscuits.
The floor on which the stores had been laid in January was now over
two feet down. This gives some indication of the change in the surface
of the piedmont ice in nine months. Probably drift accounted for most
of the deposit.
The two tents now resembled grocers’ shops. In one Nelson and Forde
were bagging the cocoa, in the other Gran and I opened tins of
pemmican and placed them in weekly bags also. Meanwhile Debenham
prepared a fine hoosh, and Anton conducted a lively class in Russian.
In the depôt were some soft captain’s biscuits left by Shackleton’s
party. Forde and Debenham preferred them to our official ration of
hard sledging biscuit, and so we made an exchange, for I knew we could
always make up deficit by seal meat.
On the 18th we started off with six men to pull the three sledges; but
we found it impossible, and had to relay all the time. We were now
crossing the mouth of New Harbour, making for Cape Bernacchi, at its
north-east corner.
At lunch we finished off Nelson’s contribution of Tru milk, and
Debenham took a photo of the combined parties. Then the “Convoy
Commando” left us, and we saw them for an hour or so plugging steadily
towards Cape Royds. Here Nelson intended to get some penguin eggs
before going to Cape Evans.
Now we were left to our own resources, with 1350 lbs. to drag along. I
distributed the weight more evenly on the two sledges, putting the
heavy biscuit-boxes on one, and the tents and sledging gear on the
other.
After lunch we pulled off, Debenham and myself in front, and Forde and
Gran near the sledge. The sun was hot, but as usual, when we
anticipated trouble, it was not forthcoming, for Debenham was able to
help us very materially, and the surface was rippled and harder than
we had seen hitherto.
Soon we were hotter than we liked, and our headgear was modified to
suit the climate. Forde appeared in a huge panama. Debenham and Gran
had felt hats with ear-flaps, and I wore an ordinary colonial felt,
which I tied down like a coal-scuttle when the wind was too keen. This
day it was warm enough to wear no hat at all, so I walked bareheaded
with goggles, “and would have liked to pull off my vest also”!
The screw-pack was low hereabouts, only projecting two or three feet;
but the hollows were masked by snow, which made the walking difficult
and even dangerous for Debenham. We took the “biscuit” sledge on first
for about a mile and flagged it; then trudged back for the “tent”
sledge. Debenham met us soon, and pulled with us for the same weary
mile. It took about forty minutes to do this, and about twenty to walk
back, so that transporting the half ton over a mile meant a hundred
minutes of very hard labour, which with a light load we could cover in
twenty-five minutes.
Well, we had some weeks of it, and by the time five miles comes to be
accounted a good day’s journey, progress does not seem so slow as it
did at first. We used to leave Debenham ahead with the first sledge at
our evening stage, and when we three brought up the biscuit sledge we
would find that he had nearly got the “hoosh” ready. There was no
mention of “too much pemmican” nowadays!
We were now crossing New Harbour. It was interesting to see so clearly
the old landmarks of Dry Valley, and amusing to think of our bet with
Taff Evans as to the identity of the valley we were now passing. He
was convinced that we could not see Dry Valley from Butter Point, and
we had had a hot discussion in the previous February on the point.
From this point we saw a most wonderful array of cwm valleys. On the
flanks of Mount Lister they were clustered thickly like thumbmarks in
a piece of putty. On the slopes of the Kukri Hills we could see steep
gullies, as it were, growing into “chimneys,” and these into deeper
valleys, and so into veritable cwms or cirques. They illustrate an
interesting scientific principle. It is naturally impossible to see
the stages of valley erosion evolving before one’s eyes—as impossible
as to see a barrier reef changing into a coral atoll—and yet one
cannot doubt that this evolution occurs when we have all the
intermediate stages confronting us.
We intended to carry out a very complete survey on this journey. We
had two separate instruments, a theodolite and a plane-table. With the
former I was able to fix far distant peaks with considerable accuracy,
and also by observations on the sun to determine the latitude and
longitude of the main stations of our survey. With the plane-table
Debenham carried out a unique detailed survey of the coast-line, not
only showing the outlines of the land but also all the physiographic
features. By means of the theodolite we were also able to plot the
elevations fairly accurately, and when these were added to the
plane-table charts I think we brought back from our sledging trip an
Antarctic survey unique for its completeness in the field.
The surface for the next few miles was very bad. I wished Wright were
with us, not only to lend us his sturdy muscles, but to study the
queer morass we encountered. We were sinking nearly to the knee in
snow crystals. These were not wet, but so incoherent that they clogged
the sledge-meter, and for the remainder of our journey we had to
remember the miles missed from our reckoning before reaching Cape
Bernacchi.
The yellow goggles gave rise to a queer illusion. It was just as if we
were pulling through heavy sand at the mouth of a river, and owing to
some wind and water action, there were the same ripples and channels
as are to be seen in an estuary.
Captain Scott had ordered us to leave a week’s provisions at Cape
Bernacchi, for we should need this if the bay ice went out, and we had
to return overland. So we carried up a half-tin of biscuit, and filled
it with butter, pemmican, and chocolate. This was reared on end, and
protected by a cairn of granite. We surmounted it with one of our
precious bamboos carrying a flag. I left a note informing the finder
as to our progress, and immediate plans. This was the first of our
post offices, of which we established four more during the summer.
Though all this took time, we also made a collection of rocks for
Debenham. The loose snow had wrenched his knee badly, so that much as
he would have liked to explore our first new land, he was unable to
move many yards from the sledge. Marble, granite, tourmaline gneiss,
basalts and schists, and a few mineral veins gave us quite a fine
collection—though most of them were moraine specimens.
I sketched the coast to northward, observing with great satisfaction
that there was no open water in sight. Numerous seals were basking in
the next bay, which augured well for our future food supply. Less
welcome was the rugged area of screw-pack which filled the bay, and
which we should have to traverse on our next stage.
Debenham had packed the sledge, and we moved off in the afternoon,
winding in and out between jagged lumps of ice, sometimes eight feet
high. There was interesting spoor here; an Emperor penguin had
evidently passed by, and his sturdy tread had hardened the snow
somewhat. Ensuing blizzards swept away the softer snow, and left his
imperial footprints standing in relief.
We camped in the screw-pack, and passed a peaceful night. Next morning
the narration of a dream caused some amusement. “I had invited
Professor David to dine, and arrived two hours late; as I had no money
to pay for the meal I calmly decided to wake, and did so!” We often
discussed dreams, especially after my repeating what I could remember
of an article in a magazine I had read in the Old Discovery Hut. It
pointed out that one’s own personality was often revealed in the
clearest fashion. I hope the above sample was not of this type.
We reached Marble Cape at noon, and from the top we could see our
wandering friend from Ross Island—the three-mile fragment of Glacier
Tongue. There was Oates’ depôt as clear as ever, and the huge field of
ice had almost filled the bay between this cape and one to the north.
Its sides projected thirty feet above the sea-ice, and we could see
that it was largely built of snow, which was folded in a very complex
manner, and probably originated largely as snow cornices, just as
current-bedding in rocks is formed from steep delta deposits.
To the west, behind the cape, was the sheer front of the Piedmont
Glacier. It ended in a face about thirty feet high, and evidently was
for the most part moulded over the hills, though a few _nunakoller_
projected through it.
We reached a high cape built of gneiss, and camped there for the
night, among a colony of seals. We were doubtful as to whether this,
or the previous headland, was David’s “Marble Cape”; in fact, as some
one said, it was a “nice point.” At any rate this pun led to the name
_Gneiss Point_, by which we knew it.
Next morning it was a blow to our pride to drag the sledge through the
numerous seals, and to find that they evidently despised us too much
to move out of our way. It was a favourite basking ground, and many
square yards of snow were rolled flat and hard by the sleeping seals,
while canoe-shaped hollows showed where some unsociable beast had lain
at a distance from his fellows.
We started off relaying as usual, but as I was returning I felt this
was just the time to test our outfit as an ice yacht! A steady south
wind was blowing almost directly behind us, and the next few miles
showed a reasonably good surface.
The six heavy bamboo poles, on which the tent is hung, were so
arranged that two could be taken out of the leather bucket uniting
them at the top. The remaining two pairs were fixed vertically above
the front sledge to form a double mast. We lashed them to the
stanchions with lamp-wick. The other two bamboos were used as yards
for the floorcloth. This sail was held up by a rope—actually off
Forde’s sleeping-bag—which passed over the top of the “bucket” on the
mast, and the pull of the wind kept it taut. Two “main sheets” helped
to secure things, and passed from the yards to the rear of the sledge.
Forde was bo’sun, and made a good job of it. Meanwhile, the delay had
frozen the sledges to the sea-ice, but after “breaking” them out, we
managed to start the yacht and its tender, and to our delight we could
just move the half ton along! It was frightfully hard work, especially
the start; but we could do a mile in forty-five minutes, whereas
formerly relays and halts made this a two-hour job. Luckily,
Debenham’s leg was now much better, and the miles piled up splendidly.
We did 6½ geographic miles by 7 p.m., instead of 4½ by 9 p.m. as
heretofore.
In gratitude we called this bay the Bay of Sails; a variation from
Shackleton’s famous inlet, the Bay of Whales. The coast was fringed by
Piedmont Glacier, but a little rock showed at the water’s edge. We
indulged in extra raisins for lunch, and camped at night near a large
cape, which reminded Forde of Spike Island, near Cork.
The ice was evidently affected by the summer breaks, for we had to
cross a crack two feet wide, where the water was surging continuously.
A young seal here caused us some amusement, its heart-rending
“baa-aas” and strenuous efforts to climb a gigantic ridge eight inches
high being very comic.
“_November 23_, 10.15 p.m.—The sun is shining brightly for the first
time to-day. The tent is flapping gaily, partly owing to the two poles
being a bit loose, and partly to the keen southerly wind which is
driving over the shore glacier. I am as snug as possible in my bag
since I sewed the new left-hand flap thereon. I shall patent this! for
a man can lie left or right, fur in or out now. The temperature is
+14° F., and the barometer has risen rapidly to 30.14. This change
probably means something unpleasant, but Erebus is very clear and the
steam going south!”
In spite of hurrying, putting the sail together inside the tent took
time, so that it was 10.45 before we started with sail set and a fair
wind for the next headland. This looked like a dented door-knob, and
we reached it by lunch with the mast bending and the sail bulging in
true nautical style.
As we passed it I saw that we had reached Dunlop Island, which had
been hidden from us by a line of icebergs. It is separated from Dunlop
Cape by a strait about one-third of a mile wide. We hailed this with
joy, for it seemed to be pure blue ice; but over this blizzards had
blown low parallel ridges of snow which were about 20 feet apart. The
snow was sticky with salt, and the alternation of clear ice with
sticky snow was almost impassable. For we could not stand on the ice
and the sledge would not move over the snow, and when we could pull
from the snow, the sledges were on clear ice and the wind drove them
along unassisted! I don’t know how Debenham managed, but I wrenched my
leg, and for days afterwards had cause to remember Dunlop Strait.
Dunlop Island is a mere ridge of shingle about 60 feet high. There was
a fierce wind blowing which prevented my taking any photographs, but I
managed to get a round of angles with the theodolite before my hands
were numbed. There seemed to be four ancient beach-levels marked by
well-rounded boulders which point to elevation in this region. Looking
to the north we could see nothing but a great barrier wall of ice
along the coast. The trend of the latter was almost continuous from
Cape Bernacchi, and we could see no foundation for the sharp turn to
the north-west charted on the existing maps.
We pushed on for the north along this forbidding wall of ice. It was
almost December now, and the sea-ice might break up any day, so that
our next few days were anxious ones. We had great difficulty from the
sticky surface, and the wind changed direction, nearly blowing the
sledge over, so I decided to “down sail” and steer nearer the land. We
could only with difficulty pull one sledge, and had to relay till we
reached the face of the glacier, where we camped. While Debenham
cooked the hoosh—an excellent one, of which I had one and a half
pots!—Gran and I managed to climb 200 feet up the glacier front. The
ice was much broken and recemented with some deep crevasses and queer
puckered ridges. After making a sketch and searching for signs of open
water, luckily without result, we turned in and spent a comfortable
night.
We awoke to a comparatively hot day! I decided to try one sledge
first, and if all went well to tack on the other. But to our chagrin
we found that we could not manage _one_ sledge. By one o’clock we had
managed to struggle along for one mile, in the course of which
Debenham had badly twisted his knee.
“I decided to go in for night marching, and we pitched the tent, hung
out our wet clothes in the hot sun, and had lunch. Then we turned in
and tried to sleep without success. I read through one year of
Horsfield’s German Grammar, and put a chinstrap on my hat, while Forde
darned socks. It was too hot to keep in the sleeping-bags, and so I
lay outside without a coat!
“At 7 p.m. it is distinctly cooler, so that ice does not melt now if
you touch it.”
These abnormal conditions were due to the bright sun, for the air
temperature was below freezing. But the solar rays striking the tent
melted any snow thereon until there were pools on the flounce, while
water inside the aluminium cooker remained unfrozen for hours.
Night marching commenced about 9 p.m. The surface was much harder, and
we just managed two sledges for a short distance, but we had to relay
most of the way.
To the west is the great Piedmont Glacier, thirty miles wide, and
covering a ten-mile belt between the mountains and the sea. The nearer
mountains were all rounded and smoothed by glacial erosion, while the
higher peaks behind rose into jagged summits, pitted by numerous cwm
valleys, which showed that they had never been beneath a thick ice
mantle.
To the east appeared a brown island about 100 feet high and a quarter
of a mile long. It had a well-defined ice-foot, and I hoped that we
were to chart a new island. Gran and Forde were eager to examine this,
and while we were surveying the coast they marched a mile or so
towards it. But our “island” was merely a stranded berg coloured brown
by the large amount of silt included in the ice. In some such way
numerous “islands,” such as the Nimrod group, have crept on to the
chart, for no one has been able to sight them since their discovery.
We camped just after midnight for lunch, at which I presided. As
usual, it consisted of tea, biscuits (hard sledging tack for Gran and
me, and soft “Shackleton” biscuits for Debenham and Forde), raisins,
butter, and chocolate.
The _Discovery_ map was obviously quite incorrect here, and our chief
guide was Professor David’s account. From the times of his daily
marches we expected to reach Granite Harbour earlier than the rough
chart indicated, for he speaks of the harbour as being twenty miles
out of position! The only place for a bay “five miles wide” seemed to
be about ten miles ahead, so that I hoped that a few more days would
settle the question.
We got a fine view of Erebus, especially of the old crater whose wall
sticks up like a gigantic black fang on the northern slope. Mount
Terror was also visible now round the hump of Erebus. The steam banner
from the latter was very striking, stretching far to the south, and
then, at 8 p.m., shifting to the north after some big puffs. This
usually indicated a strong change in the weather—which was the last
thing we desired in our present position off the inhospitable face of
the Piedmont Glacier!
We camped on rather thin snow and weighted the tent flounce with the
biscuit boxes. It was very warm inside the tent, and though the outer
air was 14° below freezing, small pools of water lay on the tent
flounces in the full heat of the sun. “I made the dinner. The pemmican
was not bad, though not so creamy as Deb’s, which has a reputation. It
is a month to Christmas, and we have been sledging three weeks. I find
it much more pleasant than last February, even with our abnormal
loads. I plan out things while pulling automatically, and the miles
pass along somehow. Camps are much more comfortable, and of course it
is warmer now!
“It is very confusing having breakfast at 7.30 p.m., and sleeping or
trying to sleep through the day. I find it rather hot, and generally
only sleep four hours and think away the other four. However, there is
no comparison between the surface by night and by day, for though the
sun is bright at midnight he is not nearly so high or warm and does
not melt the ice surface. We camped about half a mile from the huge
Piedmont, and set out next day for a remarkable line of icebergs. On
our left was the great glacier, the cliff edge dropping to sea-level
at a brownish boss which I thought might show some rock. But it was
merely stained ice badly crevassed and stepped like a land-slip. I
expected to reach this the same night, but luckily our sledge-meter is
a better guide as to when we’ve done enough. Four and a half miles, if
we have been relaying, takes eleven hours hard work (less lunch-time).
Anyhow, the brown boss was still three miles beyond our camp, as we
found later. (I expect that the pseudo-island was derived from this
breaking ice-cape, for there was a huge group of bergs just ahead of
us.)
“I don’t take very full geological notes for obvious reasons. We see a
piece of rock about every three days!”
There was in fact no leisure for any scientific work. We were too
dog-tired to stir far from the tent. Even the ice was unusually
uninteresting from a scientific point of view. We watched it with very
particular care nevertheless. Hereabouts a rather low screw-pack had
been covered by recent snows, and the alternation of hard blocks and
trenches filled with snow made a surface calculated to keep us all on
the _qui vive_. I took Gran abreast of me in the harness, and so we
explored most of the pitfalls, thereby saving Debenham’s lame leg from
the worst surfaces.
We did some wonderful wriggles, and if the ice ridges were fairly
frequent—say every five feet—the sledges revelled in the track. For
the runners only touched at these points, and the weight was supported
above the soft fields of snow.
It was a wonderful field of bergs among which we now encamped. There
were fifteen in all shapes and sizes. Several were low and tabular,
while two were higher and cubic in shape. One was a dirty brown, and
was possibly a brother of the pseudo-island. Two others were shaped
like newts, with a sharp jagged crest. They were, I suppose,
overturned bergs.
At 9.30 on the evening of the 26th we left our camp among the bergs,
and dodged in and out among them towards the low rocky cape just to
the north of us. Huge granite tors crowned it, and great blocks of ice
six feet across had been hurled many feet on to the cape by the gales
of the preceding season. I halted to photograph these, and Debenham
and Gran climbed on to the granite tors. To my amazement Gran called
out that Granite Harbour was in sight. I hastily climbed up and found
we were right at it! This small cape was actually the southern portal,
and the entrance looked about ten miles across.
As in New Harbour there seemed to be two chief arms, the larger
southern portion receiving the Mackay Glacier, and the other being
almost completely bounded by smaller inflowing glaciers.
On the cape were numerous skuas, looking very cold, and dancing about
on chilly feet. They squawked loudly and flapped their wings at us,
but had not laid any eggs as yet, for Forde gave this matter his
particular attention! He reported a feasible track across the cape
which would save a difficult journey through the screw-pack. I agreed
to try the overland journey, and we got across the wide tide crack and
up fifteen feet on to the icy col with much less trouble than I had
expected. “This col rose to about thirty feet on the north side, and
evidently water is driven on to it by gales, for the ice was quite
glassy at first. We relayed across, to the astonishment of the skua
gulls. We passed a fine little polished platform of granite, and then
sharply descended to the sea-ice, and by 1 a.m. were within the
harbour.”
This was very gratifying, and our early arrival was due to several
pieces of good luck. Debenham’s leg had continued to improve in spite
of the gallant way in which he insisted on doing as much work as any
of us; we had met with splendid weather since leaving Butter Point;
the two days’ sail had helped us materially, and finally we found that
the harbour was twelve miles nearer than we had reason to expect.
About 4 a.m. on the 27th November we trekked west up the harbour. Far
away was a high dolerite cliff with a small glacier just notching its
edge. To this we gave the name of “Spillover,” and we made for it as a
prominent landmark.
We were now naturally very anxious to identify the bluff which Captain
Scott had arranged as our rendezvous with Pennell. We were told that
it was about five hundred feet high, and Ferrar had described it as
resembling a cabbage! We could see nothing remotely approaching this
description, nor indeed anything very like a photograph of it, which
appeared in the _Discovery_ volume.
We were so interested in this unexplored region that we pulled the
front sledge along till the second sledge seemed a mere speck to the
eastward. In fact, we failed to notice that the weather was growing
very thick to southward, while a threatening tablecloth was covering
Erebus. We hurried back. The stage was nearly three times the normal
distance. I know it seemed such an interminable distance that I
wondered if the sea-ice were carrying the sledge away!
We got back to our first sledge just in time and pulled in to a little
crag of granite which projected below the frowning cliffs of ice. This
we called First View Point, for from it we could see a bold promontory
which was possibly our rendezvous. Indeed, the error in the map had
made me doubtful if we were in Granite Harbour at all!
View Point was not an ideal camp site. There was no snow, and really
no room for the tent. But we managed to get it spread loosely in a
little alcove, and though it flapped wildly all night, yet we were
very thankful to be on _terra firma_ in the blizzard, even if it were
only a yard or two wide.
Outside the drift blew in great sheets off the glacier sixty feet
above us. The temperature was twenty below freezing, but we were very
snug in the tent, and I slept for nine solid hours.
We left View Point next day, as the blizzard was only a brief one, and
pushed west. Soon we had to cross a giant shear crack some forty feet
wide. Luckily the main channel was frozen in places, and we got across
without difficulty, and then reached a small glacier tongue which
drained the Piedmont. Very heavy clouds again obscured the south, and
I felt it wise to take advantage of this good camping site and sit out
the impending blizzard. So we pitched the tent off the end of the
tongue near a splendid snowdrift which afforded us perfect blocks for
securing the tent. Soon beautiful flakes of snow were falling. Some
were delicate crystal bundles like a pine branch, others were like
little cog wheels with six teeth. It continued to snow most of the
day, and as night marching was not advisable for survey work, I felt
that we could now take a little more time and return to day-sledging.
We cut out breakfast and kept comfortably to our bags all the morning,
having lunch at 1.30. Our last meal had been lunch also! Gran caused
some amusement by demanding two cakes of chocolate, as due from the
missed meal.
Cooking was a great responsibility, and one that I was never anxious
to undertake. Still, even an indifferent cook like myself could not go
far wrong with such simple foods as we had at our disposal. Debenham
“had a light hand with the pastry,” as I have recorded previously, and
I used to watch his methods closely. The only “variable factor” was
the “thickers” in the hoosh. This ingredient varied a little, from
peaflour to wheatmeal or crushed biscuit: but the pemmican was (like
the butter at Cambridge) cut to measure! The cook would take out the
greasy lumps from the weekly bag and loosely fill an aluminium mug
with them. Then he would drop this measure in among the ice and
half-melted snow in the cooker and leave it there to boil. Apparently
the chief art with the thicker consisted in mixing it to a smooth
paste first with a little water—laboriously ladled out of the outer
cooker—and then pour it into the “hoosh” just as the mixture boiled
up.
It was good stuff! It had a rich taste, especially when solid with
ground biscuit after Gran’s famous recipe. Months later, when tasting
a rich Melton Mowbray pie, a memory of the Antarctic rose before me.
There were the four of us; Forde phlegmatically breaking biscuit into
his pot; Debenham blowing lustily into his, and finally spoiling it by
cooling it in the snow-floor; Gran swallowing it piping hot so that
tears came to his eyes, and he fairly wriggled on his sleeping-bag;
and lastly, the anxious cook not daring to taste his, but manipulating
pots and spoons in the effort to produce steaming cocoa before all the
“hoosh” was finished.
[Illustration:
A PANORAMA OF CAPE ROBERTS, WHERE THE WESTERN PARTY WAS ISOLATED FOR
THREE WEEKS. LOOKING NORTH.
]
[Illustration:
AVALANCHE CLIFFS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF GRANITE HARBOUR.
]
I started sledging an ardent cocoa-drinker, but soon realized that
there was much to be said for tea at midday. We had a belief that it
refreshed one quicker than cocoa, and so we used to have it at
breakfast also quite frequently. Upon this journey we did not bring
cheese, and I certainly never missed it after the superfluity in the
hut. Raisins were allotted to us, but I think “stoned dates” would
have been better, for one never seemed to have enough to taste in a
spoonful of raisins! The butter was fine! Sometimes I would save some
of the precious lumps of sugar; and an original sweetmeat resulted if
one bit alternately into the frozen butter and the sugar! The
chocolate we usually nibbled at the four o’clock halt; while any
biscuit left over would be dumped into the hold-all pocket on one’s
jersey and eaten at the same time. Debenham never could eat all his
biscuit at the meals, and somehow often had a bit to spare which we
couldn’t resist.
I used to save some of my evening butter in my pot for the morning.
Occasionally hoosh would be poured on it by a hasty cook, and then my
biscuit had to be eaten dry; a small matter, for the hoosh was the
richer. Once or twice on our trek we came to pools of water, and then
Forde would polish up the pots; but thereafter queer mixtures would
gradually swamp the true flavours of our foods. The beverage would be
“co-tea,” or “tea-co,” according to circumstances, while suspicions of
many of our past menus would persist until another scouring day
arrived.
There were some compensations, however, in Polar sledging. One could
obtain water by merely digging a cup into the floor, and the absence
of flies and of rain were blessings indeed. However, the air was not
quite aseptic. Many of the carcases of sheep went bad, and one of our
party was very sick from the butter before we finished our journey.
The snow ceased about 4 p.m., and Gran and I walked to the root of the
ice tongue to examine it. It was a mile and a half long and was fed by
a well-defined overflow from the Wilson Piedmont, which had cut its
way through granite cliffs some 200 feet high. There were several
“chimneys” offering tracks up the cliffs. One had a rough rock figure
at its base, and led Gran to remark, “This is an ome.” I realized he
meant “good omen,” and accordingly we tackled the chimney indicated.
Lichen and mosses welcomed us on the flat summit, where some hundred
yards of granite-strewn platform marked where the piedmont had
retreated from the edge. We investigated the gully between the tongue
and the cliffs, here almost vertical. As usual there was no sign of
grooves or striation, though the ice was much disturbed at the base of
the cliff, and we had to cross many small crevasses.
Early on the 29th I waked the others, hoping to make an early start.
Unfortunately something went wrong with the primus; I am afraid some
spirit was mixed with the paraffin. At any rate we had an anxious hour
testing the apparatus, which formed our only source of heat while
sledging, but found nothing out of order except the fuel.
We had been looking forward to sledging over the vast sheet of clear
ice within Granite Harbour. But the late snowfall had ruined our
chances, and we had practically no easy sledging during the whole of
the journey. Personally I was so pleased that we had safely reached
the Harbour, that a day or two more or less now did not worry me.
At the end of the second stage Forde discovered a cave in the granite
cliffs. It was about fifty feet high and twenty feet wide. I think it
was due to the sea tearing out the loosened blocks along a large
fracture in the granite, though such an occurrence is necessarily rare
on icebound coasts.
I was very anxious to find a suitable spot for a headquarters camp,
and so far not a single spot was large enough to pitch the tent upon.
In the bay just east of the huge bluff there seemed to be some rock
slopes. Most picturesque at the head of the bay was a great granite
cliff festooned with narrow glaciers hanging over like ribbons. We
heard several avalanches here, and so called the place Avalanche Bay.
In the corner was a steep slope of glacial debris—partly mud and
partly gravel and boulders. We climbed up this for two hundred and
fifty feet, and so could look down on a small glacier which occupied a
bowl-shaped hollow in the coast-line. This would appear to be a cwm
valley into which the Piedmont Glacier has flowed.
“After supper it cooled somewhat, and we started out for some relay
work. We could see the Bluff quite close, and after half a mile I
judged we were halfway and went back for the second sledge. Then on
again, and we never seemed to get any nearer. It was nearly two miles
off and we were all tired on arrival. However, we plugged back for the
second sledge, and it was a weary grind! As Debenham remarked: ‘We
were too tired to think!’ We got in about 11.30 and pitched camp on
poor snow, fetching blocks of ice from the wide tide crack to weight
the flaps.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Gran._]
THE FIELD OF CREVASSES (SKAUK) AT THE ROOT OF MACKAY TONGUE, JAN. 6,
1912.
Behind are the faceted slopes of Mount Allan Thomson. Photo from the
Flat Iron looking N.W.
]
“We were much amused by the laments of a young seal (still in its
woolly coat) for its mother. ‘Baa-aa!’ he said, quite plainly, like a
cross between a lamb and a vigorous young bull. This resounded from
the five-hundred-foot granite cliff above, and occasionally the mother
re-echoed it from the tide crack where she wisely kept! I was glad to
see about eight seals here. I expect we shall kill most of them!
Trigger caught the young one by the tail, and it bellowed and tried to
get away. It took to water readily. There was a well-defined margin of
level fixed ice, ten yards wide, following the coast all along. We
turned in at midnight tired out and not much worried by the baa-ing of
the seals.”
Before turning in we saw a most remarkable sight to the east. Sailing
over the Ross Sea towards the south was a fleet of cloud galleons. The
hulls appeared as bright white glares separated from each other by
dark nimbus. The lower sails were sheets of stratus, and beautiful
cumulus floated over each. At the front of each the advancing vapours
were curved to form the galleon’s bows.
On the 30th we relayed round the face of Discovery Bluff, leaving one
sledge on the firm ice-foot beyond the seals’ pool while we marched on
with the other to try and find our summer headquarters. The Bay ice
was torn every half-mile by huge shear cracks, but luckily they were
still narrow and we crossed them readily enough.
We now opened up a small bay, and I could see a fine camp site just
ahead. I made straight for a rough beach which was covered with
granite blocks. I was glad to see that lichens and moss were growing
here in some abundance, for it indicated that this was a sheltered,
sunny spot.
Behind the beach was a steep slope leading to a little plain about
four hundred feet up. I climbed up to this while the others explored
the beach and the small cape to westward. Soon I reached the further
edge of the plain, and from here I had a magnificent view up the great
Mackay Glacier. There was a well-defined glacier entering the bay in
the south-west corner, which had a fairly gentle slope. Up this I
hoped to find a route to the interior, for the other outlets of the
glaciers were crevassed to a greater extent than in any of the other
regions. In fact, the ice river resembled a great ploughed field where
every furrow was a huge crevasse. Gran said such an area would be
called Skauk in Norway. He said they used Icelandic terms for their
new words, much as we do Greek. I think this term might be introduced
into our nomenclature, at any rate we used it thereafter.
[Illustration: Our Water Supply. The Granite Pool at Cape Geology.
13–1–12]
Meanwhile Debenham had found an excellent spot for our permanent camp.
We were very satisfied with the outlook. One reads of the advantage of
a “gravel subsoil.” Here between some large boulders was a patch of
gravel. To be sure it was full of irregular blocks of granite and half
covered with snow; but by hand-picking it and raking it over and over
we rid ourselves of the “feathers in the bed,” and also got our
tent-site ultimately fairly dry. The small elevated plain was going to
give us a bountiful water supply when the weather got warmer. In fact,
Debenham entered into a disquisition on “hydraulic grades” and the
“origin of springs,” to show that we should have water laid on past
our tent! The snow never melted sufficiently for running water, but
Forde evolved a fine reservoir in a few days. He cleaned out a hollow
in a huge granite tor, and the sun’s heat acting on a snow dam at one
side usually gave us a sufficient supply. Great blocks of bay ice
driven up in a previous summer formed our cool storage. Just off the
Bluff was fuel and food in the shape of seals. Buttresses of granite
crossed the beach, and between two of these was an area where our
kitchen was almost half built. Surrounded on three sides by solid
granite walls three feet high was an enclosure which we managed to
roof in well enough to hold the blubber stove. Forde and Gran were
especially keen on this edifice, which they called Granite House from
Verne’s “Mysterious Island.”
It was a day or two before the house was finished. Forde was master
mason and Gran chief labourer. He used to delight in bringing to the
site great cubes of granite which we others could hardly move. There
was a most uncomfortable block of granite projecting into the hut, but
by the repeated dropping of huge blocks on to it, Gran finally managed
to remove this excrescence.
After lunch on the 30th Gran and I went off to obtain the wherewithal
for our first seal hoosh. Luckily there was a seal a quarter of a mile
from the camp, and we soon slew him in the usual manner. Gran would
attract the doomed animal’s attention, while I stole alongside from
behind and stunned him with a blow on the nose. This was almost the
chief use I made of the geological hammer, for Debenham was making the
rock collections while I studied glacial topography chiefly.
Forde gave us a lesson in butchering. Most people do not realize that
a seal is not far removed from an otter. Anyhow, his anatomy is near
enough to that of a sheep for one to know where the choicest meat
lies. In fact, a seal’s skeleton is just like a sheep’s, in which the
two hind legs have been folded together close to the tail and
converted into swimming flappers.
We cut off two wide strips of blubber first from the belly; then
rolled the seal over—an operation of great difficulty—and obtained two
more from the back. Beneath these strips of blubber were the best
portions of the flesh, except the liver, which needed especial
anatomizing. Around the neck I cut off odd bits of blubber, and one of
these served to cook a meal on the stove, so that there was plenty of
fuel on a seal to cook the meat it provided.
We staggered back laden with spoil, leaving the carcase to a multitude
of skuas. How they quarrelled and fought over the pieces! Every skua
seemed to prefer to grab a piece already selected by another. I
suppose they were not used to tearing fragments off such a superfluity
of carcase! We welcomed these visitors, for we had in mind future
tasty dishes based on skua eggs.
It snowed during the night, about one inch falling, chiefly as needles
and fluff-balls. All this spoiled future sledging, but we watched it
philosophically now that we had got our main supply to its
destination.
[Illustration: Gomphocephalus. Antarctic “Springtail” 1.2.11]
I turned in later than the others, and, on having a last look round, I
noticed some dark specks floating on a little pool. With no organic
matter in the air, this seemed unusual, and on closer examination I
found that these were the long-desired insects! They were little
bluish fellows shaped like a cigar, with six legs and no wings. I was
very pleased, and rushed to inform my sleeping mates. I am sorry to
record that they did not seem to think the discovery worth the loss of
their first sleep! Each insect was about one millimetre long, so that
twenty-five only measure an inch, and they clustered together like
aphides.
Next morning I received congratulations, as it was my birthday. The
sledge flags were hoisted on a line between two depôt poles. We hung
up the red-and-black depôt bunting also in honour of the occasion.
Debenham said he had no present for me, but he could not allow me to
cook my birthday dinner. I noticed that the others seemed overjoyed
that I should be relieved of my cooking duties for one meal!
“However, I did breakfast, and made a fine hoosh. The great secret is
to mix the wheatmeal, pepper, salt, etc., well, and pour it in _just
before_ the pemmican boils, giving it only five minutes. It is much
more slippery and soothing than if you cook the ‘thickers’ longer. I
shall be quite an accomplished cook later on!”
About 11 a.m. Gran, Forde, and I brought the other sledge in from the
Bluff. After lunch we unloaded the stores, mustered them, and placed
them under a big rock until the hut should be ready to receive them.
“We seem to be especially rich in raisins. I fear I forgot to take out
a bag at Cape Evans. Gran is going to sow sea-kale here, so that our
vegetables and fruits should be plentiful!
”About 5.30 a long streamer of smoke announced that the famous stove
was going, and Debenham made a splendid liver-fry, followed by cocoa
in very quick time. Gran produced a bottle of Savoy sauce, which he
had carried as part of his personal gear, and presented it to me. No
present could possibly have been more acceptable, as any one who has
lived on one dish for a month will realize. I could have eaten two
whacks of the fry easily! We decided to use the bottle at one meal
instead of spinning it out, but (as Wendell Holmes remarked about the
honeypot) you can’t pour out the last dregs from a sauce-bottle. Some
one suggested we should draw lots for these precious dregs. (Privately
I thought they belonged to me, but I nobly agreed!) So, in the way
they have in the navy, I thought of a word of five letters, and I said
that the last alphabetical letter should win the prize (as a matter of
fact I had thought of ‘Savoy’). Gran gave me the third letter (_v_),
and he took the first. Debenham took the fourth, and then I felt safe.
But Forde took the last (_y_), and so won the sauce. A very sorrowful
moment! This ingenuous game always entranced me; it trusted so
implicitly in the leader’s lack of American ‘smartness,’ for the word
was not divulged until the numbers were out!
The method bewildered me when I first heard it, but I hope the above
account is lucid.
The next day Gran became cook, and gave us a fine hoosh, after which I
started trying to get the astronomical position of our headquarters.
Gran explained the way the Norwegian fishermen obtain latitude and
longitude by very simple yet sufficiently accurate methods. They
observe the sun at 11.30, again near noon, and at 12.30. By this means
they get the local time of noon by calculating halfway between the
other two observations, which should be nearly the same reading. The
noon reading is a check.
Unfortunately in 77° S. the sun pursued a placid path which was nearly
horizontal, and it was very difficult to find the “keystone” of such a
flat “arch” as he described!
We had unloaded one sledge and converted it into the roof-tree of our
granite hut. It was necessary to collect sealskins to cover our house,
and as the walls were now high enough, Gran and I went off on a
fur-hunting trip. About half a mile away was a big seal, and I
determined to secure him.
“It was extraordinary how long the muscular action lasted, for this
animal was stabbed three times in the heart and pithed three times in
the brain. We had great difficulty in turning him over; there is
nothing so slimy, heavy, and sloppy as a huge sheet of blubber and
skin. We managed to roll the heavy hide on to the sledge, but it would
not stay there. Just like a slow moving glacier it slipped off
everywhere. ‘Trigger’ took off his belt and lashed it on, and we
managed to start by sticking the ice-axes in to keep some from
dragging in the snow. We had to cross an ugly shear crack about four
feet wide, regularly torn in the floe by the pressure of the glacier,
but it was no trouble by using the interlocking promontories. We
cooked tea on the blubber stove, whose white smoke lends homeliness to
our headquarters.... We named the latter Cape Geology, in memory of
the chief object of our journey, though we had been able to do very
little scientific work so far.
“After lunch Debenham and I proceeded to flense the blubber off,
laying the hide on a rounded boss of ice. It was slow work, for the
sun warmed the blubber so that it was as easy to cut as flannel two
inches thick. We dug out a cache between two blocks of ice and put the
meat and blubber therein, covering them with smaller blocks of ice,
and this storehouse served well after we had taken the precaution to
mark it with a bamboo, so that it was not lost in the snow.
“I made a granite seat in the hut, and will have a fur carpet, for it
is cold for the toes on the snowy floor. The stove smokes badly, but
gives off enormous flames and heat, only burning 10″ × 3″ × 10″ of
blubber per meal....” Soon, however, the soot and oil filled the
bottom of the stove, and then it ran out over the rocks and spread all
over the snowy floor. We had to stand in this fearful mixture, which
is dirtier than the grease in a foul motor engine, and much more
ubiquitous. The smoke made one gasp as eddies drove it into the face,
and we never managed a door for the hut to keep out the icy winds
blowing down from Mount England.
The sledge ran along the centre of the roof, and the chimney projected
through it. Biscuit-boxes helped to form the roof, but sealskins
enough to cover it were gradually collected. Forde said it was as good
as many an Irish shebeen, which made me pity the Irish more than
anything I had yet heard of them! However, it saved our fuel, and kept
our field notes and sketches cleaner than if we were cooking in the
tent, so that we feel that this sample of Antarctic architecture
fulfilled a worthy purpose.
“I cut up the seal meat and insisted on adding meat to the liver, for
we should need to kill a seal every other day at the rate the cook
wants liver! I’m bound to say that I am the biggest eater. Gran had a
reputation that way, but he has not eaten as much, and Debenham and
Forde are very poor eaters.” It was very cold in the granite hut. I
sat in the doorway to try and keep out the draught, and was very glad
to trot out and warm my toes after cocoa. “The skuas don’t show any
particular inclination to lay yet. Perhaps they see it won’t be worth
their while. Nor do they seem at all anxious to clean the blubber from
the sealskin we left for them.”
Our tent was in the shadow of the Bluff all night, and so it was quite
cold in spite of the midnight sun. Gran and I set out next day to put
up the rendezvous flag, and to kill a seal, while Forde and Debenham
finished the hut.
We climbed up one of the chimneys or steep gullies which scored the
front of the Bluff for several hundred feet, and then got out on to a
knob, where we raised a red flag on a stout bamboo pole. I found a
fine deep crack, and Gran wedged it in very solidly with blocks of
granite. From this view point I made a great discovery, that there is
an ice tongue about one mile wide and five miles long, projecting from
the _skauk_ of the Mackay Glacier. Bay ice fringes the cliffs beyond
it, and as the map shows, the tongue extends almost down the middle of
Granite Harbour.
We had many arguments about this tongue. The _Discovery_ must have
been close to it in 1902. Debenham was inclined to think that it had
grown since that date; but later we saw a photo from the _Discovery_
which showed that it was in existence then.
I wrote a note to Pennell, and lashed it to the mast, telling him we
were going inland till January the 8th. We then hurried down the
screes, and went out on the bay ice to slay our seal. “He died
rapidly, thank goodness, and we plugged through our job till about
2·15, having an awful time tying the hide and blubber on the sledge,
while the liver lobes ran all over it. Gran swears they worked their
way uphill, and came out of the folds of skin! I threw some bits into
the shear crack, while washing the liver, and the hole was soon full
of amphipods, which are cousins of the shrimps. Gran says he is going
to fish hereabouts if he can get a hook.”
On the 4th December we began to collect gear for our next trip. Forde
spent a lot of time at the blubber stove, where he was the most expert
cook. He cut up large lumps of seal, and fried enough for eight meals.
This was mixed with pepper and salt, and about half cooked. He then
filled a large tin with this rough substitute for pemmican, and lashed
it on to the sledge. I used to enjoy a snack of this half-cooked seal
between meals, for there was now no doubt that our appetites were of
the true Antarctic variety.
We had cleaned several skins now, and we fixed them over the roof-tree
of our hut. I sewed up the flipper holes, and each skin was about
eight feet by six. We lashed them to the sledge, in the middle, and
then hung huge stones from the outer margins, which drew them taut,
and held the skins close to the walls. They soon became very sooty,
but were always translucent, for the hairs are large and coarse, and
not at all closely set. We could just stand up under our sledge
roof-tree. Forde spread gravel over the blubber-ice composition on the
floor, and I gathered some moss and tried to stuff up the crevices
therewith. When the cold wind blew down the hills it invaded our hut,
and made us glad as soon as the sooty meal was over, and we could take
refuge in our snug little tent below.
That evening Gran and I climbed up to the top of the bluff, above the
flag. The sides were covered with granite debris; some colossal blocks
were twenty feet across. In the clay beneath them were mosses and
lichens, one of the latter being of a fine frondose shape, with
root-like attachments. I collected this specimen, and boxed it on my
return; but the skuas had scattered our specimens when the ship’s
party finally arrived in 1913.
[Illustration:
GRANITE HUT, CAPE GEOLOGY.
Forde and Gran are cooking at the blubber stove, whose chimney
projects behind the “sledge” roof-tree.
]
[Illustration:
FORDE COOKING SEAL-FRY ON THE BLUBBER STOVE AT CAPE ROBERTS.
]
We got up in about one hour, and I began to have my doubts about the
five-hundred-feet height mentioned in the 1902 record! Luckily, I had
an aneroid, and this showed it to be over fifteen hundred feet high. I
got a magnificent view of Granite Harbour and the Mackay Glacier. The
large ice tongue ended in three splay “fingers,” and was badly
crevassed, except right at the end. Far to the east I could see Mount
Erebus and Beaufort Isle. Below was a regular succession of shear
cracks, due to the irresistible pressure of the Mackay Tongue pushing
out the bay ice. Great pressure ridges, six, ten, and fifteen feet
high marked where the bay ice was being jammed on to the Bluff. These
were very prominent near Cape Geology also, and pools of water
collected in the hollows between the ridges.
[Illustration:
Pressure-ridges in the sea-ice, looking west from Cape Geology to the
Punch Bowl cwm, January 13, 1912.
]
On the afternoon of the 5th we started to the north, to march around
the end of the Mackay Tongue, which lay about five miles off. We were
now crossing ice covered with nearly a foot of snow; but with only one
sledge and ten days’ food, we got along in fine style. We could easily
see our signal flag flying on the Bluff, and the red showed quite
clearly when the wind blew it out. We reached one of the “fingers” at
the end of the ice tongue about 6.30, and here I decided to camp, so
as not to lose sight of our survey stations.
“There seems to be no large tide crack here, which means that the
tongue is floating. It is broken into deep lateral bays, and consists
of regular rolls and hollows. I don’t believe that storms affect this
harbour much, or it would have gone out long ago. We pitched the tent
on soft snow, just off the end. I got ice from the glacier for the
cooker, which Forde declared was salty from old sea spray. Anyhow, the
hoosh was very good.”
Far to the west we could see a huge black mountain projecting through
the Mackay Glacier. It was formed of black dolerite capping granite,
and reminded me of a three-cornered Chinese junk. Debenham objected to
this name as being unworthy of such a fine nunatak, and proposed
Gondola Mountain. We knew it by this name during our expedition, but
on my return to Sydney I discovered that Professor David had seen it
from the coast, and had called it Mount Suess. So Mount Suess
displaces Debenham’s euphonious title.
“The sky looked very ugly—the sun dimly glaring through gloomy
clouds—a low, thick, dark bank on the eastern horizon, and the
barometer falling half an inch in the twelve hours. So far nothing has
happened, but now (10.30 p.m.) snow has just begun, and may keep on
some time; for I see, from the log, that we had similar conditions at
Harbour Tongue on the 28th. The temperature is +23°, and we are very
comfortable; for though we are on sea-ice, yet we can reach the
glacier in twenty yards, and there is twenty miles of ice between us
and the open water.”
I am going to copy my notes, for the next few days, _verbatim_, for
they give a fairly complete account of a typical summer blizzard in
Antarctica. If the language seems a trifle strong, the circumstances
should be considered.
“_Wednesday, December 6, 1911._—10 a.m. We are held up in our first
violent blizzard, and it is just a month since we started. We have had
snow blizzards, but this has wind force about 7 as well, and the drift
is thick and wetting.
“We have a pretty snug camp on snow, one foot thick, which you can
accommodate to your hip-bone, but which it is difficult to stand the
Primus upon (especially as the cooker _base_, on which it usually
rests, is full of fat, and is now our frying pan at the _hut_). It
started snowing about midnight, and clothed the tent by 3 a.m. I woke
to hear the tent flapping, and shaking down young avalanches, and it
has been going strong ever since.
“There is always a strong bulge _in_ on the windward (S.E.) side, and
slighter bulges at the two lateral tent segments. Then the door, if
properly placed, tends to blow _out_, and the laterals next to it do
most of the flapping, and make a deuce of a row.
“2 p.m. Still blizzing strongly; there have been one or two lulls of a
few minutes; but they don’t seem to mean much. It is snowing
furiously, too; pattering on the tent like rain on wooden shingles. If
you budge from the tent (Debenham had to get a notebook) you get very
cold, because the drift melts and wets you at this temperature (+23°
F.). We had a meal about 11 a.m., Gran cooking a good bovril-pemmican,
with a large supply of broken biscuit therein. This strong south-east
wind blows practically direct from Cape Roberts on to the tongue on
our lee, and so I do not much fear it will shift out any ice. Anyhow,
we can’t move, and I am learning to take these blizzes
philosophically. Besides, the bags are dry and warm, and when I tire
of writing the diary I snooze a bit, and then read Harker’s
‘Petrology’ (Deb’s), and then snooze, and then read ‘Poe’s Tales’ (too
fantastic and oriental to please me are most of them), or ‘Martin
Chuzzlewit,’ or do some German grammar. Forde is actually reading
something. He has tackled ‘The Mysterious Island’ which Gran has
nearly finished at last. Deb started to work out a latitude, but is
now wrapped in ‘Morfus.’ Last night’s hoosh was an enormous success,
2½ pots of Forde’s concentrated seal hoosh, mixed with water and meal,
made a top-hole hoosh—very tasty, and all indigenous.
“6 p.m. The tent is beastly sloppy. We have just finished our _lunch_
at 6 p.m., and if we can’t get away, that is our last meal to-day!
To-day is a queer camp, the first down here where the tent has dripped
on us, when no Primus is going. We have put the cooker under the
tied-up door, and it is filling, I see! Forde is dressing his finger
with a penknife, and Deb keeping warm very sensibly in his bag.
“_December 7, 1911._—Slept pretty well. Dreams, as usual, furnished
some conversation ’twixt Gran and me, and occasionally Deb. I had a
very vivid one (or two) after two pots of seal fry the other night.
“I was walking to Sheffield and got lost, and couldn’t get any one to
tell me the way. I asked a man and couldn’t get any great satisfaction
out of him. He saw some of my Antarctic gear in my bag, and said I
looked as if I was going to the Pole, but would not believe me when I
said I’d been there! I then told him my name (to impress him, no
doubt!), and he was not a bit concerned, but said his name was
_Taylor_ also! Then I switched off home, where everybody was much
concerned about the end of the world, or something equally cheerful.
There was an awful red sky to the south which caused great
perturbation, until finally some one called out, ‘It’s the return of
the mail-clad “goater”-cars from the Pole!’ These were a sort of red
motors assisted by goats, and were quite the latest thing in transport
evidently, and I was much pitied because I didn’t know all about them.
But a bad pun in a dream seems to denote too much fry!
“It is now noon, and we are still snowed up off the end of Mackay
Tongue (43 _hours_ now and we have not got _away_). It dripped most of
the night, for the temperature was +27° outside and warmer inside.
There was a puddle by the door, but Gran and my bags have absorbed
most of that, and Deb’s is wetter. So far the inside of mine is still
O.K., and I have fur inside always now. It is much warmer, and as soft
and comfortable as anything I’ve slept in as far as I remember. We
have been trekking over a month, and though we’ve had almost unique
hard relaying for two weeks—330 per man—yet I enjoyed it much more
than the Ferrar trip under better conditions.
“We got up at 8, and Gran made a biscuit-bovril-pemhoosh, which was
very good. We had only two meals yesterday, so went a full whack this
morning. I put on my boots and wind-coat and puttees, and dug out the
thermometer. The sledge is buried two feet in snow. Deb’s big camera
tripod shows above the snow, and a bamboo pole—also the top of the
shovel,—but the rest is clean buried. The first fall of snow was
consolidated by the blizzard; the last fall, _since 2 p.m._ yesterday,
is fluffy light stuff and quite different in texture. I dug down to
the biscuits and got Deb’s notebook, and then came in and scraped off
the snow and had breakfast. I have finished ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’ this
morning and puzzled over German declensions, and still we can’t see
more than a hundred yards, and it is snowing still. We got a watery
glimpse of the sun about 9; but he’s gone, though, as the north side
of the tent is dripping most, I suppose he’s still about. There’s a
constant rainy patter on the tent, but the snow is so slight it would
not matter if we could see where to steer! However, it’s not hard work
lying still here, and Scott did it seven days; we’ve only had two.
[Illustration:
HEAVY SLEDGING OFF MACKAY TONGUE, JUST WHERE WE TRIED TO PACK TO LAND,
DEC. 8, 1911.
Note the great furrows due to the sledge dragging bodily on the snow.
]
[Illustration:
THE “HALF-TON” AFTER NELSON LEFT US, OFF THE MOUTH OF DRY VALLEY, NOV.
18, 1911.
Notice the ice-free character of the valley and its faceted walls.
Beneath the flag appears distant “Matterhorn.” The sledge-meter
shows to the left of the tent.
[See p. 339.
]
“The barometer (29.45) is rising steadily, which denotes, I think, no
more strong wind at present. Our short, sharp blizz was correlated
with a very low barometer of 29.18, whereas 29.80 is about the mean
hereabouts.
“There is no tide crack off the Tongue, which is five miles from its
parent glacier, and therefore must be floating. Also, as it projects a
hundred feet above sea-level, it must be _500 feet thick_, which is
comforting.
“We had lunch about two and saw blue sky to the east, Erebus showing
partly; gradually the whole snow cloud blew over _en masse_ to the
west, leaving blue sky and a bright sun. We dug out the sledge,
nothing of which showed, and got off after Deb had taken a photo.
“We could hardly get a move-out of the sledge and finally harnessed so
as to beat out a bit of a track. The going was awful. Never had such
hard work, and with only one fairly light sledge! It pulled me flat on
my face in the soft mushy snow, and wet me half up to the waist
tramping through it. We managed to get around to the end of the Tongue
and one mile to the north, and then it was after 7 p.m., and I could
not stick it, nor could the others. We pitched camp in the middle of
North Bay. But our floorcloth and tent are dry, which is a great
comfort, and we had a fine seal-hoosh. The trouble is that all our
survey work will be blocked; for two miles’ progress in three hours is
deadly, and this snow is universal. However, I’d rather have it now
than earlier, when we had two heavy sledges, for we couldn’t possibly
have moved either! Perhaps it will cement by to-morrow a bit. The
temperature is down to +13½° (after 27° or so) and the barometer is
still rising steadily. I feel a bit wet and will turn in early.
“The Tongue is very imposing from this (north) side, being cut up by
bays so deep that they seem to separate it into islands. We hope to
make the end of the Kar Plateau—a long 800-foot flat-topped
shelf—which seemed to show a bit of beach. We had to camp at what
seems one and a half to two miles away in soft snow, which we kicked
away and shovelled off so as to get a fair spread for the floorcloth.
“_Friday, December 8, 1911._—I doffed some of my clothes and hung them
up inside the tent, if so be they might dry a little. Result, like a
board, for the temperature was only +13. However, I used my eiderdown,
and was jolly snug and warm and slept quite well.
“My bag is wet outside and it wet the floorcloth. Trigger’s you can
squeeze water out of. We must get a drying spot on the coast. It is a
fair morning with a gusty, cold, plateau wind (W.). The sun is shining
low down in the east through cirrus; but it does not look snowy or
blizzy.
“(Written Saturday 8 a.m.) We were about two miles from the coast, the
nearest being the end of the _Kar Plateau_. We loaded up the sledge
and gaily proceeded in that direction, anticipating arrival about
noon. But we found we could not pull the sledge, though I doubt if
there is 400 lbs. on it. It just stuck, with the prow covered with
soft snow. Forde gave words to ‘pull all together’ (for he could see
better than I, being at the back), but it was no good. So we stuck up
the flag pole and packed all we could carry on our backs. Gran went
first with his very heavy bag (half water) and the tent poles. He
plugged away in great style, but made rather a devious track as
different parts of the coast appealed to him! Deb followed with a
rucksack on his back and his bag also (and the plane-table halfway).
Forde took the tent and cloth, but didn’t wrap them up carefully, so
that they rather impeded his movements. I came last with a proper
swag—rucksack in front and bag behind, hung over my shoulders on my
belt. There we were trekking for the land to dry our things a bit and
do some geology. Gran got rather far ahead, and by the time we arrived
near the rocks he was manœuvring with the tent poles near the tide
crack.
“This was most unsatisfactory; a high ice-foot about two feet or more,
separated by one or two feet space of open water, was bad enough, but
nearly forty feet of the floe was soft and mushy, and through the
thick snow you could not tell which was hard ice and which was open
water.
[Illustration:
A TIGHT CORNER! CROSSING THE FORTY-FOOT TIDE CRACK OFF POINT
DISAPPOINTMENT, GRANITE HARBOUR.
From a drawing by D. Low.
]
“There were seals all over this mushy stuff, and one came unexpectedly
on their holes nearly buried in snow. Deb and Forde were looking down
one to see the thickness of the mushy ice when one leaped out three
feet and, as Forde said, ‘It nearly frightened a life out of me!’
“Gran had laid the poles up against the floe and left his bag just
behind, when the mush gave way and in he went to his waist. He rescued
his bag clinging to the pole, and somehow managed to crawl up the
ice-foot, but he was pretty wet and soon very cold.
“Deb and Forde sat on their packs by the firmer ice, and I walked
along the sea-ice (while Gran went along the ice-foot) to the north.
We found it all just the same. At every footstep water oozed up, and
evidently the floe was melting top and bottom and had never been
thick. This doubtful area was forty feet wide. At the north, a quarter
of a mile from our track, I managed to get on the ice-foot over three
visible cracks, and I don’t know how many buried in snow. We returned
to the others to find Deb had had one foot through. Having regard to
the difficulty of the surface all the way to our camp—eight miles of
two-foot soft snow, through which we could only pull the sledge at
half a mile an hour with every muscle taut,—I decided it was not safe
to stay over on this shore; for a few days’ sun would probably convert
this mushy belt into open water, and we should have no ready line of
retreat at all. So in view of the Owner’s lectures on caution and my
sledging instructions, I abandoned the idea of camping two or three
days on this north side, and we lugubriously determined to push back
with our packs to the sledge two miles away. First, however, we had to
get Trigger off the ice-foot. I went forward to pick up his bag, and
suddenly went through halfway up to my thigh. Luckily the other foot
kept firm, and I leant backwards and sat back on the less tricky mush.
Then we lashed bag ropes and threw them towards him. He threw the tent
poles on to the mush and then launched himself full length on the
stuff, gripping the poles. The whole floe rocked up and down like
jelly, but the poles kept him up, and he got across to us without
further mishap. It would have been impossible to scramble out if we
had gone through, for there was nothing firm to grip.
“Forde also volunteered that he thought ‘You done a wise thing to give
that place a miss.’
“On our way back Deb stopped to take some angles with the plane-table,
but found that he’d forgotten his sight-rule, so that even _that_
weight was uselessly lugged forward. We camped for lunch at our night
camp, and then the sun was so hot that it dried our bags nicely. My
feet were very cold and wet, and so were Gran’s. I took a complete
round of angles both vertical and horizontal, and with the necessary
sketching this occupied about two hours.
“Then about four we pulled off for Camp Blizzard and had a diabolical
time over the two and a quarter miles of soft snow. The old track was
nearly all filled up by a drift from the west, and, though the snow
had compacted a little, it was frightfully heavy work. The marks of
the bamboos on the sledge floor showed that the whole sledge was
resting on the snow. Only off the point of the Tongue did a little of
the old track show and helped us somewhat. My sledge belt began to
feel as if it was being pulled out through my back, and I had to pull
with my hands. We camped about 8 p.m. just near our old Blizzard Camp,
where we had to sweep off a foot of soft snow. I went up the Glacier
Tongue to get ice, but could not reach real ice and had to go over to
a cornice to get air-filled ice. We had an excellent hoosh, four cups
of ‘Forde’s concentrated’ with water added. It made a sort of liver
jelly when boiled a little more, and I had two cups and a glorious cup
of cocoa, cooled so that you could get a good long drink!
“... And then I gave the diary a miss, hung socks and wet breeches
outside the tent, and slept right through till 8 a.m.!”
We pushed off for our headquarters next morning and found we could
hardly move the sledge. After struggling a few hundred yards I decided
to see how the runners looked. We unpacked everything, and found an
irregular lamina of ice about a quarter of an inch thick had coated
the runners. This we scraped off with a tin matchbox and then turned
the sledge to face the sun, and in about half an hour they were clean
and dry. The improvement was most marked, and made our light sledge
now only as difficult as the two heavy sledges we had dragged to
headquarters! We read in Arctic books that ice is purposely moulded on
the sledges, but I expect the temperatures are lower, when that method
is useful.
At lunch we had dragged it about a mile and a half, and we dried the
runners again. I noted that my amber-coloured glasses had a very
pleasing effect; they turned the most gloomy clouds into a beautiful
Italian sky. Everything in the heavens is turned into blue and white,
which is a great change from the dismal views seen through the green
goggles of last year! The relief through using them and the help they
give in picking out hollows in the surface is enormous, but they fog
up somewhat, of course, with perspiration after a short time.
As we were nearing our headquarters we had a great discussion as to
what had happened to the signal flag. Debenham has excellent sight,
and with the aid of the glasses he swore that he could see the bamboo
lying, broken down. This seemed impossible to me, and I bet him one of
our usual 1_s._ 3_d._ dinners that it had not broken! However, after a
time I saw myself that the thick and solid bamboo pole had snapped. It
was some consolation that his cairn and flag at headquarters had blown
down also!
We had some difficulty crossing the shear cracks near the camp, for
the snow had covered everything. I prodded cautiously ahead when we
seemed near the largest, and, stepping on, went right in. I had been
standing on the exact edge and tested too far off! However, I escaped
with a slight wetting, which is the proud privilege of the leader, and
we crossed without difficulty.
We reached our front door at 6.30, finding that the ice had buckled in
our absence, but had not cut us off from shore. Dodging between two
pressure ridges we reached the ice-foot amid the huge storm-blocks of
ice and unloaded with great joy. Everything was buried in snow.
The 40-lb. biscuit tin was hurled six feet off a rock, and Granite Hut
was half filled with snow. We cleared the gravel patch and soon
pitched our tent, and had a good hoosh inside us.
Shortly after we turned in it began to blow from the west, a most
unusual quarter. This cold plateau wind increased very rapidly, and by
2 a.m. was blowing as hard as any wind I ever felt in a tent. It bent
in the stout poles of the tent like whale-bone, and covered the sledge
with a huge ridge of hard snow. The door flapped so violently that
some of us could get no sleep. The wind died down about 5 a.m., and
the 10th turned out to be a beautiful day. We spent an hour clearing
the huge drifts off our sledges, which were completely lost to sight.
As this was Sunday, I decided we would spend it in tidying up our
camp. Gran and I planted his sea-kale seed in the evening. He said the
Norwegians in Graham Land (West Antarctica) got large crops of this
succulent vegetable! I had my doubts, but it seemed worth trying.
Behind our camp was a huge cluster of granite rocks enclosing a small
cave. We collected some mossy soil and placed it in this hollow,
facing the noon sun. It seemed a bit wet and soggy, but Gran swore the
seedlings would be up in a week and edible in a month.
[Illustration: ‘Pulpit Rock’, the home of the Sea-Kale 17–1.12]
“The skuas are squawking like fussy ducks all round us, sometimes
cheeping like young chicks; but they don’t lay eggs, which is their
main duty now.”
All the moss, which formed a regular peaty layer an inch thick in some
of the gulleys, implied plenty of soakage. But it was a cold summer,
and we never found any drainage when we dug into the hollows.
Moreover, the blackened appearance of the moss made me sure that we
were not seeing it under favourable or even normal conditions.
A small discomfort, which was to bulk largely in the next few weeks,
began to trouble me. During the seal-killing and flensing I managed to
inflict eight cuts on my hands, all of which healed up in the pure
Polar air, with one exception. It was on the forefinger of my right
hand, and was beginning to fester badly. Gran was our self-constituted
doctor, though I’m bound to say that the stories he told of deathbeds
which he had attended on Norwegian ships were not at all reassuring.
Gravely he felt my pulse and armpit, and then said, “Do you feel pain
here?” I truthfully said “No!” “No blood-poisoning in that finger,”
said he. At any rate it rapidly became worse, and for days I could not
write, sketch, or photograph, while the pain prevented my sleeping at
night.
The first duty before us was to replace the flag on the rendezvous.
Gran decided it should be of a bolder pattern, and so he inserted a
white specimen bag in the middle of a black depôt flag, which made a
very showy standard indeed.
After lunch we marched across the bay just east of our camp. This
washed the beach where the moss grew, and in our exiled position it
was natural that Debenham and myself felt that there could be no
better name than Botany Bay for this inlet! The ice surface was in a
peculiarly unpleasant condition. A frozen layer of snow over a foot of
soft snow made walking exceptionally tiring. Flanking the Discovery
Bluff—as we called our rendezvous—was a tumbled scree of granite
blocks mingled with smaller talus and snow. Here, moreover, numerous
little rivulets were rushing down the chimneys scored in the face of
the bluff, so that there was plenty of variety about our walk.
We reached our flag sooner than I expected; in fact, we climbed up
right above it to nine hundred feet; and had to get down somewhat
circuitously, when a hurtling granite block warned us of precipitous
cliffs directly beneath. I found that our bamboo was as firm fixed as
ever, but it had snapped through like matchwood just at the surface.
The wind seemed to have blown _down_ the face of the Bluff, which was
a most unexpected direction. We mounted it again, after hacking off
four feet waste at the bottom. This fragment was to prove very useful
to us, for I carried it back to camp.
From this height we could still see nothing but solid ice. By means of
the formula—
Distance in miles = √(Height in feet)
it was possible to get some idea of the distance of the horizon. In
this case
D = √(500) = 23 miles,
so that the break up of the ice seemed far enough off. To the north by
Point Disappointment I could see the ugly patch of snow-slush which
had nearly engulfed Gran and myself.
We had a merry meal that evening, at which we decided to have a
sweepstake on the day of the arrival of the ship. But we could not
decide on the prize. We wanted lots of things at the moment, but they
would all be plentiful when we got aboard, and money was obviously of
no value. Finally Gran had a brilliant idea, and suggested that the
winner should have the _first bath_! Even this suggestion met with
disapproval, for some one pointed out that we should have no clean
things on board, and would be sledging for weeks after at Evans Coves,
and so might as well not have a bath at all!
Debenham and I continued our discussions on Tennyson and Browning. We
both preferred the latter, but Debenham used to try to prove that
Tennyson was the better poet. Gran would join in occasionally, and was
always ready to give an opinion on some debated stanza of Browning’s.
“What porridge had John Keats,” according to our Norwegian critic,
contained an abstruse reference to the gentleman’s brains! Poor Forde
was out of it in these discussions, and we used to discuss naval
matters as a change, for his benefit. But our Irish mate was
essentially a man of action, and was as far removed from a facile
speaker as any man I’ve met. “The Bishop orders his Tomb” was a poem
which had a fascination for me. Many a weary mile has passed
unnoticed, while I have memorized line after line of that somewhat
lugubrious poem.
On the 12th Gran found two skua eggs. The poor mothers seemed wet and
miserable, and Gran affirmed that the second was sitting in a nest
full of water, and seemed relieved to be free of her charge. We
collected a few every day from now onward. They are smaller than a
hen’s egg, and of a brown colour, with irregular black, tawny and buff
flecks irregularly scattered over the shell.
On this expedition we had more of the trouble with boots which we had
experienced early in the year. My “ironclads” had lasted splendidly.
The steel spikes and bars had protected the leather completely, and
only on the 14th did the first bar break off. For future work of this
description I should certainly use the heaviest and largest Alpine
boots, and that is the most valuable advice as to equipment that I can
offer to future Antarctic geologists.
[Illustration: Ironclad Boots for Antarctic Geologists, 15·10·11.]
I had been busy planning how to measure the velocity of the Mackay
Tongue. This flowed eastward between us and the Kar Plateau, so that
by sighting from our granite cape to a fixed point on the Kar Plateau
cliffs, I could fix very accurately a datum line. It only remained to
plant a mark on the moving glacier somewhere on this line, and our
investigation would be well started. Unfortunately we had nothing for
a mark. I thought of placing a seal carcase on the glacier; for stones
would sink into the ice in a very short time. Finally I used the butt
end of the flag pole from the Discovery Bluff. Here at last we found
the blubber-soot useful, for I used it as a paint to increase the
visibility of a swab of sealskin which I bound on the bamboo stake.
Gran and I marched across to the Tongue carrying the stake and the
theodolite. I never remember any hotter walk than that two miles. The
sun simply made the perspiration pour off us! However, one could
always sit down and have _glace au naturel_ to cool one. Personally, I
never felt any ill result from eating snow in the Antarctic, and all
our party quenched their thirst in this way.
[Illustration:
Looking north-west from Cape Geology, showing the granite cliffs of
the Kar Plateau (1000 feet) capped by dolerite. The latter enclosed
the granite “datum” whereby the movement of the Mackay Tongue was
measured.
]
We climbed up the Tongue without difficulty, but soon entered into a
region riddled with crevasses. They were parallel to the edge of the
tongue, and looked like relics of old lateral pressure rather than
crevasses due to present movement. They were difficult to cross,
especially as Gran’s boots were so slippery. We had to make a big
detour to get on to the transit line. Finally, I got the theodolite
set up, and sighted “fore and back,” until I got the cape and a crack
in the Kar Cliffs in transit with my station. Here we planted the
stake, and then returned _viâ_ the maze of crevasses to the camp.
[Illustration: Gran’s Bête Noire 15·12·11]
At first I could hardly see the stake from Cape Geology. The cold air
close to the ice surface is always flickering on a warm day and
mirages all objects; but soon I made it out at two miles through the
telescope, and I could see that we could readily measure a movement of
one foot a day.
By this time we had collected enough eggs to have a feast. We took the
precaution of frying them, and Forde and I tested them before cooking.
The whites are translucent and faintly bluish, and have very little
taste, but I don’t think we had much fault to find with them. It was
amusing to see Gran’s horror when a twelve-day chicken appeared in one
of the eggs. It was really an interesting discovery, for it showed
that the skuas commenced laying about the 4th of December. We could
not preserve the specimen, but I knew Dr. “Bill” would be interested,
and so I made a sketch of Gran’s _bête noire_. We had a splendid
seal-hoosh, tender, and flavoured with onion powder, and on top of
this was a fried egg for each of us. It was Forde’s _chef d’œuvre_,
and celebrated the close of his week of cooking.
For the purpose of my survey I laid out a base-line about a mile long
on the bay ice. From the known length of this, as measured by the
sledge-meter, and angles from the two ends it was, of course, possible
to determine the distance of any visible point. Each of these three
points forms a station to which others may be linked; and indeed, in
exactly this manner is a “triangulation” carried out.
On the 16th we started off to examine and survey the western coast of
the harbour. Here the Mackay Glacier entered the sea, chiefly by the
great tongue, but also by huge ice cliffs to the south, and by the new
glacier in the south-west corner. We headed for a striking cape which
projected from the glacier like a black hand stretched forth from a
snowy cuff of glacier. We called this promontory Cuff Cape.
[Illustration:
Sketch-map of region near the Devil’s Punch Bowl, December, 1911.
]
My finger was very painful, and the swelling now extended right
through my right hand. Luckily I could pull in harness as well as
ever, but for many nights I had no sleep, and I could do little or
nothing in the way of making records during the day.
However, I became a fairly expert writer with my left hand in the
course of time, but it was very galling to be incapacitated in almost
the most interesting part of our journey.
We camped on the ice-foot at Cuff Cape and scrambled up to see the
glacier behind. Like all the land hereabouts the rock was covered with
a layer of jumbled blocks of granite mixed up with gravel and clay.
The ice cliff was fifty feet high, and almost free from silt or rock.
Hence the debris on the cape surely marks the condition of the land
prior to the last advance of the glaciers. It is not rock crumbled _in
situ_, for I am sure that would be more in the form of a
gravel—moreover, erratics were common.
There was, of course, some moraine material, and a few perched blocks
especially along the north shore. In the bay near the Tongue the
latter had broken the bay ice into square cakes, evidently by the
pressure of the glacier; and the movement of the Tongue along the
stagnant ice of Cuff Cape had piled a rampart of ice on top of the
latter.
The hot sun acting on the ebony front of my camera had actually split
it! Luckily I discovered it in time, and no damage was done to my
photographs. Gran was very pleased at finding an insect on this cape,
and while we were examining this wild animal, he also discovered
“gold.” This latter, however, was only golden mica, though it quite
resembled the precious metal.
On the 18th we moved across to the next cape. This stood out boldly
with nearly vertical crags a thousand feet high bounding it on two
sides. It closely resembled in shape the sky-scraper called the “Flat
Iron,” and as it also had a flat top we gave it that name. We camped
on the south-east side at the foot of a chimney which led up to a
pretty little tarn. The summit was 1200 feet above the sea and was
covered with a wonderful variety of rocks.
Looking up the glacier to the west we could see a plateau of dead ice.
The moving glacier split on Mount Suess, and the greater part of the
ice entered the sea as the Mackay Tongue. A small amount flowed down
just south of the Flat Iron forming the “New Glacier” (see map, p.
376). In my opinion there is a tendency for greater erosion at the
edge of the ice, for here the sapping action in the “lateral moat” is
very active. In the centre of a glacier the only erosion is that due
to glacier planation, and as I have explained, very little of this is
taking place in Antarctica at present.
There was a marked descent from the top of the Flat Iron to the snow
plateau, and then a steep drop into the “Devil’s Punchbowl.” The
latter was a fascinating spot, and on the 20th we shifted camp so as
to examine it more closely.
We were encamped on a small beach beneath the rocky wall of the new
glacier, which we called the “Devil’s Ridge.” Probably the state of my
finger accounted for His Satanic Majesty’s frequent presence on the
map hereabouts. The Punch Bowl was an empty cwm or bowl-valley, which
had been eaten into the steep southern edge of the Flat Iron. Its
floor was below sea-level, and it would thus appear to indicate
subsidence, for we have no idea how the accepted methods of eroding
cwms (by “thaw and freeze” chiefly) could act _under_ water. The New
Glacier had very lately ceased to fall over the Devil’s Ridge into the
cwm. It is only six feet below the ridge, and there is a drop of five
hundred feet to the floor of the latter. In fact, thaw waters still
cross the ridge and flow through the debris and down into the cwm. It
is perfectly obvious that very little power is exercised by the “New
Glacier,” or it would have swept the Punch Bowl out of existence.
There was a little tarn held back by a large bank of snow near the top
of the ridge, and here Gran celebrated midsummer by a bathe! I envied
him, but could not follow suit owing to my disabled hand.
Across the bowl a small hanging glacier entered the cwm but did not
reach the sea-ice below. We called this the Dewdrop Glacier. It
terminated in a rhomb-shaped face which was three hundred feet above
the bay. In the bay itself was a great thickness of ice, and Debenham
and myself had many arguments as to its origin. He believed it was an
ancient relic of the Dewdrop Glacier; but I inclined to the belief
that it represented old floe ice jammed up the narrow bowl by sea-ice
from without. Gran and I ran a line of levels across it with the
theodolite, which showed that it was still afloat although in places
it rose many feet above the bay level.
We were running short of stores, so Gran and I marched back to our
headquarters. While I collected the stores he looked around for skua
eggs and soon found eight. The sea-kale did not show that verdant
growth which Gran had anticipated. However, he dug up one corner of
the “garden” and proudly showed me that one of the seeds was
sprouting!
Gran put the eggs in a tin to carry them to the Punch Bowl. For
security he carefully packed them; but as the tin was black and the
sun was hot his packing, consisting of snow, soon vanished! However,
we got the eggs safely to the others. Unfortunately five were bad, but
the others assisted the menu at our midsummer feast.
On the 22nd Gran and I explored the ridge and examined the Devil’s
Thumb. This knob is eight hundred feet above the bowl and is composed
of granite stiffened by porphyry dykes. Next day we spent some time
examining a huge enclosure of limestone caught up in the rocks forming
the Flat Iron. The crumpling and heat had turned the limestone into
marble, and along the junction with the granite many unusual minerals
had been formed. There were huge brown augites several inches long,
and large masses of natrolite, tremolite, and other similar minerals,
which filled Debenham’s petrological soul with joy.
We returned to Cape Geology on the 23rd of December. In our absence
the tide crack and pressure ridges had been torn wider by the pressure
of the Mackay Tongue on the sea-ice. However, we got ashore without
much difficulty by zigzagging along the torn edges of the crack (see
p. 369).
We found the floor of the hut inches deep in ice, which Forde cleared
out with the ice-axe. Meanwhile Gran was busy at the medical chest,
where the long names rather confused him. However, he seemed to
remember “aspirin” as a useful friend, and said it was suited to my
case. I swallowed some of the tabloids. Then he came across
“salicylate,” and apologetically remarked that the latter was what he
had been thinking of. So I tried them also. I was of the opinion
myself that my trouble was a combination of frostbite, blood-poisoning
and rheumatism, due primarily to an infected cut, and later to cold
and a diet of seal meat. However, on return to civilization I was
assured that I ought to have had my finger cut off, and that the bone
had been affected. Gran very willingly started operating on it with a
lancet; but I am thankful to say that I distrusted his powers as a
surgeon, with the result that now all is well.
On Christmas Day we roamed about Cape Geology collecting specimens and
skua eggs. I was pleased to see signs of intellect in two of the
skuas, for my observations of seals, penguins, and skuas left me
convinced of their stupidity. However, in one nest the bird had
dragged some moss from a patch a foot distant, and in another case
some quill feathers were arranged around the nest. All the other birds
nested anyhow and anywhere. A gully, where water often trickled down
on a specially hot day, was a favoured spot!
For lunch we cracked twenty-seven eggs, of which eight were edible.
Then we opened the Christmas bag and we found therein a small pudding
ready cooked and some caramels and ginger. Forde had rigged up the
flap again, and had raised the Irish flag on his own behalf. He cut
out a white harp from a linen specimen bag and sewed it on to a piece
of green burberry. The result was patriotic and striking. Gran’s
sledge flag was a beautiful piece of embroidery presented by Queen
Maud, and contained the Norwegian arms. Debenham’s and mine bore the
arms of our universities.
I had carved a spoon out of a piece of bamboo from the broken end of
our depôt flag, and Debenham used this as a lever to photograph our
group. This primitive arrangement took a lot of fixing, but he
obtained quite a successful picture finally.
A heavy sea fog rolled up that evening, and most of us suffered from
rheumatic pains. As a rule, we never caught cold while sledging,
though I remember a touch of influenza on one occasion. This freedom
from some of the minor ills of life speaks well for the purity of the
air in the Antarctic.
Debenham’s birthday is the 26th of December, and Gran had remembered
this fact and carried a packet of cigarettes from Cape Evans as a
present to him.
[Illustration:
THE FIRST WESTERN PARTY IN A NATURAL ICE-TUNNEL AMID THE PINNACLES OF
THE KOETTLITZ GLACIER.
Edgar Evans standing.
]
[Illustration:
THE SECOND WESTERN PARTY AT CAPE GEOLOGY, GRANITE HARBOUR, ON
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1911.
Forde and Gran standing, Debenham and Taylor sitting.
]
We walked along the flank of Mount England to explore the New Glacier
and to find a track to the Upper Mackay. Numerous couloirs or chimneys
grooved the steep face, and Gran and I climbed four hundred feet up
one of them. The snowline was about eight hundred feet up, and below
this was a tumbled pile of debris and granite blocks with a little
water running between. It was obvious that frost action was now
leading to a great deal of erosion; while at the head of the couloir
where the snow lay, less action was taking place. In short, true
glacier erosion (planation) was absent, and yet all round were
specimens of cwms in all stages of their evolution. Here a gully,
there a couloir somewhat deeper, on the Kar Cliffs a couloir cut into
a “half funnel” (p. 374); at the “Spillover” near by, a small bowl at
the back of the eroded notch, and along the mountain ridge (named
later after Gonville and Caius College), a series of giant cwms which,
in my opinion, originated in some small gully such as that I had just
climbed. At the foot of each of these deep couloirs was a delta or
debris fan.
We climbed up the steep face of the New Glacier just where it joined
the talus of the mountain slope. Higher up was a deep lateral gully
which had been dammed by debris, and contained a lake about a quarter
of a mile long. This was bounded by steep granite cliffs on the south,
which showed no sign of grooving by the glacier, but was breaking off
in “shells” owing to frost action.