Off again, we "plugged" away until midnight when we were much surprised

to find the usual snow surface merging into blue ice. The tent was

pitched on the latter, snow being procured from the bridge of a crevasse

as we had no pick: even the ice-axe having been left behind.

Turning out on the morning of the 10th, we were delighted to find the

sky clearing and the wind moderating. And then, far away on the northern

horizon a beautiful line of blue sea dotted with bergs!

We now officially considered ourselves to be twenty-seven miles from

the Hut. As we should not have met blue ice on the proper course till

we were only thirteen miles out, it was thought that we had edged a long

way to the east the day before. When a start was made, we manoeuvred to

the west in looking for a crossing-place at each crevasse.

It was not long before the bergs on the horizon were noticeably

enlarging, and at last we realized that in reality it was only a few

miles to them. Suddenly the grade increased, the ice becoming much

lacerated; and we had some trouble getting the sledge along. Hurley was

snow-blind and had one eye covered. He looked very comical feeling his

way over the crevasses, but he probably did not feel over-humorous.

I was in the lead, and suddenly coming over a ridge above a steep

ice-fall, I caught sight of the Mackellar Islets and the old "Piano"

berg. Just at the same instant the spur of ice on which I was standing

collapsed, and down I went into a crevasse. The others quickly had me

out, and, as soon as I was in the upper air, I gave them the news:

"There are the Islands!" Being twenty feet farther back on the rope they

had not yet seen them.

We were now able to place ourselves about three miles west of Aladdin's

Cave. The last camp must have been thirteen miles from the Hut, and we

had really done twenty-seven miles each day instead of our conservative

twenty.

We tried to work along to the east, but the ice was too much broken,

so the camp was made on a patch of snow. In view of our good fortune, I

produced that evening's ration of hoosh in addition to our usual lunch.

Even this meagre spree went against Hurley's feelings, for, being

snow-blind, he had not been able to see the islands and positively would

not believe that we were nearly home.

After lunch it was necessary to retrace our way upwind to get out of the

rough country. About midnight, Webb recognized Aladdin's Cave. Hurley

and I had a competition as to who should see it first, for I was also

getting a little blind again. We had a dead-heat at one hundred and

fifty yards.

The first thing to arrest our attention was a tin of dog biscuits. These

kept things going till we dug out a food tank from which was rapidly

extracted a week's supply of chocolate. After that we proceeded in a

happier frame of mind to open up the cave and have a meal.

The journey of more than six hundred miles was now practically over.

After a carousal lasting till 5 P.M. on the 11th, we went down hill,

arriving just after dinner and finding all well.

We three had never thought the Hut quite such a fine place, nor have we

ever since.

CHAPTER XV EASTWARD OVER THE SEA-ICE

by C. T. MADIGAN

Harnessed and girt in his canvas bands,

Toggled and roped to his load;

With helmeted head and bemittened hands,

This for his spur and his goad:

"Out in the derelict fastnesses bare

Some whit of truth may be won."

Be it a will o' the wisp, he will fare

Forth to the rising sun.

The Sledge Horse

The Eastern Coastal party consisted of Dr. A. L. McLean, P. E. Correll

and myself. For weeks all preparations had been made; the decking put

on the sledge, runners polished, cooker- and instrument-boxes attached,

mast erected, spar and sail rigged, instruments and clothing collected,

tent strengthened--all the impedimenta of a sledge journey arranged and

rearranged, and still the blizzard raged on. Would we never get away?

November arrived, and still the wind kept up daily averages of over

fifty miles per hour, with scarce a day without drifting snow.

At last it was decided that a start must soon be made even though it

ended in failure, so that we received orders to set out on November 6,

or the first possible day after it.

Friday November 8 broke, a clear driftless day, and Murphy's party left

early in the morning. By noon, Stillwell's party (Stillwell, Hodgeman

and Close), and we, were ready to start. The former were bound on a

short journey to the near east and were to support us until we parted

company.

All was bustle and excitement. Every one turned out to see us off.

Breaking an empty sauce-bottle over the bow of our sledge, we christened

it the M.H.S. Championship (Man-Hauled Sledge). The name was no

boastful prevision of mighty deeds, as, at the Hut, a "Championship" was

understood to mean some careless action usually occasioning damage to

property, while our party included several noted "champions."

Mertz harnessed a dog-team to the sledge and helped us up the first

steep slope. With hearty handshakes and a generous cheer from the other

fellows, we started off and were at last away, after many months of

hibernation in the Hut, to chance the hurricanes and drifting snow and

to push towards the unknown regions to the east.

At the steepest part of the rise we dismissed our helpers and said

good-bye. McLean and Correll joined me on the sledge and we continued on

to Aladdin's Cave.

As we mounted the glacier the wind increased, carrying surface drift

which obscured the view to within one hundred yards. It was this which

made us pass the Cave on the eastern side and pull up on a well-known

patch of snow in a depression to the south of our goal. It was not long

before a momentary clearing of the drift showed Aladdin's Cave with its

piles of food-tanks, kerosene, dog biscuit and pemmican, and, to our

dismay, a burberry-clad figure moving about among the accumulation.

Murphy's party were in possession when we expected them to be on the way

south to another cave--the Cathedral Grotto--eleven and three-quarter

miles from the Hut. Of course the rising wind and drift had stopped

them.

It was then 5 P.M., so we did not wait to discuss the evident

proposition as to which of the three parties should occupy the Cave,

but climbed down into it at once and boiled up hoosh and tea. Borrowing

tobacco from the supporting parties, we reclined at ease, and then in

that hazy atmosphere so dear to smokers, its limpid blue enhanced by the

pale azure of the ice, we introduced the subject of occupation as if it

were a sudden afterthought.

It was soon decided to enlarge the Cave to accommodate five men, the

other four consenting to squeeze into Stillwell's big tent. McLean

volunteered to join Stillwell's party in the tent, while Correll and I

were to stay in the Cave with Murphy and company.

I went outside and selected ten weeks' provisions from the pile of

food-tanks and piled them beside the sledge. McLean attended to the

thermograph which Bage and I had installed in the autumn. Meanwhile, in

a fifty-mile wind, Stillwell and his men erected the tent. Hunter and

Laseron started with picks and shovels to enlarge the Cave, and, working

in relays, we had soon expanded it to eight feet by seven feet.

The men from the tent came down to "high dinner" at eight o'clock. They

reported weather conditions unimproved and the temperature -3 degrees F.

Early next morning I dug my way out and found that the surface drift

had increased with a wind of fifty-five miles per hour. It was obviously

impossible to start.

After breakfast it was arranged that those outside should have their

meals separately, digging down at intervals to let us know the state

of the weather. It was not pleasant for us, congested as we were in the

Cave, to have visitors sliding down through the opening with a small

avalanche of snow in their train. Further, to increase their own

discomfort, they arrived covered in snow, and what they were unable

to shake off thawed and wet them, subsequently freezing again to the

consistency of a starched collar.

The opening was, therefore, kept partly closed with a food-tank. The

result was that a good deal of snow came in, while the hole diminished

in size. For a man to try to crawl out in stiff burberrys appeared as

futile as for a porcupine to try to go backwards up a canvas hose.

The day passed slowly in our impatience. We took turns at reading 'The

Virginian', warmed by a primus stove which in a land of plenty we could

afford to keep going. Later in the afternoon the smokers found that a

match would not strike, and the primus went out. Then the man reading

said that he felt unwell and could not see the words. Soon several

others commented on feeling "queer," and two in the sleeping-bags had

fallen into a drowsy slumber. On this evidence even the famous Watson

would have "dropped to it," but it was some time before it dawned on us

that the oxygen had given out. Then there was a rush for shovels.

The snow, ice and food-tank were tightly wedged, at the mouth of the

entrance, and it took some exertion to perforate through to the outside

air with an ice-axe. At once every one speedily recovered. Later,

another party had a worse experience, not forgetting to leave a warning

note behind them. We should have done the same.

The weather was no better by the evening, and during the night the

minimum thermometer registered -12 degrees F.

At six o'clock on Sunday morning, November 10, McLean dug down to us

with the news that the wind had abated to thirty miles per hour with

light surface drift.

We hurried through breakfast, rolled up the bags and started packing the

sledge. Three 100-lb. food-tanks, one 50-lb. bag opened for ready use,

and four gallons of kerosene were selected. Stillwell took for us a

50-lb. food-tank, a 56-lb. tin of wholemeal biscuits, and a gallon

of kerosene. With the 850 lbs. of food, 45 lbs. of kerosene, three

sleeping-bags of 10 lbs. each, a tent of 40 lbs., 86 lbs. of clothing

and personal gear for three men, a cooker, primus, pick, shovel,

ice-axe, alpine rope, dip-circle, theodolite, tripod, smaller

instruments such as aneroid, barometer and thermometer, tools, medical

outfit and sledge-fittings, our total load amounted to nearly 800 lbs.,

and Stillwell's was about the same.

All were ready at 9 A.M., and, shaking hands with Murphy's party, who

set off due south, we steered with Stillwell to the south-east. The

preliminary instructions were to proceed south-east from the Cave to a

distance of eighteen miles and there await the arrival of Dr. Mawson and

his party, who were to overtake us with their dogteams.

The first few miles gave a gradual rise of one hundred feet per mile,

so that, with a heavy load against wind and drift, travelling was very

slow. The wind now dropped to almost calm, and the drift cleared. In the

afternoon progress was hampered by crevasses, which were very frequent,

running east and west and from one to twenty feet in width. The wider

ones were covered with firm snow-bridges; the snow in places having

formed into granular and even solid ice. What caused most delay were the

detours of several hundreds of yards which had to be made to find a

safe crossing over a long, wide crevasse. At 6.30 P.M. we pitched camp,

having only made five miles from the Cave.

We got away at 9 A.M. the next morning. Throughout the whole journey

we thought over the same mysterious problem as confronted many another

sledger: Where did the time go to in the mornings? Despite all our

efforts we could not cut down the interval from "rise and shine" to the

start below two hours.

Early that day we had our first experience of the treacherous crevasse.

Correll went down a fissure about three feet wide. I had jumped across

it, thinking the bridge looked thin, but Correll stepped on it and went

through. He dropped vertically down the full length of his harness--six

feet. McLean and I soon had him out. The icy walls fell sheer for about

sixty feet, where snow could be seen in the blue depths. Our respect for

crevasses rapidly increased after this, and we took greater precautions,

shuddering to think of the light-hearted way we had trudged over the

wider ones.

At twelve miles, blue, wind-swept ice gave place to an almost flat snow

surface. Meanwhile the sky had rapidly clouded over, and the outlook was

threatening. The light became worse, and the sastrugi indistinguishable.

Such a phenomenon always occurs on what we came to call a "snow-blind

day." On these days the sky is covered with a white, even pall of cloud,

and cloud and plateau seem as one. One walks into a deep trench or a

sastruga two feet high without noticing it. The world seems one huge,

white void, and the only difference between it and the pitch-dark night

is that the one is white and the other black.

Light snow commenced at 2.30 P.M., the wind rising to forty-five miles

per hour with heavy drift. Thirteen miles out we pitched camp.

This, the first "snow-blind day" claimed McLean for its victim. By the

time we were under cover of the tent, his eyes were very sore, aching

with a throbbing pain. At his request I placed a zinc-cocaine tablet

in each eye. He spent the rest of the day in the darkness of his

sleeping-bag and had his eyes bandaged all next day. Up till then we had

not worn goggles, but were careful afterwards to use them on the trying,

overcast days.

For four and a half days the weather was too bad to travel. On the

14th the wind increased and became steady at sixty miles per hour,

accompanied by dense drifting snow. We found it very monotonous lying in

the tent. As always happens during heavy drifts, the temperature outside

was high, on this day averaging about 12 degrees F.; inside the tent it

was above freezing-point, and the accompanying thaw was most unpleasant.

Stillwell's party had pitched their tent about ten paces to the leeward

side of ours, of which stratagem they continually reminded us. Going

outside for food to supply our two small meals per day was an operation

fraught with much discomfort to all. This is what used to happen. The

man on whom the duty fell had to insinuate himself into a bundle of wet

burberrys, and, as soon as he was outside, they froze stiff. When, after

a while, he signified his intention of coming in, the other two would

collect everything to one end of the tent and roll up the floor-cloth.

Plastered with snow, he entered, and, despite every precaution, in

removing burberrys and brushing himself he would scatter snow about

and increase the general wetness. On these excursions we would visit

Stillwell's tent and be hospitably, if somewhat gingerly, admitted; the

inmates drawing back and pulling away their sleeping-bags as from one

with a fell disease. As a supporting party they were good company, among

other things, supplying us with tobacco ad libitum. When we parted, five

days after, we missed them very much.

During the night the wind blew harder than ever--that terrible wind,

laden with snow, that blows for ever across the vast, mysterious

plateau, the "wind that shrills all night in a waste land, where no one

comes or hath come since the making of the world." In the early hours of

the morning it reached eighty miles per hour.

Not till 9 next morning did the sky clear and the drift diminish.

Considering that it had taken us eight days to do thirteen miles, we

decided to move on the 16th at any cost.

Our library consisted of 'An Anthology of Australian Verse', Thackeray's

'Vanity Fair' and 'Hints to Travellers' in two volumes. McLean spent

much of the time reading the Anthology and I started 'Vanity Fair'. The

latter beguiled many weary hours in that tent during the journey. I read

a good deal aloud and McLean read it afterwards. Correll used to pass

the days of confinement arranging rations and costs for cycling

tours and designing wonderful stoves and cooking utensils, all on the

sledging, "cut down weight" principle.

On the 16th we were off at 9 A.M. with a blue sky above and a "beam"

wind of thirty-five miles per hour. Up a gentle slope over small

sastrugi the going was heavy. We went back to help Stillwell's party

occasionally, as we were moving a little faster.

Just after lunch I saw a small black spot on the horizon to the south.

Was it a man? How could Dr. Mawson have got there? We stopped and saw

that Stillwell had noticed it too. Field-glasses showed it to be a man

approaching, about one and a half miles away. We left our sledges in a

body to meet him, imagining all kinds of wonderful things such as the

possibility of it being a member of Wild's party--we did not know where

Wild had been landed. All the theories vanished when the figure assumed

the well-known form of Dr. Mawson. He had made a little more south than

we, and his sledges were just out of sight, about two miles away.

Soon Mertz and Ninnis came into view with a dog-team, which was

harnessed on to one sledge. All hands pulled the other sledge, and we

came up fifteen minutes later with Dr. Mawson's camp at eighteen and a

quarter miles. In the good Australian way we sat round a large pot of

tea and after several cups put up our two tents.

It was a happy evening with the three tents grouped together and the

dogs securely picketed on the great plateau, forming the only spot on

the limitless plain. Every one was excited at the prospect of the weeks

ahead; the mystery and charm of the "unknown" had taken a strange hold

on us.

Ninnis and Mertz came into our tent for a short talk before turning in.

Mertz sang the old German student song:

Studio auf einer Reis'

Immer sich zu helfen weis

Immer fort durch's Dick und Dunn

Schlendert es durch's Leben hin.

We were nearly all University graduates. We knew that this would be our

last evening together till all were safely back at the Hut. No thought

was farther from our minds than that it was the last evening we would

ever spend with two companions, who had been our dear comrades for just

a year.

Before turning into sleeping-bags, a messenger brought me dispatches

from the general's tent--a letter on the plateau. This proved to be the

instructions to the Eastern Coastal Party. Arriving back at the Hut by

January 15, we were to ascertain as much as possible of the coast lying

east of the Mertz Glacier, investigating its broad features and carrying

out the following scientific work: magnetic, biological and geological

observations, the character, especially the nature and size of the

grains of ice or snow surfaces, details of sastrugi, topographical

features, heights and distances, and meteorology.

On Sunday, November 17, we moved on together to the east with the wind

at fifteen miles an hour, the temperature being 9 degrees F. The sun

shone strongly soon after the start, and with four miles to our credit

a tent was run up at 1 P.M., and all lunched together on tea, biscuit,

butter and chocolate. Up to this time we had had only three al fresco

lunches, but, as the weather seemed to be much milder and the benefit of

tea and a rest by the way were so great, we decided to use the tent in

future, and did so throughout the journey.

In the afternoon, Dr. Mawson's party forged ahead, the dogs romping

along on a downhill grade. We took the bit in our teeth as we saw them

sitting on their sledges, growing smaller and smaller in front of us. We

came up with them again as they had waited to exchange a few more words

at a point on the track where a long extent of coast to the east came

into view.

Here we bade a final adieu to Dr. Mawson, Mertz and Ninnis. The surface

was on the down grade towards the east, and with a cheer and farewell

wave they started off, Mertz walking rapidly ahead, followed by Ninnis

and Dr. Mawson with their sledges and teams. They were soon lost to view

behind the rolling undulations.

A mile farther on we pitched camp at 8 P.M. in a slight depression just

out of sight of the sea. Every one slept soundly after a good day's

pulling.

November 18 was a bright dazzling day, the sky dotted with fleecy

alto-cumulus. At 6 A.M. we were out to find Stillwell's party moving in

their tent. There was a rush for shovels to fill the cookers with snow

and a race to boil hoosh.

At this camp we tallied up the provisions, with the intention of taking

what we might require from Stillwell and proceeding independently of

him, as he was likely to leave us any day. There were fifty-nine days to

go until January 15, 1913, the latest date of arrival back at the Hut,

for which eight weeks' rations were considered to be sufficient. There

were seven weeks' food on the sledge, so Stillwell handed over another

fifty-pound bag as well as an odd five pounds of wholemeal biscuit. The

total amount of kerosene was five gallons, with a bottle of methylated

spirit.

Shortly after eight o'clock we caught sight of Dr. Mawson's camp, and

set sail to make up the interval. This we did literally as there was

a light westerly breeze--the only west wind we encountered during the

whole journey.

The sledge was provided with a bamboo mast, seven feet high, stepped

behind the cooker-box and stayed fore and aft with wire. The yard was

a bamboo of six feet, slung from the top of the mast, its height being

varied by altering the length of the slings. The bamboo was threaded

through canvas leads in the floor-cloth which provided a spread of

thirty square feet of sail. It was often such an ample area that it had

to be reefed from below.

With the grade sloping gently down and the wind freshening, the pace

became so hot that the sledge often overran us. A spurious "Epic of the

East" (see 'Adelie Blizzard') records it:

Crowd on the sail-

Let her speed full and free "on the run"

Over knife-edge and glaze, marble polish and pulverized chalk

The finnesko glide in the race, and there's no time for talk.

Up hill, down dale,

It's all in the game and the fun.

We rapidly neared Dr. Mawson's camp, but when we were within a few miles

of it, the other party started in a south-easterly direction and were

soon lost to sight. Our course was due east.

At thirty-three and a half miles the sea was in sight, some fine

flat-topped bergs floating in the nearest bay. Suddenly a dark, rocky

nunatak sprang into view on our left. It was a sudden contrast after ten

days of unchanging whiteness, and we felt very anxious to visit this new

find. As it was in Stillwell's limited territory we left it to him.

According to the rhymester it was:

A rock by the way-

A spot in the circle of white-

A grey, craggy spur plunging stark through the deep-splintered ice.

A trifle! you say, but a glow of warm land may suffice

To brighten a day

Prolonged to a midsummer night.

After leaving Aladdin's Cave, our sledge-meter had worked quite

satisfactorily. Just before noon, the casting attaching the

recording-dial to the forks broke--the first of a series of break-downs.

Correll bound it up with copper wire and splints borrowed from the

medical outfit.

The wind died away and the sail was of little use. In addition to this,

we met with a slight up grade on the eastern side of the depression,

our rate diminishing accordingly. At 7 P.M. the tent was pitched in

dead calm, after a day's run of fifteen miles with a full load of almost

eight hundred pounds--a record which remained unbroken with us till near

the end of the outward journey. Looking back, the nunatak and bergs were

still visible.

Both parties were under way at 8 A.M. next day (November 19) on a calm

and sunny morning. The course by sun-compass was set due east.

At noon I took a latitude "shot" with the three-inch Cary theodolite.

This little instrument proved very satisfactory and was easily handled

in the cold. In latitude 67 degrees 15' south, forty-six and a half

miles east of the Hut, we were once more on level country with a high

rise to the north-east and another shallow gully in front.

A fog which had been moving along the sea-front in an opaque wall

drifted over the land and enveloped us. Beautiful crystals of ice in the

form of rosettes and small fern-fronds were deposited on the cordage of

the sail and mast. One moment the mists would clear, and the next, we

could not see more than a few hundred yards.

We now parted with Stillwell, Hodgeman and Close, who turned off to a

rising knoll--Mount Hunt--visible in the north-east, and disappeared in

the fog.

After the halt at noon the sastrugi became much larger and softer. The

fog cleared at 2 P.M. and the sun came out and shone very fiercely.

A very inquisitive skua gull--the first sign of life we had seen thus

far--flew around the tent and settled on the snow near by. In the calm,

the heat was excessive and great thirst attacked us all the afternoon,

which I attempted to assuage at every halt by holding snow in my

hands and licking the drops of water off my knuckles----a cold and

unsatisfactory expedient. We travelled without burberrys--at that time

quite a novel sensation--wearing only fleece suits and light woollen

undergarments. Correll pulled for the greater part of the afternoon in

underclothing alone.

At forty-nine and a half miles a new and wonderful panorama opened

before us. The sea lay just below, sweeping as a narrow gulf into the

great, flat plain of debouching glacier-tongue which ebbed away north

into the foggy horizon. A small ice-capped island was set like a pearl

in the amethyst water. To the east, the glacier seemed to fuse with the

blue line of the hinterland. Southward, the snowy slope rose quickly,

and the far distance was unseen.

We marched for three-quarters of a mile to where a steep down grade

commenced. Here I made a sketch and took a round of angles to all

prominent features, and the conspicuous, jutting, seaward points of

the glacier. McLean and Correll were busy making a snow cairn, six

feet high, to serve as a back-sight for angles to be taken at a higher

eminence southward.

We set out for the latter, and after going one and a half miles it was

late enough to camp. During the day we had all got very sunburnt, and

our faces were flushed and smarting painfully. After the long winter at

the Hut the skin had become more delicate than usual.

Under a clear sky, the wind came down during the night at forty-five

miles per hour, lashing surface drift against the walls of the tent. It

was not till ten o'clock that the sledge started, breaking a heavy trail

in snow which became more and more like brittle piecrust. There was

at first a slight descent, and then we strained up the eminence to the

south over high sastrugi running almost north and south. Capsizes

became frequent, and to extricate the heavy sledge from some of the deep

furrows it was necessary to unload the food-bags. The drift running

over the ground was troublesome when we sat down for a rest, but, in

marching, our heads were just clear of it.

It was a long laborious day, and the four miles indicated by the

inexorable sledge-meter seemed a miserable result. However, near the

top of the hill there was a rich reward. A small nunatak slanted like a

steel-blue shadow on the side of a white peak to the south-west. There

was great excitement, and the sledge slid along its tracks with new

life. It was rock without a doubt, and there was no one to dispute

it with us. While speculating wildly as to its distance, we came

unexpectedly to the summit of the hill.

The wind had subsided, the sky was clear and the sun stood low in the

south-west. Our view had widened to a noble outlook. The sea, a delicate

turquoise-blue, lay in the foreground of the low, white, northern

ice-cliffs. Away to the east was the dim suggestion of land across the

bed of the glacier, about which circled the southerly highlands of the

plateau, buried at times in the haze of distance. Due south, twenty

miles away, projecting from the glacier, was another island of rock.

The nunatak first seen, not many miles to the south-west, was a snowy

mountain streaked with sprouting rock, rising solitary in an indentation

of the land. We honoured our Ship by calling it Aurora Peak, while our

camp stood on what was thenceforth to be Mount Murchison.

It was obvious that this was the place for our first depot. I had

decided, too, to make it the first magnetic station and the point from

which to visit and explore Aurora Peak. None of us made any demur over

a short halt. Correll had strained his back during the day from pulling

too hard, and was troubled with a bleeding nose. My face was very sore

from sunburn, with one eye swollen and almost closed, and McLean's eyes

had not yet recovered from their first attack of snow-blindness.

November 21 was a day in camp. Most of the morning I spent trying, with

Correll's help, to get the declination needle to set. Its pivot had been

destroyed in transit and Correll had replaced it by a gramophone needle,

which was found too insensitive. There was nothing to do but use the

three-inch theodolite, which, setting to one degree, would give a good

result, with a mean of thirty-two settings, for a region with such

variable magnetic declination. A latitude "shot" was made at noon,

and in the afternoon I took a set of dip determinations. These, with a

panoramic sketch from the camp, a round of angles to conspicuous points

and an observation at 5.30 P.M. for time and azimuth completed the day's

work. Correll did the recording.

Meanwhile, McLean had built an eight-feet snow mound, erected a depot

flag upon it and taken several photographs.

The next day was devoted to an excursion to Aurora Peak. The weather

was, to our surprise, quite clear and calm. Armed with the paraphernalia

for a day's tour, we set off down the slope. Correll put the primus

stove and the inner pot of the cooker in the ready food-bag, McLean

slung on his camera and the aneroid barometer, while I took my ruck-sack

with the rations, as well as field-glasses and an ice-axe. In case of

crevasses, we attached ourselves to an alpine rope in long procession.

According to the "Epic" it was something like this:

We saddled up, adventure-bent;

Locked up the house--I mean the tent-

Took "grub" enough for three young men

With appetite to equal ten.

A day's outing across the vale.

Aurora Peak! What ho! All hail!

We waltzed a'down the silvered slope,

Connected by an Alpine rope;

"Madi" in front with ice-axe armed,

For fear that we should feel alarmed.

Glad was the hour, and--what a lark!

Explorers three? "Save the mark!"

The mystery of the nunatak was about to be solved. Apparently it rose

from the level of the glacier, as our descent showed its eastern flank

more clearly outlined. It was three miles to the bottom of the gully,

and the aneroid barometer registered one thousand one hundred and ninety

feet. The surface was soft and yielding to finnesko crampons, which sank

through in places till the snow gripped the knees.

Ascending on the other side we crossed a small crevasse and the peak

towered above us. The northern side terminated in a perpendicular face

of ice, below which a deep basin had been "scalloped" away; evidently

kept clear by eddies of wind. In it lay broken fragments of the

overhanging cliff. The rock was a wide, outcropping band curving steeply

to the summit on the eastern aspect.

After a stiff climb we hurried eagerly to the rock as if it were a mine

of inexhaustible treasure. The boulders were all weathered a bright red

and were much pitted where ferruginous minerals were leached out. The

rock was a highly quartzose gneiss, with black bands of schist running

through it. Moss and lichens were plentiful, and McLean collected

specimens.

The rocky strip was eighty feet wide and three hundred feet high, so,

making a cache of the primus, provisions and burberrys, we followed it

up till it became so steep that it was necessary to change to the snow.

This was in the form of hard neve with patches of ice. I went first,

cutting steps with the ice-axe, and the others followed on the rope. The

last ten of more than one hundred steps were in an almost vertical face,

which gave a somewhat precarious foothold.

At 11.30 A.M. we stood on the summit at an altitude of one thousand

seven hundred and fifty feet, while across the valley to the north-east

rose Mount Murchison, one hundred and fourteen feet higher. The top of

the ridge was quite a knife-edge, with barely space for standing. It

ran mainly north and south, dipping in the centre, to curve away sharply

westward to a higher eminence. At the bend was an inaccessible patch of

rock. The surrounding view was much the same at that on Mount Murchison.

The Union Jack and the Australian flag were erected on a bamboo, and

photographs taken. At the same time, low, threatening clouds rapidly

emerged from the southeast, covering the sun and creating the

"snow-blind" light. This was rather alarming as the climb had been

difficult enough under a clear sky, and the descent was certainly much

more difficult. So we hastily ate some chocolate and discussed the best

way down.

Prospecting to the north, in search of a long snow ramp which appeared

to run away in that direction, we scrambled down to the edge of a wide

snowy crevasse full of blue chinks.

Turning back, we considered the chances of sliding down a steep scoured

hollow to the west and finally decided to descend by the track we had

cut.

McLean started off first down the steps and was out of sight in a few

moments. When the rope tightened, Correll followed him and then I came

last. It was very ticklish work feeling for the steps below with one's

feet, and, as we signalled to one another in turn after moving a step,

it took more than an hour to reach a safe position on the rocks. With

every step I drove my axe into the ice, so that if the others had fallen

there would still have been a last chance.

There was no time to be wasted; light snow was falling with the prospect

of becoming thicker. In the gully the snowfall became heavy, limiting

the view to within a few hundred yards. We advanced up the hill in

what seemed to be the steepest direction, but circled half-way round it

before finding out that the course was wrong. Aimlessly trying to place

the broad flat summit I came across tracks in the snow, which were then

carefully followed and led to the tent. The wind was rising outside

and the hoosh in steaming mugs was eaten with extra relish in our snug

retreat.

Specimens were labelled to be deposed and provisions were arranged

for the rest of the journey. It was evident that we had superfluous

clothing, and so the weight of the kit-bags was scrupulously cut down.

By the time we crawled into sleeping-bags, everything dispensable was

piled alongside the depot-flag.

We slept the sleep of the weary and did not hear the flapping tent nor

the hissing drift. At 6 A.M. the wind was doing forty miles per hour and

the air was filled with snow. It must have been a new climate, for by

noon the sun had unexpectedly broken through, the wind was becoming

gusty and the drift trailed like scud over the surface.

With six weeks' food we set off on a new trail after lunch. The way

to the eastern glacier--Mertz Glacier--issued through the mouth of the

gully, which ran in an easterly direction between Aurora Peak and Mount

Murchison. On Mount Murchison ice-falls and crevasses began a short

distance east of our first line of descent, but yet I thought a slight

deviation to the east of south would bring us safely into the valley,

and, at the same time, cut off a mile. Alas! it proved to be one of

those "best-laid schemes."

The load commenced to glide so quickly as we were leaving the crest of

the mountain that Correll and McLean unhitched from the hauling line

and attached themselves by the alpine rope to the rear of the sledge,

braking its progress. I remained harnessed in front keeping the

direction. For two miles we were going downhill at a running pace and

then the slope became suddenly steeper and the sledge overtook me. I had

expected crevasses, in view of which I did not like all the loose rope

behind me. Looking round, I shouted to the others to hold back the

sledge, proceeding a few steps while doing so. The bow of the sledge was

almost at my feet, when--whizz! I was dropping down through space. The

length of the hauling rope was twenty-four feet, and I was at the end of

it. I cannot say that "my past life flashed before me." I just had time

to think "Now for the jerk--will my harness hold?" when there was a

wrench, and I was hanging breathless over the blue depth. Then the most

anxious moment came--I continued to descend. A glance showed me that the

crevasse was only four feet wide, so the sledge could not follow me, and

I knew with a thankful heart that I was safe. I only descended about

two feet more, and then stopped. I knew my companions had pulled up the

sledge and would be anchoring it with the ice-axe.

I had a few moments in which to take in my surroundings. Opposite to

me was a vertical wall of ice, and below a beautiful blue, darkening

to black in that unseen chasm. On either hand the rift of the crevasse

extended, and above was the small hole in the snow bridge through which

I had shot.

Soon I heard McLean calling, "Are you all right?" And I answered in

what he and Correll thought an alarmingly distant voice. They started

enlarging the hole to pull me out, until lumps of snow began to fall

and I had to yell for mercy. Then I felt they were hauling, and slowly I

rose to daylight.

The crevasse ran westward along the gully, forcing us to make a detour

through a maze of smaller cracks. We had to retreat up the hill in one

place, throwing off half the load and carrying it on in relays. There

was a blistering sun and the work was hard. At last the sledge came to

a clear run and tobogganed into the snow-filled valley, turning eastward

towards its outlet.

At the evening camp the sledge-meter indicated that our distance

eastward of the Hut was sixty miles, one thousand two hundred yards. The

northern face of the gully was very broken and great sentinel pillars

of ice stood out among the yawning caves, some of them leaning like

the tower of Pisa, others having fallen and rolled in shattered

blocks. Filling the vision to the south-west was Aurora Peak, in crisp

silhouette against a glorious radiant of cirrus cloud.

Reviewing the day through our peaceful smoke-rings, I was rather

comforted by the fact that the fall into the crevasse had thoroughly

tested my harness. Correll expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with

his test. McLean seemed to feel somewhat out of it, being the only one

without a crevasse experience; which happy state he maintained until the

end, apparently somewhat to his disappointment.

On the 24th we broke camp at 9 A.M., continuing down the gully towards

the glacier. A lofty wall of rocks, set within a frame of ice, was

observed on our left, one mile away. To it we diverged and found it to

be gneiss similar to that of Aurora Peak. Several photos were taken.

The land was at our back and the margin of the glacier had been crossed.

Only too soon we were in the midst of terribly crevassed ground, through

which one could only thread a slow and zig-zag course. The blue ice was

riven in every direction by gaping quarries and rose smooth and slippery

on the ridges which broke the surface into long waves. Shod with

crampons, the rear of the sledge secured by a tail-rope, we had a

trying afternoon guiding the load along the narrow ridges of ice with

precipices on either hand. Fortunately the wind was not above twenty

miles per hour. As the frivolous "Epic" had it:

Odds fish! the solid sea is sorely rent,

And all around we're pent

With quarries, chasms, pits, depressions vast,

Their snow-lids overcast.

A devious track, all curved and serpentine

Round snow-lids superfine.

On jutting brinks and precipices sheer

Precariously we steer.

We pushed on to find a place in which to camp, as there was scarcely

safe standing-room for a primus stove. At seventy miles the broken ice

gave way to a level expanse of hard sastrugi dotted all over with small

mounds of ice about four feet high. After hoosh, a friendly little

Wilson petrel came flying from the northern sea to our tent. We

considered it to be a good omen.

Next day the icy mounds disappeared, to be replaced by a fine, flat

surface, and the day's march amounted to eleven and a quarter miles.

At 11 A.M. four snow petrels visited us, circling round in great

curiosity. It is a cheerful thing to see these birds amid the lone,

inhospitable ice.

We were taking in the surroundings from our position off the land

scanning the far coast to the south for rock and turning round to

admire the bold contours of Aurora Peak and Mount Murchison at our back.

Occasionally there were areas of rubbly snow, blue ice and crevasses

completely filled with snow, of prodigious dimensions, two hundred to

three hundred yards wide and running as far as the eye could travel.

The snow filling them was perfectly firm, but, almost always along the

windward edge, probing with an ice-axe would disclose a fissure. This

part of the Mertz Glacier was apparently afloat.

The lucky Wilson petrel came again in the evening. At this stage the

daily temperatures ranged between 10 degrees F. and near freezing-point.

The greater part of November 26 was passed in the tent, within another

zone of crevasses. The overcast sky made the light so bad that it became

dangerous to go ahead. At 5.30 P.M. we started, and managed to do five

and a half miles before 8 P.M.

It was rather an eventful day, when across the undulating sastrugi there

appeared a series of shallow valleys running eastward. As the valleys

approached closer, the ground sloped down to meet them, their sides

becoming steeper, buckled and broken. Proceeding ahead on an easterly

course, our march came to an abrupt termination on an ice-bluff.

In front lay a perfectly flat snow-covered plain--the sea-ice. In point

of fact we had arrived at the eastern side of the Mertz Glacier and were

about fifteen miles north of the mainland. Old sea-ice, deeply covered

in snow, lay ahead for miles, and the hazy, blue coast sank below the

horizon in the south-east, running for a time parallel to the course we

were about to take. It was some time before we realized all this, but at

noon on the following day there came the first reminder of the proximity

of sea-water.

An Adelie penguin, skiing on its breast from the north, surprised us

suddenly by a loud croak at the rear of the sledge. As astonished as

we were, it stopped and stared, and then in sudden terror made off. But

before starting on its long trek to the land, it had to be captured and

photographed.

To the south the coast was marked by two faces of rock and a short, dark

spur protruding from beneath the ice-cap. As our friendly penguin had

made off in that direction, we elected to call the place Penguin Point,

intending to touch there on the return journey. During the afternoon

magnetic dips and a round of angles to the prominences of the mainland

were taken.

The next evidence on the sea-ice question came in the shape of a line

of broken slabs of ice to the north, sticking out of the snow like the

ruins of an ancient graveyard. At one hundred and fifteen miles the

line was so close that we left the sledge to investigate it, finding

a depression ten feet deep, through which wound a glistening riband of

sea-water. It reminded one of a creek in flat, Australian country, and

the illusion was sustained by a dark skua gull--in its slow flight much

like a crow. It was a fissure in old thick sea-ice.

Sunday, and the first day of December, brought good weather and a clear

view of the mainland. A bay opened to the east of Penguin Point, from

which the coast trended to the south-east. Across a crack in the sea-ice

we could just distinguish a low indented line like the glacier-tongue,

we had already crossed. It might have been a long promontory of land for

all we knew. Behind it was a continuous ice-blink and on our left, to

the north, a deep blue "water sky." It seemed worth while continuing on

an easterly course approximately parallel with the coast.

We were faced by another glacier-tongue; a fact which remained unproven

for a week at least. From the sea-ice on to the glacier--the Ninnis

Glacier--there was a gentle rise to a prominent knoll of one hundred and

seventy feet. Here our distance from the Hut amounted to one hundred and

fifty-two miles, and the spot was reckoned a good situation for the last

depot.

In taking magnetic observations, it was interesting to find that the

"dip" amounted to 87 degrees 44', while the declination, which had

varied towards the west, swung at this our most northerly station a few

degrees to the east. We were curving round the South Magnetic Pole. Many

points on the coast were fixed from an adjoining hill to which Correll

and I trudged through sandy snow, while McLean stayed behind erecting

the depot-mound, placing a food-bag, kerosene tin, black cloth and

miner's pick on the top.

With four weeks' provisions we made a new start to cross the Ninnis

Glacier on December 3, changing course to E. 30 degrees N., in great

wonderment as to what lay ahead. In this new land interest never

flagged. One never could foresee what the morrow would bring forth.

Across rolling "downs" of soft, billowy snow we floundered for

twenty-four miles, on the two following days. Not a wind-ripple could

be seen. We were evidently in a region of comparative calms, which was

a remarkable thing, considering that the windiest spot in the world was

less than two hundred miles away.

After several sunny days McLean and I had very badly cracked lips. It

had been often remarked at the Hut that the standard of humour greatly

depreciated during the winter and this caused McLean and me many a

physical pang while sledging, as we would laugh at the least provocation

and open all the cracks in our lips. Eating hard plasmon biscuits was a

painful pleasure. Correll, who was immune from this affliction, tanned

to the rich hue of the "nut-brown maiden."

On December 5, at the top of a rise, we were suddenly confronted with a

new vision--"Thalassa!" was our cry, "the sea!" but a very different sea

from that which brought such joy to the hearts of the wandering Greeks.

Unfolded to the horizon was a plain of pack-ice, thickly studded with

bergs and intersected by black leads of open water. In the north-east

was a patch of open sea and above it, round to the north, lowering banks

of steel-blue cloud. We had come to the eastern side of Ninnis Glacier.

At this point any analogy which could possibly have been found with

Wilkes's coastline ceased. It seems probable that he charted as land the

limits of the pack-ice in 1840.

The excitement of exploring this new realm was to be deferred. Even as

we raised the tent, the wind commenced to whistle and the air became

surcharged with snow. Three skua gulls squatted a few yards away,

squawking at our approach, and a few snow petrels sailed by in the

gathering blizzard.

Through the 6th, 7th and 8th and most of the 9th it raged, during which

time we came definitely to the conclusion that as social entertainers

we were complete failures. We exhausted all the reserve topics of

conversation, discussed our Universities, sports, friends and homes. We

each described the scenery we liked best; notable always for the sunny

weather and perfect calm. McLean sailed again in Sydney Harbour, Correll

cycled and ran his races, I wandered in the South Australian hills or

rowed in the "eights," while the snow swished round the tent and the

wind roared over the wastes of ice.

Avoiding a few crevasses on the drop to sea-level on December 10, the

sledge was manoeuvred over a tide-crack between glacier and sea-ice. The

latter was traversed by frequent pressure-ridges; hummocks and broken

pinnacles being numerous.

The next six days out on the broken sea-ice were full of incident. The

weather was gloriously sunny till the 13th, during which time the sledge

had to be dragged through a forest of pinnacles and over areas of soft,

sticky slush which made the runners execrable for hours. Ponds of open

water, by which basked a few Weddell seals, became a familiar sight. We

tried to maintain a south-easterly course for the coast, but miles were

wasted in the tortuous maze of ice--"a wildering Theban ruin of hummock

and serrac."

The sledge-meter broke down and gave the ingenious Correll a proposition

which he ably solved. McLean and I had a chronic weakness of the eyes

from the continual glare. Looking at the other two fellows with their

long protruding goggles made me think of Banquo's ghost: "Thou hast no

speculation in those eyes that thou dost glare with."

I had noticed that some of the tide-cracks had opened widely and, when

a blizzard blew on December 13, the thought was a skeleton in my brain

cupboard.

On the 15th an Emperor penguin was seen sunning himself by a pool of

water, so we decided to kill the bird and carry some meat in case of

emergency. McLean found the stomach full of fish and myriads of cestodes

in the intestines.

By dint of hard toil over cracks, ridges and jagged, broken blocks, we

came, by diverging to the south-west, to the junction between shifting

pack and fast bay-ice, and even there, we afterwards shuddered to find,

it was at least forty-five miles, as the penguin skis, to the land.

It was a fine flat surface on which the sledge ran, and the miles

commenced to fly by, comparatively speaking. Except for an occasional

deep rift, whose bottom plumbed to the sea-water, the going was

excellent. Each day the broken ice on our left receded, the mainland to

the south grew closer and traces of rock became discernible on the low,

fractured cliffs.

On December 17 a huge rocky bluff--Horn Bluff--stood out from the shore.

It had a ram-shaped bow like a Dreadnought battleship and, adjoining it,

there were smaller outcrops of rock on the seaward ice-cliffs. On

its eastern side was a wide bay with a well-defined cape--Cape

Freshfield--at the eastern extremity about thirty miles away.

The Bluff was a place worth exploring. At a distance of more than

fifteen miles, the spot suggested all kinds of possibilities, and in

council we argued that it was useless to go much farther east, as to

touch at the land would mean a detour on the homeward track and time

would have to be allowed for that.

At a point two hundred and seventy miles from the Hut, in latitude 68

degrees 18' S., longitude 150 degrees 12' E., we erected our "farthest

east" camp on December 18, after a day's tramp of eighteen miles. Here,

magnetic "dips" and other observations were made throughout the morning

of the 19th. It was densely overcast, with sago snow falling, but by

3 P.M. of the same day the clouds had magically cleared and the first

stage of the homeward journey had commenced.

CHAPTER XVI HORN BLUFF AND PENGUIN POINT

by C. T. MADIGAN

What thrill of grandeur ours

When first we viewed the column'd fell!

What idle, lilting verse can tell

Of giant fluted towers,

O'er-canopied with immemorial snow

And riven by a glacier's azure flow?

As we neared Horn Bluff, on the first stage of our homeward march, the

upper layers of snow were observed to disappear, and the underlying

ice became thinner; in corrugated sapphire plains with blue reaches of

sparkling water. Cracks bridged with flimsy snow continually let one

through into the water. McLean and I both soaked our feet and once I

was immersed to the thighs, having to stop and put on dry socks and

finnesko. It was a chilly process allowing the trousers to dry on me.

The mountain, pushing out as a great promontory from the coast amid the

fast sea-ice, towered up higher as our sledge approached its foot. A

great shadow was cast on the ice, and, when more than a mile away, we

left the warm sunshine.

Awed and amazed, we beheld the lone vastness of it all and were mute.

Rising out of the flat wilderness over which we had travelled was a

mammoth vertical barrier of rock rearing its head to the skies above.

The whole face for five miles was one magnificent series of organ-pipes.

The deep shade was heightened by the icy glare beyond it. Here was

indeed a Cathedral of Nature, where the "still, small voice" spoke amid

an ineffable calm.

Far up the face of the cliff snow petrels fluttered like white

butterflies. It was stirring to think that these majestic heights had

gazed out across the wastes of snow and ice for countless ages,

and never before had the voices of human beings echoed in the great

stillness nor human eyes surveyed the wondrous scene.

From the base of the organ-pipes sloped a mass of debris; broken blocks

of rock of every size tumbling steeply to the splintered hummocks of the

sea-ice.

Standing out from the top of this talus-slope were several white

"beacons," up to which we scrambled when the tent was pitched. This

was a tedious task as the stones were ready to slide down at the

least touch, and often we were carried down several yards by a general

movement. Wearing soft finnesko, we ran the risk of getting a crushed

foot among the large boulders. Amongst the rubble were beds of clay, and

streams of thaw-water trickled down to the surface of a frozen lake.

After rising two hundred feet, we stood beneath the beacons which loomed

above to a height of one hundred and twenty-eight feet. The organ-pipes

were basaltic** in character but, to my great joy, I found the beacons

were of sedimentary rock. After a casual examination, the details were

left till the morrow.

** To be exact the igneous rook was a very thick sill of dolerite,

That night we had a small celebration on raisins, chocolate and

apple-rings, besides the ordinary fare of hoosh, biscuit and cocoa.

Several times we were awakened by the crash of falling stones. Snow

petrels had been seen coming home to their nests in the beacons, which

were weathered out into small caves and crannies. From the camp we could

hear their harsh cries.

The scene in the morning sun was a brilliant one. The great columnar

rampart ran almost north and south and the tent was on its eastern

side. So what was in dark shadow on the day before was now radiantly

illumined.

Correll remained behind on the sea-ice with a theodolite to take heights

of the various strata. McLean and I, armed with aneroid, glasses,

ruck-sack, geological hammer (ice-axe) and camera, set out for the foot

of the talus-slope.

The beacons were found to be part of a horizontal, stratified series

of sandstones underlying the igneous rock. There were bands of coarse

gravel and fine examples of stream-bedding interspersed with seams of

carbonaceous shale and poor coal. Among the debris were several pieces

of sandstone marked by black, fossilized plant-remains. The summits

of the beacons were platforms of very hard rock, baked by the volcanic

overflow. The columns, roughly hexagonal and weathered to a dull-red,

stood above in sheer perpendicular lines of six hundred and sixty feet

in altitude.

After taking a dozen photographs of geological and general interest and

stuffing the sack and our pockets with specimens, we picked a track down

the shelving talus to a lake of fresh water which was covered with a

superficial crust of ice beneath which the water ran. The surface was

easily broken and we fetched the aluminium cover of the cooker, filling

it with three gallons of water, thus saving kerosene for almost a day.

After McLean had collected samples of soil, lichens, algae and moss, and

all the treasures had been labelled, we lunched and harnessed-up once

more for the homeward trail.

For four miles we ran parallel to the one-thousand-foot wall of Horn

Bluff meeting several boulders stranded on the ice, as well as the

fragile shell of a tiny sea-urchin. The promontory was domed with snow

and ice, more than one thousand two hundred feet above sea-level. From

it streamed a blue glacier overflowing through a rift in the face. Five

miles on our way, the sledge passed from frictionless ice to rippled

snow and with a march of seven miles, following lunch, we pitched camp.

Every one was tired that night, and our prayer to the Sleep Merchant in

the book of Australian verse was for:

Twenty gallons of balmy sleep,

Dreamless, and deep, and mild,

Of the excellent brand you used to keep

When I was a little child.

For three days, December 22, 23 and 24, the wind soughed at thirty miles

per hour and the sky was a compact nimbus, unveiling the sun at rare

moments. Through a mist of snow we steered on a north-west course

towards the one-hundred-and-fifty-two mile depot. The wind was from the

south-east true, and this information, with hints from the sun-compass,

gave us the direction. With the sail set, on a flat surface, among

ghostly bergs and over narrow leads we ran for forty-seven miles with

scarce a clear view of what lay around. The bergs had long ramps of snow

leading close up to their summits on the windward side and in many cases

the intervals between these ramps and the bergs were occupied by deep

moats.

One day we were making four knots an hour under all canvas through thick

drift. Suddenly, after a gradual ascent, I was on the edge of a moat,

thirty feet deep. I shouted to the others and, just in time, the sledge

was slewed round on the very brink.

We pushed on blindly:

The toil of it none may share;

By yourself must the way be won

Through fervid or frozen air

Till the overland journey's done.

Christmas Day! The day that ever reminds one of the sweet story of old,

the lessons of childhood, the joys of Santa Claus--the day on which the

thoughts of the wildest wanderer turn to home and peace and love. All

the world was cheerful; the sun was bright, the air was calm. It was

the hometrail, provisions were in plenty, the sledge was light and our

hearts lighter.

The eastern edge of Ninnis Glacier was near, and, leaving the sea-ice,

we were soon straining up the first slope, backed by a line of ridges

trending north-east and south-west, with shallow valleys intervening. On

the wind-swept crests there were a few crevasses well packed with snow.

It was a day's work of twelve miles and we felt ready for Christmas

dinner. McLean was cook and had put some apple-rings to soak in the

cooker after the boil-up at lunch. Beyond this and the fact that he

took some penguin-meat into the tent, he kept his plans in the deepest

mystery. Correll and I were kept outside making things snug and taking

the meteorological observations, until the word came to enter. When at

last we scrambled in, a delicious smell diffused through the tent, and

there was a sound of frying inside the cooker-pot. We were presented

with a menu which read:

"Peace on earth, good will to men."

Xmas 1912 KING GEORGE V. LAND

200 miles east of Winter Quarters.

MENU DU DINER

Hors d'oeuvre

Biscuit de plasmon Ration du lard glace

Entree

Monsieur l'Empereur Pingouin fricasse

Piece de Resistance

Pemmican naturel a l'Antarctique

Dessert

Hotch-potch de pommes et de raisins

Chocolat au sucre glaxone

Liqueur bien ancienne de l'Ecosse

Cigarettes Tabac

The hors d'oeuvre of bacon ration was a welcome surprise. McLean had

carried the tin unknown to us up till this moment. The penguin, fried

in lumps of fat taken from the pemmican, and a little butter, was

delicious. In the same pot the hoosh was boiled and for once we noted

an added piquancy. Next followed the plum-pudding--dense mixture of

powdered biscuit, glaxo, sugar, raisins and apple-rings, surpassing the

finest, flaming, holly-decked, Christmas creation.

Then came the toasts. McLean produced the whisky from the medical kit

and served it out, much diluted, in three mugs. There was not three

ounces in all, but it flavoured the water.

I was asked to call "The King." McLean proposed "The Other Sledgers" in

a noble speech, wishing them every success; and then there were a

few drops left to drink to "Ourselves," whom Correll eulogized to our

complete satisfaction. We then drew on the meagre supply of cigarettes

and lay on our bags, feeling as comfortable as the daintiest epicure

after a twelve-course dinner, drinking his coffee and smoking his cigar.

We talked till twelve o'clock, and then went outside to look at the

midnight sun, shining brightly just above the southern horizon. Turning

in, we were once more at home in our dreams.

By a latitude shot at noon on Boxing Day, I found that our position

was not as far north as expected. The following wind had been probably

slightly east of south-east and too much westing had been made. From

a tangle of broken ridges whose surface was often granular,

half-consolidated ice, the end of the day opened up a lilac plain of

sea-ice ahead. We were once more on the western side of Ninnis Glacier

and the familiar coast of Penguin Point, partly hidden by an iceberg,

sprang into view. The depot hill to the north-west could be recognized,

twenty miles away, across a wide bay. By hooch-time we had found a

secure path to the sea-ice, one hundred and eighty feet below.

The wind sprang up opportunely on the morning of the 27th, and the sun

was serene in a blue sky. Up went the sail and with a feather-weight

load we strode off for the depot eighteen miles distant. Three wide

rifts in the sea-ice exercised our ingenuity during the day's march, but

by the time the sun was in the south-west the sledge was sawing through

the sandy snow of the depot hill. It was unfortunate that the food of

this depot had been cached so far out of our westerly course, as the

time expended in recovering it might have been profitably given to

a survey of the mainland east of Penguin Point. At 6.20 P.M., after

eighteen and a quarter miles, the food-bag was sighted on the mound, and

that night the dinner at our one-hundred-and-fifty-two-mile depot was

marked by some special innovations.

Penguin Point, thirty miles away, bore W. 15 degrees S., and next day

we made a bid for it by a march of sixteen miles. There was eleven days'

ration on the sledge to take us to Mount Murchison, ninety miles away;

consequently the circuitous route to the land was held to be a safe

"proposition."

Many rock faces became visible, and I was able to fix numerous prominent

points with the theodolite.

At three miles off the coast, the surface became broken by ridges, small

bergs and high, narrow cupolas of ice surrounded by deep moats. One of

these was very striking. It rose out of a wind-raked hollow to a height

of fifty feet; just the shape of an ancient Athenian helmet. McLean took

a photograph.

As at Horn Bluff, the ice became thinner and freer of snow as we drew

near the Point. The rocky wall under which the tent was raised proved to

be three hundred feet high, jutting out from beneath the slopes of ice.

From here the coast ran almost south on one side and north-west on the

other. On either hand there were dark faces corniced with snow.

The next day was devoted to exploration. Adelie penguins waddled about

the tide-crack over which we crossed to examine the rock, which was of

coarse-grained granite, presenting great, vertical faces. Hundreds of

snow petrels flew about and some stray skua gulls were seen.

Near the camp, on thick ice, were several large blocks of granite which

had floated out from the shore and lay each in its pool of thaw-water,

covered with serpulae and lace coral.

Correll, our Izaak Walton, had brought a fishing-line and some

penguin-meat. He stopped near the camp fishing while McLean and I

continued down the coast, examining the outcrops. The type of granite

remained unchanged in the numerous exposures.

I had noticed a continuous rustling sound for some time and found at

length that it was caused by little streams of ice-crystals running

down the steep slopes in cascades, finally pouring out in piles on the

sea-ice. The partial thaw in the sunlight causes the semi-solid ice to

break up into separate grains. Sometimes whole areas of the surface, in

delicate equilibrium, would suddenly flow rapidly away.

For three miles we walked, and as the next four miles of visible coast

presented no extensive outcrops, we turned back for lunch.

During the afternoon, on the summit of the Point, it was found that an

uneven rocky area, about a quarter of a mile wide, ran backwards to the

ice-falls of the plateau. The surface was very broken and weathered,

covered in patches by abundant lichens and mosses. Fossicking round

in the gravel, Correll happened on some tiny insect-like mites living

amongst the moss or on the moist under side of slabs of stone. This set

us all insect-hunting. Alcohol was brought in a small bottle from the

tent, and into this they were swept in myriads with a camel's-hair

brush. From the vantage-point of a high rock in the neighbourhood the

long tongue of Mertz Glacier could be seen running away to the north.

At 8.30 A.M., on New Year's Eve, we set off for another line of rocks

about four miles away to the west. There were two masses forming an

angle in the ice-front and consisting of two main ridges rising to a

height of two hundred and fifty feet, running back into the ice-cap for

a mile, and divided by a small glacier.

This region was soon found to be a perfect menagerie of life. Seals lay

about dozing peacefully by the narrow lanes of water. Adelie penguins

strutted in procession up and down the little glacier. To reach his

rookery, a penguin would leap four feet on to a ledge of the ice-foot,

painfully pad up the glassy slope and then awkwardly scale the rocks

until he came to a level of one hundred and fifty feet. Here he took

over the care of a chick or an egg, while the other bird went to fish.

Skua gulls flew about, continually molesting the rookeries. One area of

the rocks was covered by a luxuriant growth of green moss covering guano

and littered skeletons--the site of a deserted rookery.

Correll and I went up to where the ridges converged, selecting numerous

specimens of rock and mineral and finding thousands of small red mites

in the moist gravel. Down on the southern ridge we happened on a Wilson

petrel with feathered nestlings. At this point McLean came along from

the west with the news of silver-grey petrels and Cape pigeons nesting

in hundreds. He had secured two of each species and several eggs. This

was indeed a discovery, as the eggs of the former birds had never before

been found. Quite close to us were many snow petrels in all kinds of

unexpected crevices. The light was too dull for photographing, but,

while I took magnetic "dips" on the following morning, McLean visited

the silver-grey petrels and Cape pigeons and secured a few "snaps."

The last thing we did before leaving the mainland was to kill two

penguins and cut off their breasts and this meat was, later, to serve us

in good stead.

Crossing the Mertz Glacier at any time would have been an unpleasant

undertaking, but to go straight to Mount Murchison (the site of our

first depot on the outward journey) from Penguin Point meant spanning it

in a long oblique line. It was preferable to travel quickly and safely

over the sea-ice on a north-westerly course, which, plotted on the

chart, intersected our old one-hundred-mile camp on the eastern margin

of the glacier; then to cross by the route we already knew.

By January 2 we had thrown Penguin Point five miles behind, and a spell

of unsettled weather commenced; in front lay a stretch of fourteen miles

over a good surface. The wind was behind us, blowing between thirty and

forty miles per hour, and from an overcast sky light snow was falling.

Fortunately there were fleeting glimpses of the sun, by which the course

could be adjusted. Towards evening the snow had thickened, but thanks to

the splendid assistance afforded by a sail, the white jutting spurs of

the edge of Mertz Glacier were dimly visible.

A blizzard took possession of the next day till 7 P.M., when we

all sallied out and found the identical gully in which was the

one-hundred-mile camp of the outward journey. The light was still bad

and the sky overcast, so the start was postponed till next morning.

There was food for five days on a slightly reduced ration and the depot

on Mount Murchison was forty miles away.

Once we had left the sea-ice and stood on the glacier, Aurora Peak with

its black crest showed through the glasses. Once there, the crevasses we

most dreaded would be over and the depot easily found.

A good fourteen and a quarter miles slipped by on January 4--a fine day.

On January 5 the "plot began to thicken." The clouds hung above like a

blanket, sprinkling light snow. The light was atrocious, and a few open

rents gave warning of the western zone of pitfalls. All the while there

was a shifting spectral chaos of whiteness which seemed to benumb the

faculties and destroy one's sense of reality. We decided to wait for a

change in the weather.

During the night the snow ceased, and by lunch time on the 6th the

sledge-meter recorded ten miles. The strange thing was that the firm

sastrugi present on the outward journey were now covered inches in snow,

which became deeper as we marched westward.

It was now a frequent occurrence for one of us to pitch forward with his

feet down a hidden crevasse, sometimes going through to the waist. The

travelling was most nerve-racking. When a foot went through the crust

of snow, it was impossible to tell on which side of the crevasse one

happened to be, or in what direction it ran. The only thing to do was to

go ahead and trust in Providence.

At last we landed the sledge on a narrow ridge of hard snow, surrounded

by blue, gaping pits in a pallid eternity of white. It was only when the

tent was pitched that a wide quarry was noticed a few yards away from

the door.

It was now fourteen miles to the top of Mount Murchison and we had only

two more days' rations and one and a half pounds of penguin-meat.

On January 7th the light was worse than ever and snow fell. It was only

six miles across the broken country between us and the gully between Mt.

Murchison and Aurora Peak, where one could travel with some surety.

A sharp look-out was kept, and towards 11 P.M. a rim of clear sky

overtopped the southern horizon. We knew the sun would curve round into

it at midnight, so all was made ready for marching.

When the sun's disc emerged into the rift there was light; but dim, cold

and fleeting. The smallest irregularity on the surface threw a

shadow hundreds of yards long. The plain around was a bluish-grey

checquer-board of light and shade; ahead, sharp and clear against the

leaden sky, stood beautiful Aurora Peak, swathed in lustrous gold--the

chariot of the goddess herself. The awful splendour of the scene tended

to depress one and make the task more trying. I have never felt

more nervous than I did in that ghostly light in the tense silence,

surrounded by the hidden horror of fathomless depths. All was covered

with a uniform layer of snow, growing deeper and heavier at every step.

I was ahead and went through eight times in about four miles. The

danger lay in getting the sledge and one, two, or all of us on a weak

snow-bridge at the same time. As long as the sledge did not go down we

were comparatively safe.

At 1.30 A.M. the sun was obscured and the light waned to dead white.

Still we went on, as the entrance of the gully between Aurora Peak

and Mount Murchison was near at hand and we had a mind to get over the

danger-zone before a snowstorm commenced.

By 5.30 A.M. we breathed freely on "terra firma," even though one sunk

through a foot of snow to feel it. It had taken six hours to do the last

five and three-quarter miles, and, being tired out with the strain on

muscles and nerves, we raised the tent, had a meal, and then slept till

noon on the 8th. It was eight miles to the depot, five miles up the

gully and three miles to the summit of Mount Murchison; and no one

doubted for a moment that it could not be done in a single day's march.

Advancing up the gully after lunch, we found that the surface became

softer, and we were soon sinking to the knees at every step. The

runners, too, sank till the decking rested on the snow, and it was as

much as we could do to shift the sledge, with a series of jerks at every

step. At 6 P.M. matters became desperate. We resolved to make a depot of

everything unnecessary, and to relay it up the mountain afterwards.

The sledge-meter, clogged with snow and almost submerged, was taken

off and stood up on end to mark a depot, whilst a pile was made of the

dip-circle, theodolite and tripod, pick, alpine rope, ice-axe, all the

mineral and biological specimens and excess clothing.

Even thus lightened, we could scarcely move the sledge, struggling on,

sinking to the thighs in the flocculent deluge. Snow now began to fall

so thickly that it was impossible to see ahead.

At 7 P.M. we finished up the last scraps of pemmican and cocoa. Biscuit,

sugar and glaxo had given out at the noon meal. There still remained one

and a half pounds of penguin meat, several infusions of tea and plenty

of kerosene for the primus.

We staggered on till 10.30 P.M., when the weather became so dense that

the sides of the gully were invisible. Tired out, we camped and had some

tea. In eight hours we had only made four and a half miles, and there

was still the worst part to come.

In our exhausted state we slept till 11 P.M. of January 9, awaking to

find the sky densely overcast and a light fog in the air. During a rift

which opened for a few minutes there was a short glimpse of the rock on

Aurora Peak. Shredding half the penguin-meat, we boiled it up and found

the stew and broth excellent.

At 1.30 A.M. we started to struggle up the gully once more, wading along

in a most helpless fashion, with breathing spells every ten yards or

less. Snow began to fall in such volume that at last it was impossible

to keep our direction with any certainty. The only thing to do was to

throw up the tent as a shelter and wait. This we did till 4.30 A.M.; but

there must have been a cloud-burst, for the heavy flakes toppled on to

the tent like tropical rain. We got into sleeping-bags, and tried to be

patient and to forget that we were hungry.

Apparently, during our seven weeks' absence, the local precipitation had

been almost continual, and snow now lay over this region in stupendous

amount. Even when one sank three feet, it was not on to the firm

sastrugi over which we had travelled out of the valley on the outward

journey, for these lay still deeper. It was hoped that the "snowdump"

did not continue over the fifty miles to the Hut, but we argued that on

the windy plateau this could scarcely be possible.

It was evident that without any more food, through this bottomless,

yielding snow, we could never haul the sledge up to the depot, a rise of

one thousand two hundred feet in three miles. One of us must go up and

bring food back, and I decided to do so as soon as the weather cleared.

We found the wait for clearer weather long and trying with empty

stomachs. As the tobacco-supply still held out, McLean and I found great

solace in our pipes. All through the rest of the day and till 5 P.M. of

the next, January 10, there was not a rift in the opaque wall of flakes.

Then to our intense relief the snow stopped, the clouds rolled to

the north, and, in swift transformation--a cloudless sky with bright

sunshine! With the rest of the penguin-meat--a bare half-pound--we had

another thin broth. Somewhat fortified, I took the food-bag and shovel,

and left the tent at 5.30 A.M.

Often sinking to the thighs, I felt faint at the first exertion. The

tent scarcely seemed to recede as I toiled onwards towards the first

steep slope. The heavy mantle of snow had so altered the contours of the

side of the gully that I was not sure of the direction of the top of the

mountain.

Resting every hundred yards, I floundered on hour after hour, until, on

arriving at a high point, I saw a little shining mound standing up on

a higher point, a good mile to the east. After seven hours' wading I

reached it and found that it was the depot.

Two feet of the original eight-foot mound projected above the surface,

with the bamboo pole and a wire-and-canvas flag rising another eighteen

inches. On this, a high isolated mountain summit, six feet of snow had

actually accumulated. How thankful I was that I had brought a shovel!

At seven feet I "bottomed" on the hard snow, without result. Then,

running a tunnel in the most probable direction, I struck with the

shovel the kerosene tin which was on the top of the food-bag. On opening

the bag, the first items to appear were sugar, butter and biscuits; the

next quarter of an hour I shall not forget!

I made a swag of five days' provisions, and, taking a direct route,

attacked the three miles downhill in lengths of one hundred and fifty

yards. Coming in sight of the tent, I called to my companions to thaw

some water for a drink. So slow was progress that I could speak to them

a quarter of an hour before reaching the tent. I had been away eleven

and a half hours, covering about seven miles in all.

McLean and Correll were getting anxious about me. They said that they

had felt the cold and were unable to sleep. Soon I had produced the

pemmican and biscuit, and a scalding hoosh was made. The other two

had had only a mug of penguin broth each in three days, and I had only

broken my fast a few hours before them.

After the meal, McLean and Correll started back to the cache, two

miles down the gully, to select some of the geological and biological

specimens and to fetch a few articles of clothing. The instruments,

the greater part of the collection of rocks, crampons, sledge-meter and

other odds and ends were all left behind. Coming back with the loads

slung like swags they found that by walking in their old footsteps they

made fair progress.

By 8 P.M. all had rested, every unnecessary fitting had been stripped

off the sledge and the climb to the depot commenced. I went ahead in my

old trail, Correll also making use of it; while McLean broke a track for

himself. The work was slow and heavy; nearly six hours were spent doing

those three miles.

It was a lovely evening; the yellow sun drifting through orange

cloudlets behind Aurora Peak. We were in a more appreciative mood than

on the last midnight march, exulting in the knowledge of ten days'

provisions at hand and fifty-three miles to go to reach the Hut.

In the manner of the climate, a few wisps of misty rack came sailing

from the south-east, the wind rose, snow commenced to fall and a

blizzard held sway for almost three days. It was just as well that we

had found that depot when we did.

The fifty-three miles to the Hut melted away in the pleasures of

anticipation. The first two miles, on the morning of January 14, gave us

some strenuous work, but they were luxurious in comparison with what we

expected; soon, however, the surface rapidly and permanently improved. A

forty-mile wind from the south-east was a distinct help, and by the end

of the day we had come in sight of the nunatak first seen after leaving

the Hut (Madigan Nunatak).

In two days forty miles lay behind. Down the blue ice-slopes in slippery

finnesko, and Aladdin's Cave hove in sight. We tumbled in, to be

assailed by a wonderful odour which brought back orchards, shops,

people--a breath of civilization. In the centre of the floor was a pile

of oranges surmounted by two luscious pineapples. The Ship was in! There

was a bundle of letters--Bage was back from the south--Wild had been

landed one thousand five hundred miles to the west--Amundsen had reached

the Pole! Scott was remaining in the Antarctic for another year. How we

shouted and read all together!

CHAPTER XVII WITH STILLWELL'S AND BICKERTON'S PARTIES

Leaving Madigan's party on November 19, when forty-six miles from the

Hut, Stillwell, Hodgeman and Close of the Near-Eastern Party diverged

towards a dome-shaped mountain--Mount Hunt. A broad valley lay

between their position on the falling plateau and this eminence to the

north-east. Looking across, one would think that the depression was

slight, but the party found by aneroid that their descent was one

thousand five hundred feet into a gully filled with soft, deep snow.

After skimming the polished sastrugi of the uplands, the sledge ran

heavily in the yielding drifts. Then a gale of wind rose behind them

just as the ascent on the other side commenced, and was a valuable aid

in the pull to the summit.

From the highest point or cap of what proved to be a promontory, a wide

seascape dotted with bergs was unfolded to the north. To the west the

eastern cape of Commonwealth Bay was visible, and sweeping away to

the north-east was the Mertz Glacier with sheer, jutting headlands

succeeding one another into the distance. True bearings to these points

were obtained from the camp, and, subsequently, with the help of an

observation secured on the 'Aurora' during the previous year, the

trend of the glacier-tongue was determined. Hodgeman made a series of

illustrative sketches.

On November 21 the party commenced the return journey, moving directly

towards Madigan Nunatak to the south-west. This nunatak had been sighted

for the first time on the outward march, and there was much speculation

as to what the rock would prove to be. A gradual descent for seven miles

brought them on to a plain, almost at sea-level, continuous with the

valley they had crossed on the 19th further to the east. On the far side

of the plain a climb was commenced over some ice-spurs, and then a broad

field of crevasses was encountered, some of which attained a width of

fifty yards. Delayed by these and by unfavourable weather, they did not

reach Madigan Nunatak until the evening of November 20.

The outcrop--a jagged crest of rock--was found to be one hundred and

sixty yards long and thirty yards wide, placed at an altitude of two

thousand four hundred feet above sea-level. It is composed of grey

quartzose gneiss.

There were no signs of recent glaciation or of ice-striae, though the

rock was much weathered, and all the cracks and joint-planes were filled

with disintegrating material. The weathering was excessive and peculiar

in contrast with that observed on fresh exposures near the Hut and at

other localities near sea-level.

After collecting specimens and placing a small depot of food on the

highest point, the party continued their way to the Hut, reaching it on

November 27.

At Winter Quarters noticeable changes had taken place. The harbour ice

had broken back for several hundred yards and was rotten and ready

to blow out in the first strong wind; marked thawing had occurred

everywhere, and many islands of rock emerged from the snow; the ice-foot

was diminishing; penguins, seals, and flying birds made the place, for

once, alive and busy.

Bickerton, Whetter and Hannam carried on the routine of work; Whetter as

meteorologist and Hannam as magnetician, while Bickerton was busied with

the air-tractor and in preparations for sledging. Thousands of penguins'

eggs had been gathered for the return voyage of the 'Aurora', or in case

of detention for a second winter.

Murphy, Hunter and Laseron arrived from the south on the same day as

Stillwell, Hodgeman and Close came in from the east. The former party

had plodded for sixty-seven miles through a dense haze of drift. They

had kept a course roughly by the wind and the direction of sastrugi. The

unvarying white light of thick overcast days had been so severe that all

were suffering from snow-blindness. When, at length, they passed over

the endless billows of snow on to the downfalls near the coast, the

weather cleared and they were relieved to see once more the Mecca of all

sledging parties--Aladdin's Cave.

A redistribution of parties and duties was made. Hodgeman joined Whetter

and Bickerton in preparation for the air-tractor sledge's trip to the

west. Hunter took up the position of meteorologist and devoted all his

spare time to biological investigations amongst the immigrant life of

summer. Hannam continued to act as magnetician and general "handy man."

Murphy, who was also to be in charge during the summer, returned to

his stores, making preparations for departure. Hourly meteorological

observations kept every one vigilant at the Hut.

In pursuance of a plan to examine in detail the coast immediately

east of Commonwealth Bay, Stillwell set out with Laseron and Close on

December 9. The weather was threatening at the start, and they had the

usual struggle with wind and drift to "make" Aladdin's Cave.

Forewarned on the first journey of the dangers of bad ventilation, they

cleared the entrance to the cave of obstacles so that a ready exit could

be made, if, as was expected, the opening became sealed with snow-drift.

This did happen during the night, and, though everything seemed all

right the next morning, the whole party was overpowered during breakfast

by foul air, the presence of which was not suspected.

Hoosh was cooked and about to be served, when Stillwell, who was in

charge of the primus, collapsed. Close immediately seized an ice-axe,

stood up, thrust its point through the choked entrance, and fell down,

overcome. Laseron became powerless at the same time. An hour and a half

later--so it was reckoned--the party revived and cleared the opening.

The hole made by the ice-axe had been sufficient to save their lives.

For a day they were too weak and exhausted to travel, so the tent was

pitched and the night spent outside the Cave.

On December 11 they steered due south for a while and then eastward

for three days to Madigan Nunatak; delayed for twenty-four hours by a

blizzard.

Stillwell goes on to describe: "Part of the 15th was spent in making

observations, taking photographs and collecting specimens of rocks and

lichens. Breaking camp, we set out on a northerly course for the coast

down gently falling snowfields. Gradually there opened up a beautiful

vista of sea, dotted with floes and rocky islets (many of which were

ice-capped). On December 16 camp was pitched near the coast on a stretch

of firm, unbroken ice, which enabled one to venture close enough to the

edge to discover an islet connected by a snow-ramp with the icy barrier.

Lying farther off the shore was a thick fringe of islets, among and

beyond which drifted a large quantity of heavy floe. The separate floes

stood some ten or fifteen feet above the water-level, and the lengths of

several exceeded a quarter of a mile. Every accessible rock was covered

with rookeries of Adelie penguins; the first chicks were just hatched."

A theodolite traverse was run to fix the position of each islet. The

traverse-line was carried close to the ice-cliff, so that the number of

islets hidden from view was as few as possible. Snow mounds were built

at intervals and the intervening distances measured by the sledge-meter.

The party travelled west for seven and a quarter miles round a

promontory--Cape Gray--until the Winter Quarters were sighted across

Commonwealth Bay. They then turned eastward over the higher slopes,

meeting the coast some three miles to the east of the place where they

had first encountered it. The surface was for the most part covered with

snow, while crevasses were frequent and treacherous.

In the midst of the survey the sledge-meter broke down, and, as the

party were wholly dependent upon it for laying out base-lines, repairs

had to be made.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Map showing the remarkable distribution of islets fringing the coast of

Adelie Land in the vicinity of Cape Gray

On the 27th another accessible rocky projection was seen. Over it and

the many islands in the vicinity hovered flocks of snow petrels and

occasional Antarctic and Wilson petrels. Masses of Adelie penguins and

chicks constituted the main population, and skua gulls with eggs were

also observed. The rock was of garnet gneiss, traversed by black dykes

of pyroxene granulite.

A great discovery was made on December 29. On the abrupt, northern face

of some rocks connected to the ice-cap of the mainland by a causeway

of ice a large colony of sea-birds had nested. Cape pigeons, the rare

silver-grey and snow petrels were all present. Amongst these Laseron

made a collection of many eggs and birds.

The traverse-line was then carried back to Madigan Nunatak along a

series of connecting mounds. After being held up for three and a half

days in a blizzard from December 31 to January 4, the party were home

once more late on January 5, 1913.

Returning to the fortunes of the air-tractor sledge, which was to start

west early in December. Bickerton has a short story to tell, inadequate

to the months of work which were expended on that converted aeroplane.

Its career was mostly associated with misfortune, dating from a serious

fall when in flight at Adelaide, through the southern voyage of the

'Aurora', buffeted by destructive seas, to a capacious snow shelter

in Adelie Land--the Hangar--where for the greater part of the year it

remained helpless and drift-bound.

Bickerton takes up the story:

I had always imagined that the air-tractor sledge would be most

handicapped by the low temperature; but the wind was far more

formidable. It is obvious that a machine which depends on the

surrounding air for its medium of traction could not be tested in

the winds of an Adelie Land winter. One might just as well try

the capabilities of a small motor-launch in the rapids at Niagara.

Consequently we had to wait until the high summer.

With hopes postponed to an indefinite future, another difficulty arose.

As it was found that the wind would not allow the sea-ice to form,

breaking up the floe as quickly as it appeared, the only remaining field

for manoeuvres was over the highlands to the south; under conditions

quite different from those for which it was suited. We knew that for

the first three miles there was a rise of some one thousand four hundred

feet, and in places the gradient was one in three and a half. I thought

the machine would negotiate this, but it was obviously unsafe to make

the venture without providing against a headlong rush downhill, if, for

any reason, power should fail.

Suggestions were not lacking, and after much consideration the following

device was adopted:

A hand rock-drill, somewhat over an inch in diameter, was turned up in

the lathe, cut with one-eighth-inch pitched, square threads and pointed

at the lower end. This actuated through an internal threaded brass bush

held in an iron standard; the latter being bolted to the after-end of

a runner over a hole bushed for the reception of the drill. Two sets of

these were got ready; one for each runner.

The standards were made from spare caps belonging to the wireless masts.

The timely fracture of one of the vices supplied me with sufficient

ready-cut thread of the required pitch for one brake. Cranked handles

were fitted, and the points, which came in contact with the ice, were

hardened and tempered. When protruded to their fullest extent, the

spikes extended four inches below the runners.

The whole contrivance was not very elegant, but impressed one with its

strength and reliability. To work the handles, two men had to sit one on

each runner. As the latter were narrow and the available framework,

by which to hold on and steady oneself, rather limited, the office of

brakesman promised to be one with acrobatic possibilities.

To start the engine it was necessary to have a calm and, preferably,

sunny day; the engine and oil-tank had been painted black to absorb the

sun's heat. On a windy day with sun and an air temperature of 30 degrees

F., it was only with considerable difficulty that the engine could be

turned--chiefly owing to the thickness of the lubricating oil. But on

a calm day with the temperature lower -20 degrees F. for example--the

engine would swing well enough to permit starting, after an hour or

two of steady sun. If there were no sun even in the absence of

wind, starting would be out of the question, unless the atmospheric

temperature were high or the engine were warmed with a blow-lamp.

It was not till November 15 that the right combination of conditions

came. That day was calm and sunny, and the engine needed no more

stimulus than it would have received in a "decent" climate.

Hannam, Whetter and I were the only inhabitants of the Hut at the

time. Having ascertained that the oil and air pumps were working

satisfactorily, we fitted the wheels and air-rudder, and made a number

of satisfactory trials in the vicinity of the Hut.

The wheels were soon discarded as useless; reliance being placed on the

long runners. Then the brakes were tested for the first time by driving

for a short distance uphill to the south and glissading down the slope

back to the Hut. With a man in charge of each brake, the machine, when

in full career down the slope, was soon brought to a standstill. The

experiment was repeated from a higher position on the slope, with the

same result. The machine was then taken above the steepest part of the

slope (one in three and a half) and, on slipping back, was brought to

rest with ease. The surface was hard, polished blue ice. The air-rudder,

by the way, was efficient at speeds exceeding fifteen miles per hour.

On the 20th we had a calm morning, so Whetter and I set out for

Aladdin's Cave to depot twenty gallons of benzene and six gallons

of oil. The engine was not running well, one cylinder occasionally

"missing." But, in spite of this and a head wind of fifteen miles per

hour, we covered the distance between the one-mile and the two-mile

flags in three minutes. This was on ice, and the gradient was about one

in fifteen. We went no farther that day, and it was lucky that we did

so, for, soon after our return to the Hut, it was blowing more than

sixty miles per hour.

On December 2 Hodgeman joined us in a very successful trip to Aladdin's

Cave with nine 8-gallon tins of benzene on a sledge; weighing in all

seven hundred pounds.

After having such a good series of results with the machine, the start

of the real journey was fixed for December 3. At 3 P.M. it fell calm,

and we left at 4 P.M., amid an inspiriting demonstration of goodwill

from the six other men. Arms were still waving violently as we crept

noisily over the brow of the hill and the Hut disappeared from sight.

On the two steepest portions it was necessary to walk, but, these past,

the machine went well with a load of three men and four hundred pounds,

reaching Aladdin's Cave in an hour by a route free of small crevasses,

which I had discovered on the previous day. Here we loaded up with

three 100-lb. food-bags, twelve gallons of oil (one hundred and thirty

pounds), and seven hundred pounds of benzene. Altogether, there was

enough fuel and lubricating oil to run the engine at full speed for

twenty hours as well as full rations for three men for six weeks.

After a few minutes spent in disposing the loads, our procession of

machine, four sledges (in tow) and three men moved off. The going was

slow, too slow--about three miles an hour on ice. This would probably

mean no movement at all on snow which might soon be expected. But

something was wrong. The cylinder which had been missing fire a few

days before, but which had since been cleaned and put in order, was

now missing fire again, and the speed, proportionately, had dropped too

much.

I made sure that the oil was circulating, and cleaned the sparking-plug,

but the trouble was not remedied. A careful examination showed no

sufficient cause, so it was assumed to be internal. To undertake

anything big was out of the question, so we dropped thirty-two gallons

of benzene and a spare propeller. Another mile went by and we came to

snow, where forty gallons of benzene, twelve gallons of oil and a sledge

were abandoned. The speed was now six miles an hour and we did two miles

in very bad form. As it was now 11 P.M. and the wind was beginning to

rise, we camped, feeling none too pleased with the first day's results.

While in the sleeping-bag I tried to think out some rapid way of

discovering what was wrong with the engine. The only conclusion to which

I could come was that it would be best to proceed to the cave at eleven

and three-quarter miles--Cathedral Grotto--and there remove the faulty

cylinder, if the weather seemed likely to be favourable; if it did not,

to go on independently with our man-hauled sledge.

On December 4 the wind was still blowing about twenty miles per hour

when we set to work on the machine. I poured some oil straight into the

crank-case to make sure that there was sufficient, and we also tested

and improved the ignition. At four o'clock the wind dropped, and in an

hour the engine was started. While moving along, the idle cylinder

was ejecting oil, and this, together with the fact that it had no

compression, made me hope that broken piston-rings were the source of

the trouble. It would only take two hours to remove three cylinders,

take one ring from each of the two sound ones for the faulty one, and

all might yet be well!

These thoughts were brought to a sudden close by the engine, without any

warning, pulling up with such a jerk that the propeller was smashed.

On moving the latter, something fell into the oil in the crank-case and

fizzled, while the propeller could only be swung through an angle of

about 30 deg.. We did not wait to examine any further, but fixed up the

man-hauling sledge, which had so far been carried by the air-tractor

sledge, and cached all except absolute necessities.

We were sorry to leave the machine, though we had never dared to expect

a great deal from it in the face of the unsuitable conditions found

to prevail in Adelie Land. However, the present situation was

disappointing.

Having stuffed up the exhaust-pipes to keep out the drift, we turned our

backs to the aero-sledge and made for the eleven-and-three-quarter-mile

cave, arriving there at 8 P.M. There was a cheering note from Bage in

the "Grotto", wishing us good luck.

To avoid crevasses we steered first of all to the southwest on the

morning of the 5th, which was clear and bright. After six miles the

sastrugi became hard and compact, so the course was changed to due west.

Shortly afterwards, a piece of rock ** which we took to be a meteorite,

was found on the surface of the snow. It measured approximately five

inches by three inches by three and a half inches and was covered with a

black scale which in places had blistered; three or four small pieces of

this scale were lying within three inches of the main piece. Most of

the surface was rounded, except one face which looked as if it had been

fractured. It was lying on the snow, in a slight depression, about

two and a half inches below the mean surface, and there was nothing to

indicate that there had been any violent impact.

** This has since been examined by Professor E. Skeats and

Stillwell, who report it to be an interesting form of meteorite,

containing amongst other minerals, plagioclase felspar. This is, we

believe, the first occasion on which a meteorite has been found in the

Antarctic regions.--ED.

At eight o'clock that night we had done twelve miles, losing sight of

the sea at a height of about three thousand feet. All felt pleased and

looked forward to getting over a ridge ahead, which, from an altitude

of four thousand feet, ran in pencilled outline to the western point of

Commonwealth Bay.

On December 6 it was drifting hard, and part of the morning was spent

theorizing on our prospects in an optimistic vein. This humour gradually

wore off as the thick drift continued, with a fifty-mile wind, for three

days.

At 5 P.M. on December 8 a move was made. The drift was what our

Hut-standard reckoned to be "moderate," but the wind had fallen to

thirty miles an hour and had veered to the east; so the sail was

hoisted. The going was difficult over a soft surface, and after five

hours, by which time the drift had perceptibly thickened, we had done

eight miles.

The thirst each one of us developed in those earlier days was

prodigious. When filling the cooker with snow it was hard to refrain

from packing it "up to the knocker" in order to obtain a sufficient

supply of water.

The next day it blew harder and drifted thicker. Above the loud flapping

of the tent and the incessant sizzling of the drift we discussed our

situation. We were one week "out" and had travelled thirty-one miles.

Future progress depended entirely on the weather--unfortunately. We were

beginning to learn that though the season was "meteorologically" called

summer, it was hardly recognizable as such.

December 10 was Whetter's birthday. It was heralded by an extra strong

wind and the usual liberal allowance of drift. I was cook, and made some

modifications in the meal. Hodgeman (who was the previous cook) used to

make hoosh as thick as a biscuit, so we had some thin stuff for a change

--two mugs each. Then really strong tea; we boiled it for some time to

make sure of the strength and added some leaves which had already done

good service.

Several times fault had been found with the way the tent was pitched.

I had not yet tried my hand at being the "man inside" during this

operation. One day, while every one was grumbling, I said I would take

the responsibility at the next camp; the proposal being received with

grunts of assent. When the job was finished and the poles appeared to

be spread taut, I found myself alone in what seemed to me a cathedral.

Feeling pleased, I called for the others to come in, and arranged myself

in a corner with an "I-told-you-so" expression on my face, ready to

receive their congratulations. Hodgeman came in first. He is not a large

man, though he somehow gives one the impression that he is, but after

he had made himself comfortable the place seemed smaller. When half-way

through the "spout," coming in, he gave a grunt which I took to be one

of appreciation. Then Whetter came in. He is of a candid disposition:

"Ho, ho, laddie, what the dickens have you done with the tent?"

I tried to explain their mistake. But it was no good. When we were all

inside, I couldn't help seeing that the tent was much smaller than it

had ever been before, and we had to huddle together most uncomfortably.

And there were three days like this.

At nine o'clock one morning Hodgeman woke me with, "What about getting

a move on?" The wind had dropped to forty miles an hour, and through a

tiny hole in the tent the ground could be seen. Amid a thinning fog of

drift, the disc of the sun was just visible.

We made a start and then plodded on steadily till midnight over a soft

and uncomfortable surface. Shortly after that hour I looked at the

sledge-meter and found that it had ceased working; the sprocket had been

knocked off. Repair was out of the question, as every joint was soldered

up; so without more ado we dropped it. In future we were to estimate our

speed, having already had some good experience in this way.

No sooner had Friday December 13 come on the scene than a catastrophe

overtook us. The superstitious might have blamed Fate, but on this

occasion there was no room for doubt; the fault was mine. The sail was

up and, while braking the load upwind, I slipped and fell, allowing the

sledge to collide with a large sastruga. The bow struck the solid snow

with such force that it was smashed.

Next day a new bow was manufactured from a spare bamboo which had been

brought as a depot pole. It took some time splitting and bending this

into position and then lashing it with raw hide. But the finished

article fully justified the means, and, in spite of severe treatment,

the makeshift stood for the rest of the journey.

While on the march on December 16, the wind dropped and the drift ceased

for the first time since December 5; for eleven days it had been heavy

or moderate. Before we got into harness on the same day, a Wilson petrel

flew above us. This little touch of life, together with the bright sun,

light wind and lack of drift enabled us to start away in better spirits

than had been our wont.

The next four days passed in excellent weather. The surface was mainly

hard and the clusters of large sastrugi could generally be avoided.

Patches of softer "piecrust" were met but only lasted for two or three

miles. Making up for lost time, we did a few miles short of one hundred

in five days.

Unfortunately there was always drift at midday, so that it was

impossible to get a latitude "shot" with a sextant and artificial

horizon.

On December 19 camp was pitched at 1 A.M. before a glorious view; an

horizon of sea from west to north-east and white fields of massive

bergs. In the extreme west there was something which very closely

resembled pack-ice.

On the 20th the surface was softer and the snow more recent, but the

wind was behind us and for part of the day the track led downhill into a

peculiar saucer-shaped depression which, on our first entry, looked

like a valley closed at the far end, while when we came to the middle it

resolved itself once more into a saucer.

Camping here, I managed to get a good time-shot, so that, provided we

occupied this camp on the return journey, I reckoned that I could get

the watch-rate and fix the approximate longitude of the pack-ice, which

for two days had been clearly within view.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Adelie Land: Showing tracks of the Western Sledging Party from the Main

Base.

December 21 marked the end of the good weather, for drift and wind came

on apace lasting four days, the wind attaining about eighty miles an

hour. Sleeping-bags and tent-cloth were soon in a wretched state, sodden

with moisture. Christmas Day was not very enjoyable in cramped quarters,

the tent having encroached on us owing to drift settling around it.

Still, by the evening, it was clear enough to break camp and we made a

spurt of thirteen miles.

From the next camp there was a good view to the northwest, the

pack extending beyond the limit of vision. The land trended to the

west-north-west and we could see it at a distance of fifty miles from

our altitude.

All things considered, I thought it right to turn back at this stage.

In twenty-six days we had done one hundred and fifty-eight miles, and

ninety-seven miles of that distance had been covered on the only five

consecutive good days. We waited some time until the sun appeared, when

I was able to get an observation while Hodgeman made a sketch of the

view.

By December 30 we reoccupied the camp of the 20th, sixteen miles on the

return journey. A time-shot was successful, and observations were also

taken for magnetic declination.

As the weather was fine, Hodgeman and Whetter went to investigate two

odd-looking pyramids about five miles away. These turned out to be high

snow-ramps, two hundred yards long, on the lee side of open crevasses.

The last day of 1912 was calm and "snow-blind"--the first of this

particular variety we had experienced without drift. A New Year pudding

was made of soaked biscuit, cocoa, milk, sugar, butter, and a few

remaining raisins, and it was, of course, an immense success.

On January 1 and the two succeeding days the drift was so thick that

we had to lie up and amuse ourselves discussing various matters of

individual interest. Hodgeman gave us a lecture on architecture,

explaining the beauties of certain well-known buildings. Whetter

would describe some delicate surgical operation, while I talked about

machinery. I also worked up the time-shots, and the hours passed

quickly. If only our sleeping-bags had been drier we might have enjoyed

ourselves at intervals.

The evening of the 4th found us camped ten miles nearer home, beside a

large crevasse and with a closer view of the bay seen on December 20.

This time we were greatly excited to see rocks outcropping near the

water-line, and an investigation of them was resolved upon for the

following day.

The morning broke overcast and ghostly white. Although only ten yards

away from it, we could not see the huge crevasse in our vicinity. Thus

our expedition to the rocks had to be abandoned.

After a week's travelling, during which obscured skies and intermittent

drift were the rule, we were once more in the neighbourhood of Madigan's

spring depot, forty-five miles west of Aladdin's Cave. It had been

passed without our seeing any signs of it on the outward journey, and,

as we never relied on finding it, we did not mind about missing it

again.

Thick drift and a fifty-mile wind on January 12 kept us confined for

thirty-six hours. It was clear enough after noon on the 13th, and five

miles were covered in four hours through thick surface drift. What the

course was we did not care as we steered by the sastrugi. If ever a

man had any "homing instinct" it would surely show itself on such an

occasion as this.

Travelling in driving snow used to have a curious effect on me. I always

imagined that we were just coming to an avenue of trees running at right

angles to our course. What produced this idea I have not the slightest

suspicion, but while it lasted, the impression was very strong.

To avoid the drift, which was thickest by day, travelling had for some

time been conducted at night. On the evening of the 14th, during a clear

spell, a ridge rose up behind, and, in front, a wide bay was visible

with its far eastern point rising in mirage. This was taken to be

Commonwealth Bay, but the fact could not be verified as the drift came

on thickly once more. The day's march was twelve miles by concerted

reckoning.

Next day we went three miles to the north to see if any recognizable

bergs would come in sight, but were stopped by crevasses. The eastward

course was therefore resumed.

After continuing for about a mile Hodgeman told us to stop, flung

down his harness and dashed back to the sledge, rummaging in the

instrument-box till he found the glasses. "Yes, it's the aeroplane," he

said.

This remark took us by surprise as we had not expected it for eight

miles at least. It was about midnight--the time when mirage was at a

maximum. Consequently, all agreed that the machine was about twelve

miles away, and we went on our way rejoicing, steering towards the

Cathedral Grotto which was two miles south of the aero-sledge. After

three miles we camped, and, it being my birthday, the two events were

celebrated by "blowing in" the whisky belonging to the medical outfit.

On the 16th the weather was thick, and we marched east for ten miles,

passing a tea-leaf, which it was afterwards found must have come

downwind from the Grotto. For eight hours nothing could be done in thick

drift, and then, on breaking camp, we actually came to a flag which

had been planted by Ninnis in the spring, thirteen miles south-east of

Aladdin's Cave. The distance to the air-tractor had been over-estimated,

and the Grotto must have been passed quite close.

We made off down the hill, running over the crevasses at a great pace.

Aladdin's Cave with its medley of boxes, tins, picks and shovels,

gladdened our eyes at 10 P.M. on the 17th. Conspicuous for its colour

was an orange, stuck on a pick, which told us at once that the Ship was

in.

CHAPTER XVIII THE SHIP'S STORY

by Captain J. K. Davis

By sport of bitter weather

We're warty, strained, and scarred

From the kentledge on the kelson

To the slings upon the yard.

KIPLING.

Dr. Mawson's plans, as laid before the Royal Geographical Society in

1911, provided for an extensive oceanographical campaign in the immense

stretch of ocean to the southward of Australia. Very little was known

of the sea-floor in this area, there being but a few odd soundings only,

beyond a moderate distance from the Australian coast. Even the

great Challenger expedition had scarcely touched upon it; and so our

Expedition had a splendid field for investigation.

The first discovery made in this connexion on board the 'Aurora' was

the fact that deep-water work is more intricate than books would make it

appear. Although text-books had been carefully studied on the subject,

it was found that most of them passed over the practical side of the

work in a few words, insufficient to give us much help in carrying out

difficult operations with the vessel rolling and tumbling about in the

heavy seas of the Southern Ocean.

So it was only after a good deal of hard work and many disappointments

that the experience was gained which enabled us, during the later stages

of the Expedition, to do useful and successful work.

Before passing on to the operations of the 'Aurora' during the winter

of 1912, I shall briefly refer to the equipment provided for

oceanographical work.

The Lucas Automatic Sounding Machine was situated on the port side

of the forecastle head. It was suitable for depths up to six thousand

fathoms, being fitted with a grooved wheel so as to be driven by a rope

belt from a steam-winch or other engine. The wire was wound in by means

of a small horizontal steam-engine which had been specially designed for

the 'Scotia', of the Scottish Antarctic Expedition (1902) and was kindly

lent to us by Dr. W. S. Bruce.

The wire as it is paid out passes over a measuring wheel, the

revolutions of which record on a dial the number of fathoms out. A

spring brake, which is capable of stopping the reel instantly, is kept

out of action by the tension of the wire, but when the sinker strikes

the bottom, the loss of tension allows the brake to spring back and stop

the reel. The depth can then be read off on the dial.

A hollow iron tube called a driver is attached to a piece of hemp line

spliced into the outer end of the sounding wire. This driver bears

one or two weights to the bottom and detaches them on striking it; a

specimen of the bottom being recovered in the hollow part of the tube

which is fitted with valves to prevent water from running through it

on the way up. Immediately the driver and weight strike the bottom, the

reel automatically stops paying out wire.

To obtain a deep-sea sounding on the 'Aurora', the vessel was stopped,

turned so as to bring the wind on the port-bow and kept as nearly

stationary as possible; the engines being used to balance any drift of

the vessel due to wind or sea.

The difficulties of sounding in the Southern Ocean were much increased

by the almost constant, heavy swell. The breaking strain of the wire

being only two hundred and forty pounds and the load it had to carry to

the bottom weighing nearly fifty-six pounds in air, it could easily be

understood that the sudden strain imposed by the violent rolling of

the vessel often resulted in the parting of the wire. We soon learnt to

handle both vessel and sounding machine in such a way as to entail the

least possible strain on the wire.

Of all the operations conducted on board the 'Aurora', deep-sea trawling

was the one about which we had most to learn. Dr. W. S. Bruce gave me

most valuable advice on the subject before we left England. Later, this

was supplemented by a cruise in Australian waters on the 'Endeavour',

of the Commonwealth Fisheries Investigation. Here I was able to observe

various trawling operations in progress, subsequently applying the

information gained to our own requirements on the 'Aurora'.

A short description of our trawling arrangements may be useful to those

who are engaged in this work on board a vessel not specially designed

for it.

We were provided with three thousand fathoms of tapered steel wire

(varying from one and three-quarters to one and a half inches in

circumference and weighing roughly a ton to the thousand fathoms in

air); this was kept on a large iron reel (A) mounted on standards and

controlled by a friction-brake. This reel was situated on the starboard

side of the main deck, the wire being wound on to it by means of a

chain-drive from the forward cargo-winch.

For heaving in, our steam-windlass was fitted with a specially

constructed drum (B), which absorbed the crushing strain and then

allowed the slack wire to be wound on the reel (A), which was driven as

nearly as possible at the same speed; the windlass usually heaving at

the rate of four hundred and fifty fathoms per hour.

A wooden derrick (D), provided with topping lift and guys, was mounted

on the foremast by means of a band and goose-neck. At the outer end of

the derrick, the dynamometer and a fourteen-inch block were attached.

The maximum strain which could be supported was ten tons. In paying out,

the wire was led from the head of the derrick to a snatch-block on the

quarter (E), constructed so as to admit of its disengagement from the

wire when it was necessary to heave in. This block kept the wire clear

of the propeller and allowed us to have the vessel moving slow or fast

as required, while the trawl was being paid out. The positions of the

various parts of the trawling gear are shown in the plan on the opposite

page.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Plan illustrating the arrangements for deep-sea trawling on board the

'Aurora'.

Before trawling in deep water the vessel was stopped and a sounding

obtained; then the derrick was hoisted, the wire rove through the

various blocks, the trawl shackled on, and the men distributed at their

stations. When all was ready, the engines were put at half-speed (three

knots), a course was given to the helmsman and the trawl lowered into

the water. When it was flowing nicely just astern, the order, "Slack

away," was given; the wire being paid out evenly by means of the

friction-brakes. In one thousand five hundred fathoms of water, after

the two-thousand-fathom mark had passed out, the order was given, "Hold

on and make fast." Speed was now reduced to one and a half knots and the

wire watched until it gave a decided indication of the trawl dragging

over the bottom. The strain was now taken by the windlass-barrel,

controlled by a screw-brake, backed if necessary by a number of turns

round the forward bitts. A slow drag over the bottom was generally

continued for one hour. The engines were then stopped, and the order

came, "Stand by to heave away." This was quickly followed by "Knock

out," which meant the disengaging of the after-block from the wire and

allowed the vessel to swing round head-on to the wire. "Vast heaving"

indicated the appearance of the net at the surface, and, when the

mouth of the net was well above the bulwarks the derrick was topped up

vertically, the lower part of the net dragged inboard and the cod-end

untied, the catch being thus allowed to empty itself on deck. The

contents of the haul supplied the biologists with the work of sorting

and bottling for the next twelve hours or more.

The form of trawl used on board the 'Aurora' was known as a Monagasque

trawl, of a type employed by the Prince of Monaco. As will be seen from

the sketch, it is of simple construction and possesses the advantage of

having both sides similar so that it is immaterial which lands on the

bottom.

The winter cruise in the Sub-Antarctic began on May 18, 1912, after

we had refitted in Sydney and taken on board all the oceanographic

apparatus, during the previous month. Leaving Port Jackson, we proceeded

to Port Kembla, N.S.W., and took in four hundred and eleven tons of

coal.

The following was the personnel of the ship's officers on this and the

two following cruises: Chief Officer, F. D. Fletcher; Chief Engineer, F.

J. Gillies; Second Officer, P. Gray; Third Officer, C. P. de la Motte.

During the first dredging cruise, Mr. E. R. Waite, from the Canterbury

Museum, Christchurch, was in charge of the biological work.