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The Home of the Blizzard

Sir Douglas Mawson

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Title: The Home of the Blizzard

Author: Sir Douglas Mawson

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE HOME OF THE BLIZZARD ***

Douglas Mawson The Home of the Blizzard

Credits: Geoffrey Cowling ([email protected])

(Member: Australian Antarctic Research Expedition

to Macquarie Island, Geophysical Year 1958)

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THE HOME OF THE BLIZZARD:

BEING THE STORY OF THE AUSTRALASIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION, 1911-1914;

BY SIR DOUGLAS MAWSON, D.Sc., B.E.

ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR AND BLACK AND WHITE

ALSO WITH MAPS

WITH 260 FULL-PAGE AND SMALLER ILLUSTRATIONS BY DR. E. A. WILSON

AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION,

PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECES, 12 PLATES IN FACSIMILE

FROM DR. WILSON'S SKETCHES, PANORAMAS AND MAPS

TO THOSE WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE:

THE SUBSCRIBERS AND CO-OPERATORS

TO THOSE WHO MADE IT A SUCCESS:

MY COMRADES

AND TO

THOSE WHO WAITED

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The object of this book is to present a connected narrative of the

Expedition from a popular and general point of view. The field of

work is a very extensive one, and I feel that this account provides

a record inadequate to our endeavours. However, I am comforted by

the fact that the lasting reputation of the Expedition is founded upon

the scientific volumes which will appear in due course.

Allusion to the history of Antarctic exploration has been reduced to

a minimum, as the subject has been ably dealt with by previous

writers. This, and several other aspects of our subject, have been

relegated to special appendices in order to make the story more

readable and self-contained.

A glossary of technicalities is introduced for readers not familiar

with the terms. In the same place is given a list of animals referred

to from time to time. There, the common name is placed against the

scientific name, so rendering it unnecessary to repeat the latter in

the text.

The reports handed to me by the leaders concerning the work of

sledging journeys and of the respective bases were in the main clearly

and popularly written. Still it was necessary to make extensive

excisions so as to preserve a ``balance'' of justice in all the

accounts, and to keep the narrative within limits. I wish to assure

the various authors of my appreciation of their contributions.

Mr. Frank Hurley's artistic taste is apparent in the numerous

photographs. We who knew the circumstances can warmly testify to

his perseverance under conditions of exceptional difficulty. Mr. A.

J. Hodgeman is responsible for the cartographical work, which occupied

his time for many months. Other members of the Expedition have added

treasures to our collection of illustrations; each of which is

acknowledged in its place.

ads:

To Dr. A. L. McLean, who assisted me in writing and editing the book,

I am very greatly indebted. To him the book owes any literary style

it may possess. Dr. McLean's journalistic talent was discovered by me

when he occupied the post of Editor of the `Adelie Blizzard', a

monthly volume which helped to relieve the monotony of our second

year in Adelie Land. For months he was constantly at work, revising

cutting down or amplifying the material of the story.

Finally, I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Hugh Robert Mill for

hints and criticisms by which we have profited.

DOUGLAS MAWSON

London, Autumn 1914.

FOREWORD

Nor on thee yet

Shall burst the future, as successive zones

Of several wonder open on some spirit

Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven.

BROWNING

The aim of geographical exploration has, in these days, interfused

with the passion for truth. If now the ultimate bounds of knowledge

have broadened to the infinite, the spirit of the man of science has

quickened to a deeper fervour. Amid the finished ingenuities of the

laboratory he has knitted a spiritual entente with the moral

philosopher, viewing:

The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade

Before the unmeasured thirst for good.

Science and exploration have never been at variance; rather, the

desire for the pure elements of natural revelation lay at the source

of that unquenchable power the ``love of adventure.''

Of whatever nationality the explorer was always emboldened by that

impulse, and, if there ever be a future of decadence, it will live

again in his ungovernable heritage.

Eric the Red; Francis Drake--the same ardour was kindled at the heart

of either. It is a far cry from the latter, a born marauder, to the

modern scientific explorer. Still Drake was a hero of many parts,

and though a religious bigot in present acceptation, was one of the

enlightened of his age. A man who moved an equal in a court of

Elizabethan manners was not untouched by the glorious ideals of the

Renaissance.

Yet it was the unswerving will of a Columbus, a Vasco da Gama or a

Magellan which created the devotion to geographical discovery,

per se, and made practicable the concept of a spherical earth.

The world was opened in imaginative entirety, and it now remained

for the geographer to fill in the details brought home by the navigator.

It was long before Thule the wondrous ice-land of the North yielded

her first secrets, and longer ere the Terra Australis of Finne was

laid bare to the prying eyes of Science.

Early Arctic navigation opened the bounds of the unknown in a

haphazard and fortuitous fashion. Sealers and whalers in the hope of

rich booty ventured far afield, and, ranging among the mysterious

floes or riding out fierce gales off an ice-girt coast, brought back

strange tales to a curious world. Crudely embellished, contradictory,

yet alluring they were; but the demand for truth came surely to the

rescue. Thus, it was often the whaler who forsook his trade to

explore for mere exploration's sake. Baffin was one of those

who opened the gates to the North.

Then, too, the commercial spirit of the generations who sought a

North West Passage was responsible for the incursions of many

adventurers into the new world of the ice.

Strangely enough, the South was first attacked in the true

scientific spirit by Captain Cook and later by Bellingshausen.

Sealing and whaling ventures followed in their train.

At last the era had come for the expedition, planned, administered,

equipped and carried out with a definite objective. It is

characteristic of the race of men that the first design should have

centred on the Pole--the top of the earth, the focus of longitude,

the magic goal, to reach which no physical sacrifice was too great.

The heroism of Parry is a type of that adamant persistence which has

made the history of the conquest of the Poles a volume in which disaster

and death have played a large part. It followed on years of polar

experience, it resulted from an exact knowledge of geographical and

climatic conditions, a fearless anticipation, expert information on

the details of transport--and the fortune of the brave--that Peary

and Amundsen had their reward in the present generation.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the pioneers of new land there were passing

the scientific workers born in the early nineteenth century. Sir

James Clark Ross is an epitome of that expansive enthusiasm which was

the keynote of the life of Charles Darwin. The classic ``Voyage of

the Beagle'' (1831-36) was a triumph of patient rigorous investigation

conducted in many lands outside the polar circles.

The methods of Darwin were developed in the `Challenger' Expedition

(1872) which worked even to the confines of the southern ice. And

the torch of the pure flame of Science was handed on. It was the

same consuming ardour which took Nansen across the plateau of Greenland,

which made him resolutely propound the theory of the northern ice-

drift, to maintain it in the face of opposition and ridicule and to

plan an expedition down to the minutest detail in conformity

therewith. The close of the century saw Science no longer the mere

appendage but the actual basis of exploratory endeavour.

Disinterested research and unselfish specialization are the phrases

born to meet the intellectual demands of the new century.

The modern polar expedition goes forth with finished appliances, with

experts in every department--sailors, artisans, soldiers and students

in medley; supremely, with men who seek risk and privation--the glory

of the dauntless past.

A.L.M.

INTRODUCTION

One of the oft-repeated questions for which I usually had a ready

answer, at the conclusion of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Expedition

(1907-09) was, ``Would you like to go to the Antarctic again?''

In the first flush of the welcome home and for many months, during

which the keen edge of pleasure under civilized conditions had not

entirely worn away, I was inclined to reply with a somewhat emphatic

negative. But, once more a man in the world of men, lulled in the

easy repose of routine, and performing the ordinary duties of a

workaday world, old emotions awakened. the grand sweet days returned

in irresistible glamour, faraway ``voices'' called:

...from the wilderness, the vast and Godlike spaces,

The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole.

There always seemed to be something at the back of my mind, stored

away for future contemplation, and it was an idea which largely

matured during my first sojourn in the far South. At times, during

the long hours of steady tramping across the trackless snow-fields,

one's thoughts flow in a clear and limpid stream, the mind is

unruffled and composed and the passion of a great venture springing

suddenly before the imagination is sobered by the calmness of pure

reason. Perchance this is true of certain moments, but they are rare

and fleeting. It may have been in one such phase that I suddenly

found myself eager for more than a glimpse of the great span of

Antarctic coast lying nearest to Australia.

Professor T. W. E. David, Dr. F. A. Mackay and I, when seeking

the South Magnetic Pole during the summer of 1908-09, had penetrated

farthest into that region on land. The limiting outposts had been

defined by other expeditions; at Cape Adare on the east and at

Gaussberg on the west. Between them lay my ``Land of Hope and Glory,''

of whose outline and glacial features the barest evidence had been

furnished. There, bordering the Antarctic Circle, was a realm far

from the well-sailed highways of many of the more recent Antarctic

expeditions.

The idea of exploring this unknown coast took firm root in my mind

while I was on a visit to Europe in February 1910. The prospects of

an expedition operating to the west of Cape Adare were discussed with

the late Captain R. F. Scott and I suggested that the activities of

his expedition might be arranged to extend over the area in question.

Finally he decided that his hands were already too full to make any

definite proposition for a region so remote from his own objective.

Sir Ernest Shackleton was warmly enthusiastic when the scheme was

laid before him, hoping for a time to identify himself with the

undertaking. It was in some measure due to his initiative that I felt

impelled eventually to undertake the organization and leadership of

an expedition.

For many reasons, besides the fact that it was the country of my

home and Alma Mater, I was desirous that the Expedition should be

maintained by Australia. It seemed to me that here was an

opportunity to prove that the young men of a young country could

rise to those traditions which have made the history of British Polar

exploration one of triumphant endeavour as well as of tragic

sacrifice. And so I was privileged to rally the ``sons of the

younger son.''

A provisional plan was drafted and put before the Australasian

Association for the Advancement of Science at their meeting held at

Sydney in January 1911, with a request for approval and financial

assistance. Both were unanimously granted, a sum of L1000 was voted

and committees were formed to co-operate in the arrangement of a

scientific programme and to approach the Government with a view to

obtaining substantial help.

The three leading members of the committees were Professor Orme

Masson (President), Professor T. W. Edgeworth David (President

Elect) and Professor G. C. Henderson (President of the Geographical

Section). All were zealous and active in furthering the projects of

the Expedition.

Meanwhile I had laid my scheme of work before certain prominent

Australians and some large donations** had been promised. The sympathy

and warm-hearted generosity of these gentlemen was an incentive for

me to push through my plans at once to a successful issue.

** Refer to Finance Appendix.

I therefore left immediately for London with a view to making

arrangements there for a vessel suitable for polar exploration, to

secure sledging dogs from Greenland and furs from Norway, and to order

the construction of certain instruments and equipment. It was also my

intention to gain if possible the support of Australians residing in

London. The Council of the University of Adelaide, in a broad-minded

scientific spirit, granted me the necessary leave of absence from my

post as lecturer, to carry through what had now resolved itself into

an extensive and prolonged enterprise.

During my absence, a Committee of the Australasian Association for

the Advancement of Science approached the Commonwealth Government with

an appeal for funds. Unfortunately it was the year (1911) of the

Coronation of his Majesty King George V, and the leading members of

the Cabinet were in England, so the final answer to the deputation was

postponed. I was thus in a position of some difficulty, for many

requirements had to be ordered without delay if the Expedition were

to get away from Australia before the end of the year.

At length, through the kindness of Lord Northcliffe, the columns of

the Daily Mail were opened to us and Sir Ernest Shackleton made a

strong appeal on our behalf. The Royal Geographical Society set the

seal of its approval on the aims of the Expedition and many donations

were soon afterwards received.

At this rather critical period I was fortunate in securing the

services of Captain John King Davis, who was in future to act as

Master of the vessel and Second in Command of the Expedition. He

joined me in April 1911, and rendered valuable help in the preliminary

arrangements. Under his direction the s.y. Aurora was purchased and

refitted.

The few months spent in London were anxious and trying, but the

memory of them is pleasantly relieved by the generosity and

assistance which were meted out on every hand. Sir George Reid, High

Commissioner for the Australian Commonwealth, I shall always remember

as an ever-present friend. The preparations for the scientific

programme received a strong impetus from well-known Antarctic

explorers, notably Dr. W. S. Bruce, Dr. Jean Charcot, Captain

Adrian de Gerlache, and the late Sir John Murray and Mr. J. Y.

Buchanan of the Challenger Expedition. In the dispositions made for

oceanographical work I was indebted for liberal support to H.S.H. the

Prince of Monaco.

In July 1911 I was once more in Australia, a large proportion of my

time being occupied with finance, the purchase and concentration of

stores and equipment and the appointment of the staff. In this work

I was aided by Professors Masson and David and by Miss Ethel Bage,

who throughout this busy period acted in an honorary capacity as

secretary in Melbourne.

Time was drawing on and the funds of the Expedition were wholly

inadequate to the needs of the moment, until Mr. T. H. Smeaton,

M.P., introduced a deputation to the Hon. John Verran, Premier of

South Australia. The deputation, organized to approach the State

Government for a grant of L5000, was led by the Right Hon. Sir

Samuel Way, Bart., Chief Justice of South Australia and Chancellor of

the Adelaide University, and supported by Mr. Lavington Bonython,

Mayor of Adelaide, T. Ryan, M.P., the Presidents of several scientific

societies and members of the University staff. This sum was eventually

forthcoming and it paved the way to greater things.

In Sydney, Professor David approached the State Government on behalf

of the Expedition for financial support, and, through the Acting

Premier, the Hon. W. A. Holman, L7000 was generously promised.

The State of Victoria through the Hon. W. Watt, Premier of Victoria,

supplemented our funds to the extent of L6000.

Upheld by the prestige of a large meeting convened in the Melbourne

Town Hall during the spring, the objects of the Australasian Antarctic

Expedition were more widely published. On that memorable occasion

the Governor-General, Lord Denman, acted as chairman, and among others

who participated were the Hon. Andrew Fisher (Prime Minister of the

Commonwealth), the Hon. Alfred Deakin (Leader of the Opposition),

Professor Orme Masson (President A.A.A.S. and representative of

Victoria), Senator Walker (representing New South Wales) and Professor

G. C. Henderson (representing South Australia).

Soon after this meeting the Commonwealth Government voted L5000,

following a grant of L2000 made by the British Government at the

instance of Lord Denman, who from the outset had been a staunch friend

of the Expedition.

At the end of October 1911 all immediate financial anxiety had

passed, and I was able to devote myself with confidence to the final

preparations.

Captain Davis brought the `Aurora' from England to Australia, and on

December 2, 1911, we left Hobart for the South. A base was

established on Macquarie Island, after which the ship pushed through

the ice and landed a party on an undiscovered portion of the

Antarctic Continent. After a journey of fifteen hundred miles to the

west of this base another party was landed and then the Aurora

returned to Hobart to refit and to carry out oceanographical

investigations, during the year 1912, in the waters south of Australia

and New Zealand.

In December 1912 Captain Davis revisited the Antarctic to relieve the

two parties who had wintered there. A calamity befell my own

sledging party, Lieut. B. E. S. Ninnis and Dr. X. Mertz both

lost their lives and my arrival back at Winter Quarters was delayed

for so long, that the `Aurora' was forced to leave five men for another

year to prosecute a search for the missing party. The remainder of

the men, ten in number, and the party fifteen hundred miles to the

west were landed safely at Hobart in March 1912.

Thus the prearranged plans were upset by my non-return and the

administration of the Expedition in Australia was carried out by

Professor David, whose special knowledge was invaluable at such a

juncture.

Funds were once more required, and, during the summer of 1912,

Captain Davis visited London and secured additional support, while

the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science again

successfully approached the Commonwealth Government (The Right Hon.

J. H. Cook, Prime Minister). In all, the sum of L8000 was raised

to meet the demands of a second voyage of relief.

The party left on Macquarie Island, who had agreed to remain at the

station for another year, ran short of food during their second

winter. The New Zealand Government rendered the Expedition a great

service in dispatching stores to them by the `Tutanekai' without delay.

Finally, in the summer of 1913, the `Aurora' set out on her third

cruise to the far South, picking up the parties at Macquarie Island

and in the Antarctic, carried out observations for two months amid

the ice and reached Adelaide late in February 1914.

Throughout a period of more than three years Professors David and

Masson--the fathers of the Expedition--worked indefatigably and

unselfishly in its interests. Unbeknown to them I have taken the

liberty to reproduce the only photographs at hand of these

gentlemen, which action I hope they will view favourably. That of

Professor David needs some explanation: It is a snapshot taken at

Relief Inlet, South Victoria Land, at the moment when the Northern

Party of Shackleton's Expedition, February 1909, was rescued by

the S.Y. `Nimrod'.

In shipping arrangements Capt. Davis was assisted throughout by

Mr. J. J. Kinsey, Christchurch, Capt. Barter, Sydney, and Mr. F.

Hammond, Hobart.

Such an undertaking is the work of a multitude and it is only by

sympathetic support from many sources that a measure of success can

be expected. In this connexion there are many names which I recall

with warm gratitude. It is impossible to mention all to whom the

Expedition is indebted, but I trust that none of those who have taken

a prominent part will fail to find an acknowledgment somewhere in

these volumes.

I should specially mention the friendly help afforded by the

Australasian Press, which has at all times given the Expedition

favourable and lengthy notices, insisting on its national and

scientific character.

With regard to the conduct of the work itself, I was seconded by the

whole-hearted co-operation of the members, my comrades, and what they

have done can only be indicated in this narrative.

CONTENTS

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTERQ I THE PROBLEM AND PREPARATIONS

CHAPTER II THE LAST DAYS AT HOBART AND THE VOYAGE TO

MACQUARIE ISLAND

CHAPTER III FROM MACQUARIE ISLAND TO ADELIE LAND

CHAPTER IV NEW LANDS

CHAPTER V FIRST DAYS IN ADELIE LAND

CHAPTER VI AUTUMN PROSPECTS

CHAPTER VII THE BLIZZARD

CHAPTER VIII DOMESTIC LIFE

CHAPTER IX MIDWINTER AND ITS WORK

CHAPTER X THE PREPARATION OF SLEDGING EQUIPMENT 176

CHAPTER XI SPRING EXPLOITS

CHAPTER XII ACROSS KING GEORGE V LAND

CHAPTER XIII TOIL AND TRIBULATION

CHAPTER XIV THE QUEST OF THE SOUTH MAGNETIC POLE

CHAPTER XV EASTWARD OVER THE SEA-ICE

CHAPTER XVI HORN BLUFF AND PENGUIN POINT

[VOLUME II]

CHAPTER XVII WITH STILLWELL'S AND BICKERTON'S PARTIES

CHAPTER XVIII THE SHIP'S STORY. BY CAPTAIN J. K. DAVIS

CHAPTER XIX THE WESTERN BASE--ESTABLISHMENT AND EARLY

ADVENTURES. BY F. WILD

CHAPTER XX THE WESTERN BASE--WINTER AND SPRING

CHAPTER XXI THE WESTERN BASE--BLOCKED ON THE SHELF-ICE.

BY F. WILD

CHAPTER XXII THE WESTERN BASE--LINKING UP WITH KAISER

WILHELM II LAND

CHAPTER XXIII A SECOND WINTER

CHAPTER XXIV NEARING THE END

CHAPTER XXV LIFE ON MACQUARIE ISLAND. BY G. F. AINSWORTH

CHAPTER XXVI A LAND OF STORM AND MIST. BY G. F. AINSWORTH

CHAPTER XXVII THROUGH ANOTHER YEAR. BY G. F. AINSWORTH

CHAPTER XXVIII THE HOMEWARD CRUISE

APPENDIX I THE STAFF

APPENDIX II SCIENTIFIC WORK

APPENDIX III AN HISTORICAL SUMMARY

APPENDIX IV GLOSSARY

APPENDIX V MEDICAL REPORTS:

WESTERN BASE (QUEEN MARY LAND).

BY S. E. JONES, M.B., Ch.M.

MAIN BASE (ADELIE LAND).

BY A. L. McLEAN, M.B., Ch.M., B.A.

APPENDIX VI FINANCE

APPENDIX VII EQUIPMENT

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Sir Douglas Mawson (Photogravure)

In Memoriam cross at Cape Denison (Photogravure)

COLOUR PLATES

Virgin solitudes

A weather-worn snow-berg

A grottoed iceberg

The Mertz Glacier Tongue, at a point 50 miles from the land

The Grey Rock Hills at Cape Denison

Winter quarters, Adelie Land

The Alpine-glow

``Antarctica is a world of colour, brilliant and intensely pure...''

Sledging in Adelie Land

[Volume II]

Islets fringlng the mainland: view looking west from Stillwell

Island

Rafts of floe-ice

Before sunrise: camped near the Hippo Nunatak

Avalanche rocks

Delay Point

The great ``Bergschrund'' of the Denman Glacier

Tussock slopes and misty highlands

The shack and its vicinity

A Victoria penguin on the nest

A growth of lichen on red sandstone

Antarctic marine life

Brought up in the deep-sea trawl

PLATES

Professor T. W. Edgeworth David

Professor Orme Masson

Captain John King Davis

The wall of the Antarctic Continent

Finner whales of the South

The `Aurora' crossing the equator, August 1911

Frank Wild

Ginger and her family on the voyage from London

Queen's Wharf, Hobart, an hour before sailing, December 2, 1911

The last view of Hobart nestling below Mt. Wellington

A big, following sea

McLean walking aft in rough weather

Cruising along the west coast of Macquarie Island

A Giant Petrel on the nest

A Young Giant Petrel on the nest. Caroline Cove

The wreck of the ``Clyde''

The boat harbour--Hassleborough Bay

The North End of Macquarie Island showing Wireless Hill.

The living hut is at the north end of the isthmus, with

North-East Bay on the right and Hassleborough Bay on the

left side

The `Aurora' anchored in Hassleborough Bay. In the foreground

giant seaweed is swinging in the wash of the surge

A Wanderer Albatross at rest on the water

Hunter tickles a sleeping baby Sea Elephant

A typical Tab1e-Topped neve berg originating from floating Shelf Ice

An Antarctic iceberg with a reticulation of crevasses on its tilted

surface. This berg had no doubt taken its origin from the ice of

the coastal cliffs of Adelie Land

In Pack-Ice

A cavern in the wall (120 feet) of the shelf ice of the Mertz Glacier-

Tongue

A glimpse from within the cavern (shown in the preceding illustration)

The `Aurora' in Commonwealth Bay; the rising plateau of Adelie

Land in the distance

The invaluable motor-launch; left to right, Hamilton, Bickerton,

and Blake

The whale-boat with passengers for the shore; Wild at the steering

oar

First steps in the formation of the Main Base Station; landing of

stores and equipment at the head of the Boat Harbour, Cape Denison.

In the distance men are to be seen sledging the materials to the site

selected for the erection of the hut

A view of a rocky stretch of the Adelie Land Coast west of

Commonwealth Bay

A panorama looking west from winter quarters. On the left and in

the distance are the rising slopes of the inland ice. The moraine

is in the foreground

A panorama of the sea front looking eastward from winter quarters.

The plateau slopes are visible to a height of l500 feet

In open pack-ice

The face of the Shackleton Ice-Shelf 100 miles north of the mainland.

Each strongly-marked horizontal band on the sheer wall represents a

year's snowfall

The `Aurora' anchored to thick floe-ice 100 miles north of the western

base, Queen Mary Land. In this region the annual snowfall is very

heavy, so that it is possible that the great thickness of floe is due

to the accumulation of one year

A berg with inclusions of mud and rock. Long. L0 degrees E.

The `Flying-Fox' viewed from the floe-ice below the brink of the

shelf ice on which the western party wintered

Summer at the boat harbour, Cape Denison

An Adelie penguin on the nest defending her eggs

The living-hut, nearing completion. The tents and shelter built of

benzine cases used as temporary quarters are shown

The completion of the hut--cheering the Union Jack as it was hoisted

on the flag pole

Adelie penguins at home, Cape Denison

A view of the main base hut in February l9l2, just prior to its

completion. Within a few days of the taking of this picture the

hut became so buried in packed snow that ever afterwards little

beyond the roof was to be seen

Weddell seals asleep on pancake ice

Adelie penguin after weathering a severe blizzard. observe the lumps

of ice adhering to it

A Panoramic view looking south from near the hut. In the distance

are the slopes of the inland ice-sheet. In the foreground is the

terminal moraine. Between the rocks and the figure is a zone where

rapid thawing takes place in the summer owing to the amount of dirt

contained in the ice

A panoramic view looking north towards the sea. In the middle of the

picture is Round Lake. The hut is towards the left-hand side and the

anemograph is on the hill. The men are practising ski running

An evening view from Cape Denison

The head of a Weddell seal

A Weddell seal scratching himself. ``Drat those fleas!''

The meteorologist with an ice-mask

Where the plateau descends to Commonwealth Bay

MacCormick Skua gull on the nest with egg

Chick of MacCormick Skua gull on the nest

Protection--Adelie penguin and chick

The lower moraine, composed of water worn boulders, Cape Denison

An ice-polished surface, Cape Denison

The boat harbour in March. The hut is seen dimly through light

drift

``Race of the Spray Smoke's Hurtling Sheet''

Walking against a strong wind

Picking ice for domestic purposes in a hurricane wind. Note the high

angle at which Webb is leaning on the wind

Leaning upon the wind; Madigan near the meteorological screen

Stillwell collecting geological specimens in the wind

In the blizzard; getting ice for domestic purposes from the glacier

adjacent to the hut

An incident in March soon after the completion of the hut: Hodgeman,

the night watchman, returning from his rounds outside, pushes his way

into the veranda through the rapidly accumulating drift snow

Mertz in the snow tunnels on his way to the interior of the hut with a

box of ice for the melters

Mertz emerging from the trap-door in the roof

Working in the hurricane wind, Adelie Land

Getting ice for domestic purposes. Whetter picking; Madigan

with the ice-box

The ice-cliff coastline east of winter quarters

Madigan's frostbitten face

Correll, Bage, McLean, Hodgeman, Hunter, and Bickerton

A winter afternoon scene in the hut. From the left: Mertz, McLean,

Madigan, Hunter, Hodgeman. High on the left is the acetylene

generator

Taking a turn in the kitchen department. Hunter, Hodgeman, Bage.

The doorway on the right is the entrance to the workroom

A corner of the hut--Bage mending his sleeping bag. The bunks

in two tiers around the wall are almost hidden by the clothing hanging

from the ceiling

A winter evening at the hut. Standing up: Mawson, Madigan, Ninnis,

and Correll. Sitting round the table from left to right: Stillwell,

Close, McLean, Hunter, Hannam, Hodgeman, Murphy, Lasebon, Bickerton,

Mertz, and Bage

A morning in the workshop. From left to right:

Hodgeman, Hunter, Lasebon, Correll, and Hannam. The petrol engine

part of the wireless plant on the right

Welding by thermit in the workroom, Adelie Land. Bickerton, Correll,

Hannam and Mawson

In the catacombs. Ninnis on the right

Bage and his tide gauge which was erected on the frozen bay ice

Raising the lower section of the northern wireless mast

The weathered cliffs of a glacier sheet pushing out into the frozen

sea east of Cape Denison

Bage at the door of his astronomical transit House

Webb and his magnetograph house

At work on the air-tractor sledge in the hangar; Bage, Ninnis, and

Bickerton

Webb adjusting the instruments in the magnetograph house a calm

noon in winter, Cape Denison

The ridged surface of a lake frozen during a blizzard

A lively scene in the vicinity of an Antarctic Petrel rookery, Cape

Hunter

A Weddell seal swimming below the ice-foot

A rascally Sea Leopard casting a wicked eye over the broken floe

at Land's End. Main Base

A Crab-Eater seal; common amongst the pack-ice

The rare Ross seal

One of McLean's cultures; bacteria and moulds; illustrating micro-

organisms in the hut

Ice flowers on the newly formed sea-ice

Madigan visiting the anemograph screen in a high wind

The Puffometer, designed to record maximum gust velocities

An enormous cone of snow piled up by the blizzards under the coastal

cliffs

The cliffs at Land's End, Cape Denison. On the brow of the cliff

in front of the figure (Mertz) is a good example of a snow cornice

On the frozen sea in a cavern eaten out by the waves under the

coastal ice-cliffs

Ice stalactites draping the foreshores

A grotto of ``mysteries''

The relief of Wild's party. The ``Aurora'' approaching the floe

at the western base, February l9l3

Pacing the deck: Capt. John King Davis and Capt. James Davis

An Adelie penguin feeding its young

``Amundsen'', one of the sledge dogs sent down to us from Amundsen's

South Polar Expedition

At the foot of a snow ramp beneath the coastal ice-cliffs,

Commonwealth Bay

At Aladdin's Cave. The vertical passage leading down into the cave

itself is situated immediately behind the figure on the right

Beneath the surface of the plateau. Bage preparing a meal in

Aladdin's Cave in August

Laseron and Hunter using the collapsible steel handcart in preparing

for dredging on the frozen sea

Greenland Sledging Dogs--``John Bull'' and ``Ginger''--tethered on

the rocks adjacent to the hut

The Mackellar islets viewed from an elevation of 800 feet on the

mainland

Snow Petrels preparing to nest, Cape Denison

A Snow Petrel on the nest

Adelie penguins diving into the sea in quest of food

Adelie penguins jumping on to the floe

Mertz in an icy ravine

Mertz and Ninnis arrive with the dogs at Aladdin's Cave

Mertz emerging from Aladdin's Cave

A team of dogs eagerly following Ninnis

The dogs enjoy their work

Speeding east

A distant view of Aurora Peak from the west

Lieutenant B. E. S. Ninnis, R.F.

Mertz, Ninnis, and Mawson erecting the tent in a high wind

A later stage in erection of the tent in a wind (one man is inside)

Dr. Xavier Mertz

Pages from Dr. Mertz' diary

Mawson emerging from his makeshift tent

The half-sledge used in the last stage of Mawson's journey

``...The long journey was at an end--a terrible chapter of my life

was finished!''

The southern supporting party on the plateau. Hunter, Murphy and

Laseron

The southern and supporting parties building a depot on the plateau

Depot made by the southern and supporting parties at a point 67 miles

south of Commonwealth Bay. Murphy, Laseron, and Hunter packing

sledge in the foreground; Bage in the distance

A rough sledging surface of high Sastrugi encountered by the southern

party 200 miles S.S.E. of the hut

Farthest south camp of southern party, l7 ``minutes'' (about 50

miles) from the South Magnetic Pole. Bage near sledge; Webb

taking set of magnetic observations behind snow barricade

Sastrugi furrowed by the mighty winds of the plateau, 250 miles

S.S.E. of winter quarters, Adelie Land

Under reefed sail. Southern party 290 miles S.S.E. of winter

quarters, Adelie Land

Hurley in sledging gear

Correll on the edge of a ravine in the ice sheet

Madigan's, Murphy's, and Stillwell's parties breaking camp at

Aladdin's Cave at the commencement of the summer journeys

The surface of the continental ice sheet in the coastal region where

it is badly crevassed

Working the sledge through broken sea ice, 46 miles off King George V

Land. Madigan, Correll and McLean

The ``Organ-Pipes of Horn Bluff (1000 feet in height) pushing out

from the mainland

Madigan, Correll and McLean camped below the cliffs of Horn Bluff

(1000 FEET IN height). Columnar Dolerite is seen surmounting a

sedimentary series partly buried in the talus-slope

An outcrop of a sedimentary formation containing bands of coal

projecting through the talus slope below the columnar dolerite at

Horn Bluff

The face of a granite outcrop near penguin point. At its base is

a tide crack and ice foot

The granite cliffs at Penguin Point where Cape Pigeon and Silver

Petrel rookeries were found; the site of New Year's Camp

[VOLUME II]

Madigan Nunatak--Close and Laseron standing by the sledge

A desolate camp on the plateau

Sledging rations for three men for three months

Stillwell Island--a haunt of the Silver-Grey petrel

``The Bus'', the air-tractor sledge

Bickerton and his sledge with detachable wheels

Amongst the splintered ice where the ice-sheet descends to the sea

near Cape Denison

The big winding-drum for the deep-sea dredging cable

Fletcher with the driver loaded ready to take a sounding

At the provision depot for castaways provided by the New Zealand

Government, Camp Cove, Carnley Harbour, Auckland Island.

Primmer on the right

The brick pier erected at Port Ross, Auckland Islands, by the

magneticians of Sir James Clarke Ross's Expedition

The ``Aurora'' at anchor in Port Ross, Auckland Islands

The Monagasque trawl hoisted on the derrick: Gray standing by

A remarkable berg, two cusps standing on a single basement. Note

that it has risen considerably out of the sea, exposing old water

lines

A portal worn through a berg by the waves

A turreted berg

A Midsummer view of the hut and its neighbourhood, looking S.E.

Forging through pack-ice

Members of the main base party homeward bound, January 1913. From

left to right: back row, Whetter, Hurley, Webb, Hannam, Laseron, Close;

front row, Stillwell, Hunter, Correll, Murphy

``Wireless'' Corner in the workshop. Our link with civilization

The ``Aurora'' anchored to the floe off the western base

The establishment of the western base. Hauling stores to the top

of the ice-shelf

The western base hut in winter. Note the entrance; a vertical hole

in the snow in the foreground

The western base hut--The Grottoes--in summer

An evening camp, Queen Mary Land

A man-hauled sledge

In the veranda of the western base hut--The ``Grottoes''--looking

towards the entrance dug vertically down through the snow drift

The wind-weathered igloo built for magnetic observations--western

base

Nunatak--Queen Mary Land: showing remarkable moat on windward

side and ramp on lee

Midwinter's dinner in Queen Mary Land, 1912. From left to right:

Behind--Hoadley, Dovers, Watson, Harrisson, Wild.

In Front--Jones, Moyes, Kennedy

A bevy of Emperor penguins on the floe

A yawning crevasse

Wild's party making slow progress in dangerous country

Wild, Kennedy, and Harrisson amongst the abysses of the Denman

glacier

``The whole was the wildest, maddest and yet the grandest thing

imaginable''

Wild's party working their sledges through the crushed ice at the

foot of Denman glacier

The Hippo Nunatak

Dog-sledging

Where the floe-ice meets the Shackleton Shelf

The hummocky floe on the southern margin of the Davis Sea

View showing the young birds massed together at the Emperor

penguins' rookery at Haswell Island

Antarctic petrels on the nest

A Snow petrel chick on the nest

A Silver-Grey petrel on the nest

The symmetrically domed outline of Drygalski Island, low on the

horizon. The island is 1200 feet high and 9 miles in diameter

The main western party on their return to the ``Grottoes.''

from the left: Hoadley, Jones and Dovers

Blizzard-harassed penguins, after many days buried in the snow

The pancake ice under the cliffs at Land's End

A wonderful canopy of ice

Sastrugi sculptured by the incessant blizzards

The terminal moraine, near the hut, Cape Denison

Disappearing in the drift

The hut looming through the drift

A wall of solid gneiss near winter quarters

An erratic on the moraine. Cape Denison

Frozen spray built up by the blizzards along the shore

A view of the mainland from the Mackellar Islets: ice-capped islets

in the foreground: the rock visible on the mainland is Cape

Denison

A Wilson petrel on the nest, Mackellar Islets

The ``Aurora'' lying at anchor, Commonwealth Bay. in the distance

the ice-slopes of the mainland are visible rising to a height of

3500 feet. In the foreground is a striking formation originating

by the freezing of spray dashed up by the hurricane wind

The shack: showing the natural rocky protection on the windward

side

The interior of the operating hut on Wireless Hill

Weka pecking on the beach

Chicks of the Dominican gull

Macquarie Island Skuas feeding

Bull Sea Elephants fighting

The thermometer screen, Macquarie Island

The wind-recording instruments, Macquarie Island

``Feather bed'' terrace near Eagle Point, Macquarie Island

A glacial lake (Major Lake) on Macquarie Island, 600 feet above sea

level

Victoria penguins

View of the wireless station on the summit of Wireless Hill

The wireless operating hut

The wireless engine hut

Panoramic view of Macquarie Island, as seen from Wireless Hill at the

north extremity of the island. The shack is near the bottom of

the picture on the left-hand side: the sealers' hut at the far end

of the isthmus: the distant left-hand point of the coast is the

Nuggets: north-east bay on the left: Hasselborough Bay on the right

A view of the shore at The Nuggets: the sealers' shed on the right.

the bare patches far inland high on the hills above the shed are

Royal penguins' rookeries, from which they travel to the beach in

a long procession

Sooty albatrosses nesting

A white Giant Petrel on the nest

A Giant Petrel rookery

The Macquarie Island party. From left to right: Sandell, Ainsworth,

Sawyer, Hamilton, Blake

King penguins

The head of a Sea Leopard, showing fight

A precocious Victoria penguin

Young male Sea Elephants at play

A large Sea Leopard on the beach

A Sea Elephant

A cormorant rookery, Hasselborough Bay

A young King penguin

A Sclater penguin

Royal penguins on the nest

Gentoo penguin and young

A cow Sea Elephant and pup

The head of a bull Sea Elephant

A rookery of Sea Elephants near the shore at the Nelson reef,

chiefly cows and pups

A bull Sea Elephant in a fighting attitude

A cormorant and young on nest

The wild West Coast of Macquarie Island

A Royal penguins rookery

The wreck of the ``Gratitude'' on the Nuggets beach

Kerguelen Cabbage

Flowering plant

Darby and Joan. Two rare examples of penguins which visited the

shack, Macquarie Island. On the left a Sclater penguin, on the

right an albino Royal penguin

Large erratics and other glacial debris on the summit of Macquarie

Island

Pillow-form lava on the highlands of Macquarie Island

Waterfall Lake, of glacial origin

On the plateau-like summit of Macquarie Island; a panorama near the

north end. Glacial lakes and tarns in the foreground

The King penguins rookery, Lusitania Bay

The head of a bull Sea Elephant photographed in the act of roaring

The rookery of Royal penguins at the south end, viewed from a cliff

several hundred feet above it

Young Sea Elephants asleep amongst Royal penguins, south end rookery

Hamilton inspecting a good catch of fish at Lusitania Bay

Hamilton obtaining the blubber of a Sea Elephant for fuel

An illustration of the life on the Mackellar Islets

An ice mushroom amongst the Mackellar Islets

View looking out of a shallow ravine at the eastern extremity of the

rocks at Cape Denison

``Hurley had before him a picture in perfect proportion....''

Antarctic petrels resting on the snow

Silver-grey petrels making love

Looking towards the mainland from Stillwell Island: Silver-grey

petrels nesting in the foreground

Antarctic petrels nesting on the rocky ledges of the cliffs near Cape

Hunter

Icing ship in the pack north of Termination Ice-tongue

Emperor penguins follow the leader into the sea

Emperor penguins jumping on to the floe

Cape Hunter, composed of ancient sedimentary rocks (Phyllites)

Examples of Antarctic marine crustaceans

TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS

Antarctic discoveries preceding the year l9l0

Plan and section of the S.Y. `Aurora''

Map of Macquarie Island by L. R. BLAKE

Ships' tracks in the vicinity of Totten's Land and North's Land

Ships' tracks in the vicinity of Knox Land and Budd Land

Plan of the hut, Adelie Land

Sections across the hut, Adelie Land

The vicinity of the main base, Adelie Land

A section of the coastal slope of the continental ice-sheet inland

from winter quarters, Adelie Land

Wind velocity and wind direction charts for a period of twenty-four

hours, Adelie Land

A comparison of wind velocities and temperatures prevailing at Cape

Royds, McMurdo Sound, and at winter quarters, Adelie Land, during

the months of May and June

The drift-gauge

The wind velocity and wind direction charts for midwinter day

The tide-gauge

Midwinter Day menu at the main base, Adelie Land, l9l2

Section through a Nansen sledging cooker mounted on the Primus

Map showing the track of the southern sledging party from the

main base

[VOLUME II]

Map showing the remarkable distribution of islets fringing the coast-

line of Adelie Land in the vicinity of Cape Gray

Map showing the tracks of the western sledging party, Adelie Land

Plan illustrating the arrangements for deep-sea trawling on board

the ``Aurora''

Map of the Auckland Islands

The ``Contents'' page of the first number of the ``Adelie Blizzard''

The meteorological chart for April 12, 1913, compiled by the

Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau

A diagrammatic sketch illustrating the meteorological conditions at

the main base, noon, September 6, 1913

Plan of the hut, Macquarie Island

Map of the north end of Macquarie Island by L. R. Blake

A section across Macquarie Island through Mt. Elder, by L. R. Blake

A sketch illustrating the distribution of the Mackellar Islets

A section illustrating the moat in the Antarctic continental shelf

Slgnatures of members of the land parties

A section of the Antarctic plateau from the coast to a point 300 miles

inland, along the route followed by the southern sledging party

A section across a part of the Antarctic continent through the South

Magnetic Pole

A section of the floor of the Southern Ocean between Tasmania and

King George V Land

A section of the floor of the Southern Ocean between Western Australia

and Queen Mary Land

A map showing Antarctic land discoveries preceding 1838

A map showing Antarctic land discoveries preceding 1896

A map of the Antarctic regions as known at the present day

FOLDING MAPS

Regional map showing the area covered by the Australasian Antarctic

Expedition, 1911-1914

King George V Land, showing tracks of the eastern sledglng parties

from the main base

Queen Mary Land, showing tracks of the sledging party from the main

base

CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM AND PREPARATIONS

Notwithstanding the fact that it has been repeatedly stated in the

public press that the Australasian Antarctic expedition had no

intention of making the South Geographical Pole its objective, it is

evident that our aims were not properly realized by a large section

of the British public, considering that many references have appeared

in print attributing that purpose to the undertaking. With three

other Antarctic expeditions already in the field, it appeared to

many, therefore, that the venture was entirely superfluous.

The Expedition had a problem sketched in unmistakable feature, and the

following pages will shortly set forth its historical origin and

rationale.

The Antarctic problem** assumed its modern aspect after Captain Cook's

circumnavigation of the globe in high southern latitudes, accomplished

between 1772 and 1775. Fact replaced the fiction and surmise of

former times, and maps appeared showing a large blank area at the

southern extremity of the earth, where speculative cartographers had

affirmed the existence of habitable land extending far towards the

Equator. Cook's voyage made it clear that if there were any

considerable mass of Antarctic land, it must indubitably lie within

the Antarctic Circle, and be subjected to such stringent climatic

conditions as to render it an unlikely habitation for man.

** Dr. H. R. Mill has compiled a complete account of Antarctic

exploration in his ``Siege of the South Pole.''

Refer also to the Historical Appendix for an abridged statement.

Cook's reports of seals on the island of South Georgia initiated in

the Antarctic seas south of America a commercial enterprise, which is

still carried on, and has incidentally thrown much light upon the

geography of the South Polar regions. Indeed, almost the whole of

such information, prior to the year 1839, was the outcome of sealing

and whaling projects.

About the year 1840, a wave of scientific enthusiasm resulted in the

dispatch of three national expeditions by France, the United States,

and Great Britain; part at least of whose programmes was Antarctic

exploration. Russia had previously sent out an expedition which had

made notable discoveries.

The contributions to knowledge gained at this period were

considerable. Those carried back to civilization by the British

expedition under Ross, are so well known that they need not be

described. The French under Dumont D'Urville and the Americans under

Wilkes visited the region to the southward of Australia--the arena of

our own efforts--and frequent references will be made to their work

throughout this story.

What has been termed the period of averted interest now intervened,

before the modern movement set in with overpowering insistence. It

was not till 1897 that it had commenced in earnest. Since then many

adventurers have gone forth; most of the prominent civilized nations

taking their share in exploration. By their joint efforts some, at

least, of the mystery of Antarctica has been dispelled.

It is now a commonplace, largely in the world of geographical

concerns, that the earth has still another continent, unique in

character, whose ultimate bounds are merely pieced together from

a fragmentary outline. The Continent itself appears to have been

sighted for the first time in the year 1820, but no human being

actually set foot on it until 1895. The Belgian expedition under de

Gerlache was the first to experience the Antarctic winter, spending

the year 1898 drifting helplessly, frozen in the pack-ice, to the

southward of America. In the following year a British expedition

under Borchgrevinck, wintering at Cape Adare, passed a year upon the

Antarctic mainland.

The main efforts of recent years have been centred upon the two more

accessible areas, namely, that in the American Quadrant** which is

prolonged as a tongue of land outside the Antarctic Circle, being

consequently less beset by ice; secondly, the vicinity of the Ross

Sea in the Australian Quadrant. It is because these two favoured

domains have for special reasons attracted the stream of exploration

that the major portion of Antarctica is unknown. Nevertheless, one

is in a position to sketch broad features which will probably not be

radically altered by any future expeditions.

** For convenience, the Antarctic regions may be referred to in four

main divisions, corresponding with the quadrants of the hemisphere.

Of the several suggestions thrown out by previous writers, the one

adopted here is that based on the meridian of Greenwich, referring

the quadrants to an adjacent continent or ocean. Thus the American

Quadrant lies between 0 degrees and 90 degrees W., the African Quadrant

between 0 degrees and 90 degrees E., and the Australian Quadrant

between 90 degrees and 180 degrees E. The fourth division is called

the Pacific Quadrant, since ocean alone lies to the north of it.

Certain it is that a continent approaching the combined areas of

Australia and Europe lies more or less buried beneath the South Polar

snows; though any statement of the precise area is insufficient for

a proper appreciation of the magnitude, unless its elevated plateau-

like character be also taken into consideration. It appears to be

highest over a wide central crown rising to more than ten thousand

feet. Of the remainder, there is little doubt that the major

portion stands as high as six thousand feet. The average elevation

must far exceed that of any other continent, for, with peaks nineteen

thousand feet above sea-level, its mountainous topography is

remarkable. Along the coast of Victoria Land, in the Australian

Quadrant, are some of the most majestic vistas of alpine scenery that

the world affords. Rock exposures are rare, ice appearing everywhere

except in the most favoured places.

Regarding plant and animal life upon the land there is little to say.

The vegetable kingdom is represented by plants of low organization

such as mosses, lichens, diatoms and alg£e. The animal world, so far

as true land-forms are concerned, is limited to types like the protozoa

(lowest in the organic scale), rotifera and minute insect-like mites

which lurk hidden away amongst the tufts of moss or on the under side

of loose stones. Bacteria, most fundamental of all, at the basis,

so to speak, of animal and vegetable life, have a manifold distribution.

It is a very different matter when we turn to the life of the

neighbouring seas, for that vies in abundance with the warmer waters

of lower latitudes. There are innumerable seals, many sea-birds and

millions of penguins. As all these breed on Antarctic shores, the

coastal margin of the continent is not so desolate.

In view of the fact that life, including land-mammals, is abundant in

the North Polar regions, it may be asked why analogous forms are not

better represented in corresponding southern latitudes. Without going

too deeply into the question, it may be briefly stated, firstly, that

a more widespread glaciation than at present prevails invested the

great southern continent and its environing seas, within recent

geological times, effectually exterminating any pre-existing land

life. Secondly, since that period the continent has been isolated by

a wide belt of ocean from other lands, from which restocking might

have taken place after the manner of the North Polar regions.

Finally, climatic conditions in the Antarctic are, latitude for

latitude, much more severe than in the Arctic.

With regard to climate in general, Antarctica has the lowest mean

temperature and the highest wind-velocity of any land existing.

This naturally follows from the fact that it is a lofty expanse of

ice-clad land circumscribing the Pole, and that the Antarctic summer

occurs when the earth is farther from the sun than is the case during

the Arctic summer.

There are those who would impatiently ask, ``What is the use of it

all?'' The answer is brief.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Antarctic Land discoveries preceding the year 1910

The polar regions, like any other part of the globe, may be said to

be paved with facts, the essence of which it is necessary to acquire

before knowledge of this special zone can be brought to even a

provisional exactitude. On the face of it, polar research may seem

to be specific and discriminating, but it must be remembered that an

advance in any one of the departments into which, for convenience,

science is artificially divided, conduces to the advantage of all.

Science is a homogeneous whole. If we ignore the facts contained in

one part of the world, surely we are hampering scientific advance.

It is obvious to every one that, given only a fraction of the

pieces, it is a much more difficult task to put together a jig-saw

puzzle and obtain an idea of the finished pattern than were all the

pieces at hand. The pieces of the jig-saw puzzle are the data of

science.

Though it is not sufficiently recognized, the advance of science is

attended by a corresponding increase in the creature comforts of man.

Again, from an economic aspect, the frozen South may not attract

immediate attention. But who can say what a train of enterprise the

future may bring?

Captain James Cook, on his return to London after the circumnavigation

of Antarctica, held that the far-southern lands had no future. Yet, a

few years later, great profits were being returned to Great Britain

and the United States from sealing-stations established as a result of

Cook's own observations. At the present day, several whaling

companies have flourishing industries in the Antarctic waters within

the American Quadrant.

Even now much can be said in regard to the possibilities offered by

the Antarctic regions for economic development, but, year by year,

the outlook will widen, since man is constantly resorting to subtler

and more ingenious artifice in applying Nature's resources. It will

be remembered that Charles Darwin, when in Australia, predicted a very

limited commercial future for New South Wales. But the mastery of

man overcame the difficulties which Darwin's too penetrating mind

foresaw.

What will be the role of the South in the progress of civilization

and in the development of the arts and sciences, is not now obvious.

As sure as there is here a vast mass of land with potentialities,

strictly limited at present, so surely will it be cemented some day

within the universal plinth of things.

An unknown coast-line lay before the door of Australia. Following on

the general advance of exploration, and as a sequel to several

important discoveries, the time arrived when a complete elucidation of

the Antarctic problem was more than ever desirable. In the Australian

Quadrant, the broad geographical features of the Ross Sea area were

well known, but of the remainder and greater portion of the tract only

vague and imperfect reports could be supplied.

Before submitting our plans in outline, it will be as well to review

the stage at which discovery had arrived when our Expedition came

upon the scene.

The coast-line of the eastern extremity of the Australian Quadrant,

including the outline of the Ross Sea and the coast west-north-west of

Cape Adare as far as Cape North, was charted by Ross and has been

amplified by seven later expeditions. In the region west of Cape

North, recent explorers had done little up till 1911. Scott in the

`Discovery' had disproved the existence of some of Wilkes's land;

Shackleton in the `Nimrod' had viewed some forty miles of high land

beyond Cape North; lastly, on the eve of our departure, Scott's `Terra

Nova' had met two patches of new land--Oates Land--still farther west,

making it evident that the continent ranged at least two hundred and

eighty miles in a west-north-west direction from Cape Adare.

Just outside the western limit of the Australian Quadrant lies

Gaussberg, discovered by a German expedition under Drygalski in 1902.

Between the most westerly point sighted by the `Terra Nova' and

Gaussberg, there is a circuit of two thousand miles, bordering the

Antarctic Circle, which no vessel had navigated previous to 1840.

This was the arena of our activities and, therefore, a synopsis of

the voyages of early mariners will be enlightening.

Balleny, a whaling-master, with the schooner `Eliza Scott' of one

hundred and fifty-four tons, and a cutter, the `Sabrina' of fifty-four

tons, was the first to meet with success in these waters. Proceeding

southward from New Zealand in 1839, he located the Balleny Islands, a

group containing active volcanoes, lying about two hundred miles off

the nearest part of the mainland and to the north-west of Cape Adare.

Leaving these islands, Balleny sailed westward keeping a look-out for

new land. During a gale the vessels became separated and the `Sabrina'

was lost with all hands. Balleny in the `Eliza Scott' arrived safely

in England and reported doubtful land in 122 degrees E. longitude,

approximately. Dr. H. R. Mill says: ``Although the name of the

cutter `Sabrina' has been given to an appearance of land at this point,

we cannot look upon its discovery as proved by the vague reference

made by the explorers.''

On January 1, 1840, Dumont D'Urville sailed southward from Hobart in

command of two corvettes, the `Astrolabe' and the `Zelee'. Without

much obstruction from floating ice, he came within sight of the

Antarctic coast, thenceforth known as Adelie Land. The expedition

did not set foot on the mainland, but on an adjacent island. They

remained in the vicinity of the coast for a few days, when a gale

sprang up which was hazardously weathered on the windward side of

the pack-ice. The ships then cruised along the face of flat-topped

ice-cliffs, of the type known as barrier-ice or shelf-ice, which

were taken to be connected with land and named Cote Clarie. As will

be seen later, Cote Clarie does not exist.

Dr. H. R. Mill sums up the work done by the French expedition

during its eleven days' sojourn in the vicinity of the Antarctic

coast:

``D'Urville's discoveries of land were of but little account. He

twice traced out considerable stretches of a solid barrier of ice,

and at one point saw and landed upon rocks in front of it; but he

could only give the vaguest account of what lay behind the barrier.''

Wilkes of the American expedition proceeded south from Sydney at the

close of 1839. His vessels were the `Vincennes', a sloop of war of

seven hundred and eighty tons, the `Peacock', another sloop of six

hundred and fifty tons, the `Porpoise', a gun-brig of two hundred and

thirty tons and a tender, the `Flying Fish' of ninety-six tons. The

scientists of the expedition were precluded from joining in this part

of the programme, and were left behind in Sydney. Wilkes himself was

loud in his denunciation both of the ships and of the stores, though

they had been specially assembled by the naval department. The

ships were in Antarctic waters for a period of forty-two days, most

of the time separated by gales, during which the crews showed great

skill in navigating their ill-fitted crafts and suffered great

hardships.

Land was reported almost daily, but, unfortunately, subsequent

exploration has shown that most of the landfalls do not exist.

Several soundings made by Wilkes were indicative of the approach to

land, but he must have frequently mistaken for it distant ice-masses

frozen in the pack. Experience has proved what deceptive light-

effects may be observed amid the ice and how easily a mirage

may simulate reality.

Whatever the cause of Wilkes's errors, the truth remains that Ross

sailed over land indicated in a rough chart which had been forwarded

to him by Wilkes, just before the British expedition set out. More

recently, Captain Scott in the `Discovery' erased many of the

landfalls of Wilkes, and now we have still further reduced their

number. The `Challenger' approached within fifteen miles of the

western extremity of Wilkes's Termination Land, but saw no sign of it.

The `Gauss' in the same waters charted Kaiser Wilhelm II Land well to

the south of Termination Land, and the eastward continuation of the

former could not have been visible from Wilkes's ship. After the

voyage of the `Discovery', the landfalls, the existence of which had

not been disproved, might well have been regarded as requiring

confirmation before their validity could be recognised.

The only spot where rocks were reported in situ was in Adelie Land,

where the French had anticipated the Americans by seven days.

Farther west, earth and stones had been collected by Wilkes from

material embedded in floating masses of ice off the coast of his Knox

Land. These facts lend credence to Wilkes's claims of land in that

vicinity. His expedition did not once set foot on Antarctic shores,

and, possibly on account of the absence of the scientific staff, his

descriptions tend to be inexact and obscure. The soundings made by

Wilkes were sufficient to show that he was probably in some places at

no great distance from the coast, and, considering that his work was

carried out in the days of sailing-ships, in unsuitable craft, under

the most adverse weather conditions, with crews scurvy-stricken and

discontented, it is wonderful how much was achieved. We may amply

testify that he did more than open the field for future expeditions.

After we had taken into account the valuable soundings of the

`Challenger' (1872), the above comprised our knowledge concerning

some two thousand miles of prospective coast lying to the southward

of Australia, at a time when the plans of the Australasian expedition

were being formulated.

The original plans for the expedition were somewhat modified upon my

return from Europe. Briefly stated, it was decided that a party of

five men should be stationed at Macquarie Island, a sub-antarctic

possession of the Commonwealth. They were to be provided with a hut,

stores and a complete wireless plant, and were to prosecute general

scientific investigations, co-operating with the Antarctic bases in

meteorological and other work. After disembarking the party at

Macquarie Island, the `Aurora' was to proceed south on a meridian of

158 degrees E. longitude, to the westward of which the Antarctic

programme was to be conducted.

Twelve men, provisioned and equipped for a year's campaign and

provided with wireless apparatus, were to be landed in Antarctica on

the first possible opportunity at what would constitute a main base.

Thereafter, proceeding westward, it was hoped that a second and a third

party, consisting of six and eight men respectively, would be

successively established on the continent at considerable distances

apart. Of course we were well aware of the difficulties of landing

even one party, but, as division of our forces would under normal

conditions secure more scientific data, it was deemed advisable to be

prepared for exceptionally favourable circumstances.

Macquarie Island, a busy station in the days of the early sealers,

had become almost neglected. Little accurate information was to be

had regarding it, and no reliable map existed. A few isolated facts

had been gathered of its geology, and the anomalous fauna and flora

sui generis had been but partially described. Its position, eight

hundred and fifty miles south-south-east of Hobart, gave promise of

valuable meteorological data relative to the atmospheric circulation

of the Southern Hemisphere and of vital interest to the shipping of

Australia and New Zealand.

As to the Antarctic sphere of work, it has been seen that very little

was known of the vast region which was our goal. It is sufficient to

say that almost every observation would be fresh material added to

the sum of human knowledge.

In addition to the work to be conducted from the land bases, it was

intended that oceanographic investigations should be carried on by

the `Aurora' as far as funds would allow. With this object in view,

provision was made for the necessary apparatus which would enable the

ship's party to make extensive investigations of the ocean and its

floor over the broad belt between Australia and the Antarctic

Continent. This was an important branch of study, for science is just

as much interested in the greatest depths of the ocean as with the

corresponding elevations of the land. Indeed, at the present day,

the former is perhaps the greater field.

The scope of our intentions was regarded by some as over-ambitious,

but knowing

How far high failure overleaps the bound

Of low successes,

and seeing nothing impossible in these arrangements, we continued to

adhere to them as closely as possible, with what fortune remains to

be told.

To secure a suitable vessel was a matter of fundamental importance.

There was no question of having a ship built to our design, for the

requisite expenditure might well have exceeded the whole cost of our

Expedition. Accordingly the best obtainable vessel was purchased,

and modified to fulfil our requirements. Such craft are not to be had

in southern waters; they are only to be found engaged in Arctic

whaling and sealing.

The primary consideration in the design of a vessel built to navigate

amid the ice is that the hull be very staunch, capable of driving

into the pack and of resisting lateral pressure, if the ice should

close in around it.

So a thick-walled timber vessel, with adequate stiffening in the

framework, would meet the case. The construction being of wood

imparts a certain elasticity, which is of great advantage in easing

the shock of impacts with floating ice. As has been tragically

illustrated in a recent disaster, the ordinary steel ship would be

ripped on its first contact with the ice. Another device, to obviate

the shock and to assist in forging a way through the floe-ice, is to

have the bow cut away below the water-line. Thus, instead of

presenting to the ice a vertical face, which would immediately arrest

the ship and possibly cause considerable damage on account of the

sudden stress of the blow, a sloping, overhanging bow is adopted.

This arrangement enables the bow to rise over the impediment, with a

gradual slackening of speed. The immense weight put upon the ice

crushes it and the ship settles down, moving ahead and gathering

speed to meet the next obstacle.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Plan and Section of S.Y. `Aurora'

Of importance second only to a strong hull is the possession of sails

in addition to engines. The latter are a sine qua non in polar

navigation, whilst sails allow of economy in the consumption of coal,

and always remain as a last resort should the coal-supply be

exhausted or the propeller damaged.

The `Aurora', of the Newfoundland sealing fleet, was ultimately

purchased and underwent necessary alterations. She was built in

Dundee in 1876, but though by no means young was still in good

condition and capable of buffeting with the pack for many a year.

Also, she was not without a history, for in the earlier days she was

amongst those vessels which hurried to the relief of the unfortunate

Greely expedition.

The hull was made of stout oak planks, sheathed with greenheart and

lined with fir. The bow, fashioned on cutaway lines, was a mass of

solid wood, armoured with steel plates. The heavy side-frames were

braced and stiffened by two tiers of horizontal oak beams, upon which

were built the 'tween decks and the main deck. Three bulkheads

isolated the fore-peak, the main hold, the engine-room and the after

living-quarters respectively.

A hull of such strength would resist a heavy strain, and, should it

be subjected to lateral pressure, would in all probability rise out

of harm's way. However, to be quite certain of this and to ensure

safety in the most extreme case it is necessary that the hull be

modelled after the design adopted by Nansen in the `Fram'.

The principal dimensions were, length one hundred and sixty-five feet,

breadth thirty feet, and depth eighteen feet.

The registered tonnage was three hundred and eighty-six, but the

actual carrying capacity we found to be about six hundred tons.

The engines, situated aft, were compound, supplied with steam from a

single boiler. The normal power registered was ninety-eight horse-

power, working a four-bladed propeller, driving it at the rate of

sixty or seventy revolutions per minute (six to ten knots per hour).

Steam was also laid on to a winch, aft, for handling cargo in the main

hold, and to a forward steam-windlass. The latter was mainly used

for raising the anchor and manipulating the deep-sea dredging-cable.

The ship was square on the foremast and schooner-rigged on the main

and mizen masts.

Between the engine-room bulkhead and the chain and sail locker was a

spacious hold. Six large steel tanks built into the bottom of the

hold served for the storage of fresh water and at any time when empty

could be filled with seawater, offering a ready means of securing

emergency ballast.

On the deck, just forward of the main hatch, was a deckhouse,

comprising cook's galley, steward's pantry and two laboratories.

Still farther forward was a small lamp-room for the storage of

kerosene, lamps and other necessaries. A lofty fo'c'sle-head gave

much accommodation for carpenters', shipwrights' and other stores.

Below it, a capacious fo'c'sle served as quarters for a crew o£

sixteen men.

Aft, the chart-room, captain's cabin and photographic dark-room formed

a block leading up to the bridge, situated immediately in front of

the funnel. Farther aft, behind the engine-room and below the poop

deck, was the ward-room(,) a central space sixteen feet by eight feet,

filled by the dining-table and surrounded by cabins with bunks for

twenty persons.

From the time the `Aurora' arrived in London to her departure from

Australia, she was a scene of busy activity, as alterations and

replacements were necessary to fit her for future work.

In the meantime, stores and gear were being assembled. Purchases were

made and valuable donations received both in Europe and Australia.

Many and varied were the requirements, and some idea of their great

multiplicity will be gained by referring to the appendices dealing

with stores, clothing and instruments.

Finally, reference may be made in this chapter to the staff. In no

department can a leader spend time more profitably than in the

selection of the men who are to accomplish the work. Even when

the expedition has a scientific basis, academic distinction becomes

secondary in the choice of men. Fiala, as a result of his Arctic

experience, truly says, ``Many a man who is a jolly good fellow in

congenial surroundings will become impatient, selfish and mean when

obliged to sacrifice his comfort, curb his desires and work hard in

what seems a losing fight. The first consideration in the choice of

men for a polar campaign should be the moral quality. Next should

come mental and physical powers.''

For polar work the great desideratum is tempered youth. Although

one man at the age of fifty may be as strong physically as another

at the age of twenty, it is certain that the exceptional man of fifty

was also an exceptional man at twenty. On the average, after about

thirty years of age, the elasticity of the body to rise to the

strain of emergency diminishes, and, when forty years is reached,

a man, medically speaking, reaches his acme. After that, degeneration

of the fabric of the body slowly and maybe imperceptibly sets in.

As the difficulties of exploration in cold regions approximate to the

limit of human endurance and often enough exceed it, it is obvious

that the above generalizations must receive due weight.

But though age and with it the whole question of physical fitness must

ever receive primary regard, yet these alone in no wise fit a man for

such an undertaking. The qualifications of mental ability, acquaintance

with the work and sound moral quality have to be essentially borne in

mind. The man of fifty might then be placed on a higher plane than

his younger companion.

With regard to alcohol and tobacco, it may be maintained on theoretical

grounds that a man is better without them, but, on the other hand, his

behaviour in respect to such habits is often an index to his self-control.

Perfection is attained when every man individually works with the

determination to sacrifice all personal predispositions to the welfare

of the whole.

Ours proved to be a very happy selection. The majority of the men

chosen as members of the land parties were young graduates of the

Commonwealth and New Zealand Universities, and almost all were

representative of Australasia. Among the exceptions was Mr. Frank

Wild, who was appointed leader of one of the Antarctic parties. Wild

had distinguished himself in the South on two previous occasions,

and now is in the unique position of being, as it were, the oldest

resident of Antarctica. Our sojourn together at Cape Royds with

Shackleton had acquainted me with Wild's high merits as an explorer

and leader.

Lieutenant B. E. S. Ninnis of the Royal Fusiliers, Dr. X. Mertz,

an expert ski-runner and mountaineer, and Mr. F. H. Bickerton in

charge of the air-tractor sledge, were appointed in London. Reference

has already been made to Captain Davis: to him were left all

arrangements regarding the ship's complement.

A ``Who's who'' of the staff appears as an appendix.

CHAPTER II THE LAST DAYS AT HOBART AND THE VOYAGE TO MACQUARIE ISLAND

``Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;

Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to

guide us.

And the Wild is calling, calling--Let us go.''--SERVICE.

It will be convenient to pick up the thread of our story upon the

point of the arrival of the `Aurora' in Hobart, after her long voyage

from London during the latter part of the year 1911.

Captain Davis had written from Cape Town stating that he expected to

reach Hobart on November 4. In company with Mr. C. C. Eitel,

secretary of the Expedition, I proceeded to Hobart, arriving on

November 2.

Early in the morning of November 4 the Harbour Board received news

that a wooden vessel, barquentine-rigged, with a crow's-nest on the

mainmast, was steaming up the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. This left no

doubt as to her identity and so, later in the day, we joined Mr.

Martelli, the assistant harbour-master, and proceeded down the river,

meeting the `Aurora' below the quarantine ground.

We heard that they had had a very rough passage after leaving the

Cape. This was expected, for several liners, travelling by the same

route, and arriving in Australian waters a few days before, had

reported exceptionally heavy weather.

Before the ship had reached Queen's Wharf, the berth generously

provided by the Harbour Board, the Greenland dogs were transferred

to the quarantine ground, and with them went Dr. Mertz and Lieutenant

Ninnis, who gave up all their time during the stay in Hobart to the

care of those important animals. A feeling of relief spread over the

whole ship's company as the last dog passed over the side, for

travelling with a deck cargo of dogs is not the most enviable thing

from a sailor's point of view. Especially is this the case in a

sailing-vessel where room is limited, and consequently dogs and ropes

are mixed indiscriminately.

Evening was just coming on when we reached the wharf, and, as we

ranged alongside, the Premier, Sir Elliot Lewis, came on board and

bade us welcome to Tasmania.

Captain Davis had much to tell, for more than four months had elapsed

since my departure from London, when he had been left in charge of

the ship and of the final arrangements.

At the docks there had been delays and difficulties in the execution

of the necessary alterations to the ship, in consequence of strikes

and the Coronation festivities. It was so urgent to reach Australia

in time for the ensuing Antarctic summer, that the recaulking of the

decks and other improvements were postponed, to be executed on the

voyage or upon arrival in Australia.

Captain Davis seized the earliest possible opportunity of departure,

and the `Aurora' dropped down the Thames at midnight on July 27, 1911.

As she threaded her way through the crowded traffic by the dim light

of a thousand flickering flames gleaming through the foggy

atmosphere, the dogs entered a protest peculiar to their ``husky''

kind. After a short preliminary excursion through a considerable

range of the scale, they picked up a note apparently suitable to all

and settled down to many hours of incessant and monotonous howling,

as is the custom of these dogs when the fit takes them. It was quite

evident that they were not looking forward to another sea voyage.

The pandemonium made it all but impossible to hear the orders given

for working the ship, and a collision was narrowly averted. During

those rare lulls, when the dogs' repertoire temporarily gave out,

innumerable sailors on neighbouring craft, wakened from their sleep,

made the most of such opportunities to hurl imprecations in a

thoroughly nautical fashion upon the ship, her officers, and each

and every one of the crew.

On the way to Cardiff, where a full supply of coal was to be shipped,

a gale was encountered, and much water came on board, resulting in

damage to the stores. Some water leaked into the living quarters and,

on the whole, several very uncomfortable days were spent. Such

inconvenience at the outset undoubtedly did good, for many of the

crew, evidently not prepared for emergency conditions, left at Cardiff.

The scratch crew with which the `Aurora'journeyed to Hobart composed

for the most part of replacements made at Cardiff, resulted in some

permanent appointments of unexpected value to the Expedition.

At Cardiff the coal strike caused delay, but eventually some five

hundred tons of the Crown Fuel Company's briquettes were got on board,

and a final leave taken of English shores on August 4.

Cape Town, the only intermediate port of call, was reached on

September 24, after a comparatively rapid and uneventful voyage.

A couple of days sufficed to load coal, water and fresh provisions,

and the course was then laid for Hobart.

Rough weather soon intervened, and Lieutenant Ninnis and Dr. Mertz,

who travelled out by the `Aurora' in charge of the sledging-dogs,

had their time fully occupied, for the wet conditions began to tell

on their charges.

On leaving London there were forty-nine of these Greenland, Esquimaux

sledging-dogs of which the purchase and selection had been made

through the offices of the Danish Geographical Society. From

Greenland they were taken to Copenhagen, and from thence transhipped

to London, where Messrs. Spratt took charge of them at their dog-farm

until the date of departure. During the voyage they were fed on the

finest dog-cakes, but they undoubtedly felt the need of fresh meat

and fish to withstand the cold and wet. In the rough weather of the

latter part of the voyage water broke continually over the deck, so

lowering their vitality that a number died from seizures, not properly

understood at the time. In each case death was sudden, and preceded

by similar symptoms. An apparently healthy dog would drop down in

a fit, dying in a few minutes, or during another fit within a few days.

Epidemics, accompanied by similar symptoms, are said to be common

amongst these dogs in the Arctic regions, but no explanation is given

as to the nature of the disease. During a later stage of the

Expedition, when nearing Antarctica, several more of the dogs were

similarly stricken. These were examined by Drs. McLean and Jones,

and the results of post-mortems showed that in one case death was

due to gangrenous appendicitis, in two others to acute gastritis

and colitis.

The dog first affected caused some consternation amongst the crew,

for, after being prostrated on the deck by a fit, it rose and rushed

about snapping to right and left. The cry of ``mad dog'' was raised.

Not many seconds had elapsed before all the deck hands were safely

in the rigging, displaying more than ordinary agility in the act.

At short intervals, other men, roused from watch below appeared at

the fo'c'sle companion-way. To these the situation at first appeared

comic, and called forth jeers upon their faint-hearted shipmates. The

next moment, on the dog dashing into view, they found a common cause

with their fellows and sprang aloft. Ere many minutes had elapsed

the entire crew were in the rigging, much to the amusement of the

officers. By this time the dog had disappeared beneath the fo'c'sle

head, and Mertz and Ninnis entered, intending to dispatch it. A shot

was fired and word passed that the deed was done: thereupon the crew

descended, pressing forward to share in the laurels. Then it was that

Ninnis, in the uncertain light, spying a dog of similar markings

wedged in between some barrels, was filled with doubt and called out

to Mertz that he had shot the wrong dog. In a flash the crew had once

more climbed to safety. It was some time after the confirmation of

the first execution that they could be prevailed upon to descend.

Several litters of puppies were born on the voyage, but all except one

succumbed to the hardships of the passage.

The voyage from Cardiff to Hobart occupied eighty-eight days.

The date of departure south was fixed for 4 P.M. of Saturday,

December 2, and a truly appalling amount of work had to be done

before then.

Most of the staff had been preparing themselves for special duties;

in this the Expedition was assisted by many friends.

A complete, detailed acknowledgment of all the kind help received

would occupy much space. We must needs pass on with the assurance

that our best thanks are extended to one and all.

Throughout the month of November, the staff continued to arrive in

contingents at Hobart, immediately busying themselves in their own

departments, and in sorting over the many thousands of packages in

the great Queen's Wharf shed. Wild was placed in charge, and all

entered heartily into the work. The exertion of it was just what was

wanted to make us fit, and prepared for the sudden and arduous work of

discharging cargo at the various bases. It also gave the opportunity

of personally gauging certain qualities of the men, which are not

usually evoked by a university curriculum.

Some five thousand two hundred packages were in the shed, to be sorted

over and checked. The requirements of three Antarctic bases, and one

at Macquarie Island were being provided for, and consequently the

most careful supervision was necessary to prevent mistakes, especially

as the omission of a single article might fundamentally affect the

work of a whole party. To assist in discriminating the impedimenta,

coloured bands were painted round the packages, distinctive of the

various bases.

It had been arranged that, wherever possible, everything should be

packed in cases of a handy size, to facilitate unloading and

transportation; each about fifty to seventy pounds in weight.

In addition to other distinguishing marks, every package bore a

different number, and the detailed contents were listed in a schedule

for reference.

Concurrently with the progress of this work, the ship was again

overhauled, repairs effected, and many deficiencies made good. The

labours of the shipwrights did not interfere with the loading, which

went ahead steadily during the last fortnight in November.

The tanks in the hold not used for our supply of fresh water were

packed with reserve stores for the ship. The remainder of the lower

hold and the bunkers were filled with coal. Slowly the contents of

the shed diminished as they were transfered to the 'tween decks.

Then came the overflow. Eventually, every available space in the

ship was flooded with a complicated assemblage of gear, ranging from

the comparatively undamageable wireless masts occupying a portion

of the deck amidships, to a selection of prime Australian cheeses

which filled one of the cabins, and pervaded the ward-room with an

odour which remained one of its permanent associations.

Yet, heterogeneous and ill-assorted as our cargo may have appeared to

the crowds of curious onlookers, Captain Davis had arranged for the

stowage of everything with a nicety which did him credit. The

complete effects of the four bases were thus kept separate, and

available in whatever order was required. Furthermore, the removal of

one unit would not break the stowage of the remainder, nor disturb the

trim of the ship.

At a late date the air-tractor sledge arrived. The body was

contained in one huge case which, though awkward, was comparatively

light, the case weighing much more than the contents. This was

securely lashed above the maindeck, resting on the fo'c'sle and two

boat-skids.

As erroneous ideas have been circulated regarding the ``aeroplane

sledge,'' or more correctly ``air-tractor sledge,'' a few words in

explanation will not be out of place.

This machine was originally an R.E.P. monoplane, constructed by

Messrs. Vickers and Co., but supplied with a special detachable,

sledge-runner undercarriage for use in the Antarctic, converting it

into a tractor for hauling sledges. It was intended that so far as

its role as a flier was concerned, it would be chiefly exercised for

the purpose of drawing public attention to the Expedition in Australia,

where aviation was then almost unknown. With this object in view,

it arrived in Adelaide at an early date accompanied by the aviator,

Lieutenant Watkins, assisted by Bickerton. There it unfortunately

came to grief, and Watkins and Wild narrowly escaped death in the

accident. It was then decided to make no attempt to fly in the

Antarctic; the wings were left in Australia and Lieutenant Watkins

returned to England. In the meantime, the machine was repaired and

forwarded to Hobart.

Air-tractors are great consumers of petrol of the highest quality.

This demand, in addition to the requirements of two wireless plants

and a motor-launch, made it necessary to take larger quantities than

we liked of this dangerous cargo. Four thousand gallons of ``Shell''

benzine and one thousand three hundred gallons of ``Shell'' kerosene,

packed in the usual four-gallon export tins, were carried as a deck

cargo, monopolizing the whole of the poop-deck.

For the transport of the requirements of the Macquarie Island Base,

the s.s. `Toroa', a small steam-packet of one hundred and twenty tons,

trading between Melbourne and Tasmanian ports, was chartered. It was

arranged that this auxiliary should leave Hobart several days after

the `Aurora', so as to allow us time, before her arrival, to inspect

the island, and to select a suitable spot for the location of the base.

As she was well provided with passenger accommodation, it was arranged

that the majority of the land party should journey by her as far as

Macquarie Island.

The Governor of Tasmania, Sir Harry Barron, the Premier, Sir Elliot

Lewis, and the citizens of Hobart extended to us the greatest

hospitality during our stay, and, when the time came, gave us a

hearty send-off.

Saturday, December 2 arrived, and final preparations were made. All

the staff were united for the space of an hour at luncheon. Then

began the final leave-taking. ``God speed'' messages were received

from far and wide, and intercessory services were held in the

Cathedrals of Sydney and Hobart.

We were greatly honoured at this time by the reception of kind

wishes from Queen Alexandra and, at an earlier date, from his Majesty

the King.

Proud of such universal sympathy and interest, we felt stimulated to

greater exertions.

On arrival on board, I found Mr. Martelli, who was to pilot us down

the river, already on the bridge. A vast crowd blockaded the wharf

to give us a parting cheer.

At 4 P.M. sharp, the telegraph was rung for the engines, and, with a

final expression of good wishes from the Governor and Lady Barron, we

glided out into the channel, where our supply of dynamite and

cartridges was taken on board. Captain G. S. Nares, whose kindness

we had previously known, had the H.M.S. `Fantome' dressed in our

honour, and lusty cheering reached us from across the water.

As we proceeded down the river to the Quarantine Station where the

dogs were to be taken off, Hobart looked its best, with the glancing

sails of pleasure craft skimming near the foreshores, and backed by

the stately, sombre mass of Mount Wellington. The ``land of

strawberries and cream'', as the younger members of the Expedition had

come to regard it, was for ever to live pleasantly in our memories,

to be recalled a thousand times during the adventurous months which

followed. Mr. E. Joyce, whose name is familiar in connexion with

previous Antarctic expeditions, and who had travelled out from

London on business of the Expedition, was waiting in mid-stream with

thirty-eight dogs, delivering them from a ketch. These were passed

over the side and secured at intervals on top of the deck cargo.

The engines again began to throb, not to cease until the arrival at

Macquarie Island. A few miles lower down the channel, the Premier,

and a number of other friends and well-wishers who had followed in

a small steamer, bade us a final adieu.

Behind lay a sparkling seascape and the Tasmanian littoral; before,

the blue southern ocean heaving with an ominous swell. A glance at

the barograph showed a continuous fall, and a telegram from Mr.

Hunt, Head of the Commonwealth Weather Bureau, received a few hours

previously, informed us of a storm-centre south of New Zealand, and

the expectation of fresh south-westerly winds.

The piles of loose gear presented an indescribable scene of chaos,

and, even as we rolled lazily in the increasing swell, the water

commenced to run about the decks. There was no time to be lost in

securing movable articles and preparing the ship for heavy weather.

All hands set to work.

On the main deck the cargo was brought up flush with the top of the

bulwarks, and consisted of the wireless masts, two huts, a large

motor-launch, cases of dog biscuits and many other sundries. Butter

to the extent of a couple of tons was accommodated chiefly on the

roof of the main deck-house, where it was out of the way of the dogs.

The roof of the chart-house, which formed an extension of the bridge

proper, did not escape, for the railing offered facilities for lashing

sledges; besides, there was room for tide-gauges, meteorological

screens, and cases of fresh eggs and apples. Somebody happened to

think of space unoccupied in the meteorological screens, and a few

fowls were housed therein.

On the poop-deck there were the benzine, sledges, and the chief

magnetic observatory. An agglomeration of instruments and private

gear rendered the ward-room well nigh impossible of access, and it

was some days before everything was jammed away into corners. An

unoccupied five-berth cabin was filled with loose instruments, while

other packages were stowed into the occupied cabins, so as to almost

defeat the purpose for which they were intended.

The deck was so encumbered that only at rare intervals was it

visible. However, by our united efforts everything was well secured

by 8 P.M.

It was dusk, and the distant highlands were limned in silhouette

against the twilight sky. A tiny, sparkling lamp glimmered from

Signal Hill its warm farewell. From the swaying poop we flashed back,

``Good-bye, all snug on board.''

Onward with a dogged plunge our laden ship would press. If `Fram' were

``Forward,'' _she_ was to be hereafter our `Aurora' of ``Hope''--the Dawn

of undiscovered lands.

Home and the past were effaced in the shroud of darkness, and thought

leapt to the beckoning South--the ``land of the midnight sun.''

During the night the wind and sea rose steadily, developing into a

full gale. In order to make Macquarie Island, it was important not

to allow the ship to drive too far to the east, as at all times the

prevailing winds in this region are from the west. Partly on this

account, and partly because of the extreme severity of the gale, the

ship was hove to with head to wind, wallowing in mountainous seas.

Such a storm, witnessed from a large vessel, would be an inspiring

sight, but was doubly so in a small craft, especially where the

natural buoyancy had been largely impaired by overloading. With

an unprecedented quantity of deck cargo, amongst which were six

thousand gallons of benzine, kerosene and spirit, in tins which were

none too strong, we might well have been excused a lively anxiety

during those days. It seemed as if no power on earth could save

the loss of at least part of the deck cargo. Would it be the

indispensable huts amidships, or would a sea break on the benzine aft

and flood us with inflammable liquid and gas?

By dint of strenuous efforts and good seamanship, Captain Davis with

his officers and crew held their own. The land parties assisted in

the general work, constantly tightening up the lashings and lending

``beef,'' a sailor's term for man-power, wherever required. For this

purpose the members of the land parties were divided into watches, so

that there were always a number patrolling the decks.

Most of us passed through a stage of sea-sickness, but, except in the

case of two or three, it soon passed off. Seas deluged all parts of

the ship. A quantity of ashes was carried down into the bilge-water

pump and obstructed the steam-pump. Whilst this was being cleared,

the emergency deck pumps had to be requisitioned. The latter were

available for working either by hand-power or by chain-gearing from

the after-winch.

The deck-plug of one of the fresh-water tanks was carried away and,

before it was noticed, sea-water had entered to such an extent as to

render our supply unfit for drinking. Thus we were, henceforth, on

a strictly limited water ration.

The wind increased from bad to worse, and great seas continued to rise

until their culmination on the morning of December 5, when one came

aboard on the starboard quarter, smashed half the bridge and carried

it away. Toucher was the offlcer on watch, and no doubt thought

himself lucky in being, at the time, on the other half of the bridge.

The deck-rings holding the motor-launch drew, the launch itself was

sprung and its decking stove-in.

On the morning of December 8 we found ourselves in latitude 49 degrees

56 minutes S. and longitude 152 degrees 28' E., with the weather so

far abated that we were able to steer a course for Macquarie Island.

During the heavy weather, food had been prepared only with the

greatest difficulty. The galley was deluged time and again.

It was enough to dishearten any cook, repeatedly finding himself

amongst kitchen debris of all kinds, including pots and pans full

and empty. Nor did the difficulties end in the galley, for food which

survived until its arrival on the table, though not allowed much time

for further mishap, often ended in a disagreeable mass on the floor

or, tossed by a lurch of more than usual suddenness, entered an

adjoining cabin. From such localities the elusive piice de resistance

was often rescued.

As we approached our rendezvous, whale-birds** appeared. During the

heavy weather, Mother Carey's chickens only were seen, but, as the

wind abated, the majestic wandering albatross, the sooty albatross

and the mollymawk followed in our wake.

** For the specific names refer to Appendix which is a glossary of

special and unfamiliar terms.

Whales were observed spouting, but at too great a distance to be

definitely recognized.

At daybreak on December 11 land began to show up, and by 6 A.M.

we were some sixteen miles off the west coast of Macquarie Island,

bearing on about the centre of its length.

In general shape it is long and narrow, the length over all being

twenty-one miles. A reef runs out for several miles at both

extremities of the main island, reappearing again some miles beyond

in isolated rocky islets: the Bishop and Clerk nineteen miles to the

southward and the Judge and Clerk eight miles to the north.

The land everywhere rises abruptly from the sea or from an exaggerated

beach to an undulating plateau-like interior, reaching a maximum

elevation of one thousand four hundred and twenty-five feet. Nowhere

is there a harbour in the proper sense of the word, though six or

seven anchorages are recognized.

The island is situated in about 55 degrees S. latitude, and the

climate is comparatively cold, but it is the prevalence of strong

winds that is the least desirable feature of its weather.

Sealing, so prosperous in the early days, is now carried on in a

small way only, by a New Zealander, who keeps a few men stationed at

the island during part of the year for the purpose of rendering down

sea elephant and penguin blubber. Their establishment was known to

be at the north end of the island near the best of the anchorages.

Captain Davis had visited the island in the `Nimrod', and was acquainted

with the three anchorages, which are all on the east side and

sheltered from the prevailing westerlies. One of the old-time sealers

had reported a cove suitable for small craft at the south-western

corner, but the information was scanty, and recent mariners had avoided

that side of the island. On the morning of our approach the breeze

was from the south-east, and, being favourable, Captain Davis

proposed a visit.

By noon, Caroline Cove, as it is called, was abreast of us. Its

small dimensions, and the fact that a rocky islet for the most part

blocks the entrance, at first caused some misgivings as to its

identity.

A boat was lowered, and a party of us rowed in towards the entrance,

sounding at intervals to ascertain whether the `Aurora' could make use

of it, should our inspection prove it a suitable locality for the

land station.

We passed through a channel not more than eighty yards wide, but with

deep water almost to the rocks on either side. A beautiful inlet now

opened to view. Thick tussock-grass matted the steep hillsides, and

the rocky shores, between the tide-marks as well as in the depths

below, sprouted with a profuse growth of brown kelp. Leaping out of

the water in scores around us were penguins of several varieties, in

their actions reminding us of nothing so much as shoals of fish chased

by sharks. Penguins were in thousands on the uprising cliffs, and

from rookeries near and far came an incessant din. At intervals along

the shore sea elephants disported their ungainly masses in the sunlight.

Circling above us in anxious haste, sea-birds of many varieties gave

warning of our near approach to their nests. It was the invasion by

man of an exquisite scene of primitive nature.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Macquarie Island

After the severe weather experienced, the relaxation made us all feel

like a band of schoolboys out on a long vacation.

A small sandy beach barred the inlet, and the whaleboat was

directed towards it. We were soon grating on the sand amidst an army

of Royal penguins; picturesque little fellows, with a crest and

eyebrows of long golden-yellow feathers. A few yards from the massed

ranks of the penguins was a mottled sea-leopard, which woke up and

slid into the sea as we approached.

Several hours were spent examining the neighbourhood. Webb and

Kennedy took a set of magnetic observations, while others hoisted

some cases of stores on to a rocky knob to form a provision depot,

as it was quickly decided that the northern end of the island was

likely to be more suitable for a permanent station.

The Royal penguins were almost as petulant as the Adelie penguins

which we were to meet further South. They surrounded us, pecked at

our legs and chattered with an audacity which defies description. It

was discovered that they resented any attempt to drive them into the

sea, and it was only after long persuasion that a bevy took to the

water. This was a sign of a general capitulation, and some hundreds

immediately followed, jostling each other in their haste, squawking,

whirring their flippers, splashing and churning the water, reminding

one of a crowd of miniature surf-bathers. We followed the files of

birds marching inland, along the course of a tumbling stream, until at

an elevation of some five hundred feet, on a flattish piece of ground,

a huge rookery opened out--acres and acres of birds and eggs.

In one corner of the bay were nests of giant petrels in which sat

huge downy young, about the size of a barn-door fowl, resembling the

grotesque, fluffy toys which might be expected to hang on a

Christmas-tree.

Here and there on the beach and on the grass wandered bright-coloured

Maori hens. On the south side of the bay, in a low, peaty area

overgrown with tussock-grass, were scores of sea elephants, wallowing

in bog-holes or sleeping at their ease.

Sea elephants, at one time found in immense numbers on all sub-antarctic

islands, are now comparatively rare, even to the degree of extinction,

in many of their old haunts. This is the result of ruthless slaughter

prosecuted especially bY sealers in the early days. At the present

time Macquarie Island is more favoured by them than probably any other

known locality. The name by which they are popularly known refers to

their elephantine proportions and to the fact that, in the case of

the old males, the nasal regions are enormously developed, expanding

when in a state of excitement to form a short, trunk-like appendage.

They have been recorded up to twenty feet in length, and such a

specimen would weigh about four tons.

Arriving on the `Aurora' in the evening, we learnt that the ship's

company had had an adventure which might have been most serious. It

appeared that after dropping us at the entrance to Caroline Cove, the

ship was allowed to drift out to sea under the influence of the off-

shore wind. When about one-third of a mile north-west of the entrance,

a violent shock was felt, and she slid over a rock which rose up out

of deep water to within about fourteen feet of high-water level;

no sign of it appearing on the surface on account of the tranquil

state of the sea. Much apprehension was felt for the hull, but as no

serious leak started, the escape was considered a fortunate one. A

few soundings had been made proving a depth of four hundred fathoms

within one and a half miles of the land.

A course was now set for the northern end of the island.

Dangerous-looking reefs ran out from many headlands, and cascades of

water could be seen falling hundreds of feet from the highlands to

the narrow coastal flats.

The anchorage most used is that known as North-East Bay, lying on the

eastern side of a low spit joining the main mass of the island, to an

almost isolated outpost in the form of a flat-topped hill--Wireless

Hill--some three-quarters of a mile farther north. It is practically

an open roadstead, but, as the prevailing winds blow on to the other

side of the island, quiet water can be nearly always expected.

However, when we arrived at North-East Bay on the morning following

our adventure; a stiff south-east breeze was blowing, and the wash on

the beach put landing out of the question. Captain Davis ran in as

near the coast as he could safely venture and dropped anchor, pending

the moderation of the wind.

On the leeward slopes of a low ridge, pushing itself out on to the

southern extremity of the spit, could be seen two small huts, but no

sign of human life. This was not surprising as it was only seven

o'clock. Below the huts, upon low surf-covered rocks running out from

the beach, lay a small schooner partly broken up and evidently a

recent victim. A mile to the southward, fragments of another wreck

protruded from the sand.

We were discussing wrecks and the grisly toll which is levied by

these dangerous and uncharted shores, when a human figure appeared

in front of one of the huts. After surveying us for a moment, he

disappeared within to reappear shortly afterwards, followed by a

stream of others rushing hither and thither; just as if he had

disturbed a hornets' nest. After such an exciting demonstration

we awaited the next move with some expectancy.

Planks and barrels were brought on to the beach and a flagstaff was

hoisted. Then one of the party mounted on the barrel, and told us by

flag signals that the ship on the beach was the `Clyde', which had

recently been wrecked, and that all hands were safely on shore, but

requiring assistance. Besides the shipwrecked crew, there were half

a dozen men who resided on the island during the summer months for

the purpose of collecting blubber.

The sealers tried repeatedly to come out to us, but as often as it

was launched their boat was washed up again on the beach, capsizing

them into the water. At length they signalled that a landing could

be made on the opposite side of the spit, so the anchor was raised and

the ship steamed round the north end of the island, to what Captain

Davis proposed should be named Hasselborough Bay, in recognition of

the discoverer of the island. This proved an admirable anchorage,

for the wind remained from the east and south-east during the greater

part of our stay.

The sealers pushed their boat across the spit, and, launching it in

calmer water, came out to us, meeting the `Aurora' some three miles off

the land. The anchor was let go about one mile and a half from the

head of the bay.

News was exchanged with the sealers. It appeared that there had been

much speculation as to what sort of a craft we were; visits of ships,

other than those sent down specially to convey their oil to New

Zealand, being practically unknown. For a while they suspected the

`Aurora' of being an alien sealer, and had prepared to defend their

rights to the local fishery.

All was well now, however, and information and assistance were

freely volunteered. They were greatly relieved to hear that our

auxiliary vessel, the `Toroa' was expected immediately, and would

be available for taking the ship-wrecked crew back to civilization.

Owing to the loss of the `Clyde', a large shipment of oil in barrels

lay piled upon the beach with every prospect of destruction, just at

a time when the realization of its value would be most desirable, to

make good the loss sustained by the wreck. I decided, therefore, in

view of their hospitality, to make arrangements with the captain of

the `Toroa' to take back a load of the oil, upon terms only sufficient

to recoup us for the extension of the charter.

In company with Ainsworth, Hannam and others, I went ashore to select

a site for the station. As strong westerly winds were to be expected

during the greater part of the year, it was necessary to erect

buildings in the lee of substantial break-winds. Several sites for

a hut convenient to a serviceable landing-place were inspected at the

north end of the beach. The hut was eventually erected in the lee of

a large mass of rock, rising out of the grass-covered sandy flat at

the north end of the spit.

It would have been much handier in every way, both in assembling the

engines and masts and subsequently in operating the wireless station,

had the wireless plant been erected on the beach adjacent to the

living-hut. On the other hand, a position on top of the hill had

the advantage of a free outlook and of increased electrical potential,

allowing of a shorter length of mast. In addition the ground in this

situation proved to be peaty and sodden, and therefore a good

conductor, thus presenting an excellent ``earth'' from the wireless

standpoint. In short, the advantages of the hill-site outweighed its

disadvantages. Of the latter the most obvious was the difficult

transportation of the heavy masts, petrol-engine, dynamo, induction-

generator and other miscellaneous gear, from the beach to the summit--

a vertical height of three hundred feet.

To facilitate this latter work the sealers placed at our disposal a

``flying fox'' which ran from sea-level to the top of Wireless Hill,

and which they had erected for the carriage of blubber. On inspecting

it, Wild reported that it was serviceable, but would first require to

be strengthened. He immediately set about effecting this with the

help of a party.

Hurley now discovered that he had accidentally left one of his

cinematograph lenses on a rock where he had been working in Caroline

Cove. As it was indispensable, and there was little prospect of the

weather allowing of another visit by the ship, it was decided that he

should go on a journey overland to recover it. One of the sealers,

Hutchinson by name, who had been to Caroline Cove and knew the best

route to take, kindly volunteered to accompany Hurley. The party

was eventually increased by the addition of Harrisson, who was to

keep a look-out for matters of biological interest. They started

off at noon on December 13.

Although the greater part of the stores for the Macquarie Island party

were to arrive by the Toroa there were a few tons on board the

`Aurora'. These and the dogs were landed as quickly as possible. How

glad the poor animals were to be once more on solid earth! It was

out of the question to let them loose, so they were tethered at

intervals along a heavy cable, anchored at both ends amongst the

tussock-grass. Ninnis took up his abode in the sealers' hut so that

he might the better look after their wants, which centred chiefly on

sea elephant meat, and that in large quantities. Webb joined Ninnis,

as he intended to take full sets of magnetic observations at several

stations in the vicinity.

Bickerton and Gillies got the motor-launch into good working order,

and by means of it the rest of us conveyed ashore several tons of

coal briquettes, the benzine, kerosene, instruments and the wireless

masts, by noon on December 13.

Everything but the requirements of the wireless station was landed on

the spit, as near the north-east corner as the surf would allow.

Fortunately, reefs ran out from the shore at intervals, and calmer

water could be found in their lee. All gear for the wireless station

was taken to a spot about half a mile to the north-west at the foot of

Wireless Hill, where the ``flying fox'' was situated. Just at that

spot there was a landing-place at the head of a charming little boat

harbour, formed by numerous kelp-covered rocky reefs rising at

intervals above the level of high water. These broke the swell, so

that in most weathers calm water was assured at the landing-place.

This boat harbour was a fascinating spot. The western side was

peopled by a rookery of blue-eyed cormorants; scattered nests of

white gulls relieved the sombre appearance of the reefs on the

opposite side: whilst gentoo penguins in numbers were busy hatching

their eggs on the sloping ground beyond. Skua-gulls and giant petrels

were perched here and there amongst the rocks, watching for an

opportunity of marauding the nests of the non-predacious birds. Sea

elephants raised their massive, dripping heads in shoal and channel.

The dark reefs, running out into the pellucid water, supported a vast

growth of a snake-like form of kelp, whose octopus-like tentacles,

many yards in length, writhed yellow and brown to the swing of the

surge, and gave the foreground an indescribable weirdness. I stood

looking out to sea from here one evening, soon after sunset, the

launch lazily rolling in the swell, and the `Aurora' in the offing,

while the rich tints of the afterglow paled in the south-west.

I envied Wild and his party, whose occupation in connexion with the

``flying fox'' kept them permanently camped at this spot.

The `Toroa' made her appearance on the afternoon of December 13, and

came to anchor about half a mile inside the `Aurora'. Her departure

had been delayed by the bad weather. Leaving Hobart late on December 7,

she had anchored off Bruni Island awaiting the moderation of the sea.

The journey was resumed on the morning of the 9th, and the passage

made in fine weather. She proved a handy craft for work of the kind,

and Captain Holliman, the master, was well used to the dangers of

uncharted coastal waters.

Within a few minutes of her arrival, a five-ton motor-boat of shallow

draught was launched and unloading commenced.

Those of the staff arriving by the `Toroa' were housed ashore with the

sealers, as, when everybody was on board, the `Aurora' was

uncomfortably congested. Fifty sheep were taken on shore to feed on

the rank grass until our departure. A large part of the cargo

consisted of coal for the `Aurora'. This was already partly bagged,

and in that form was loaded into the launches and whale-boats; the

former towing the latter to their destination. Thus a continuous

stream of coal and stores was passing from ship to ship, and from the

ships to the several landing-places on shore. As soon as the

after-hold on the `Toroa' was cleared, barrels of sea elephant oil

were brought off in rafts and loaded aft, simultaneously with the

unloading forward.

We kept at the work as long as possible--about sixteen hours a day

including a short interval for lunch. There were twenty-five of the

land party available for general work, and with some assistance from

the ship's crew the work went forward at a rapid rate.

On the morning of the 15th, after giving final instructions to Eitel,

who had come thus far and was returning as arranged, the `Toroa'

weighed anchor and we parted with a cheer.

The transportation of the wireless equipment to the top of the hill

had been going on simultaneously with the un- loading of the ships.

Now, however, all were able to concentrate upon it, and the work

went forward very rapidly.

All the wireless instruments, and much of the other paraphernalia of

the Macquarie Island party had been packed in the barrels, as it was

expected that they would have to be rafted ashore through the surf.

Fortunately, the weather continued to ``hold'' from an easterly

direction, and everything was able to be landed in the comparatively

calm waters of Hasselborough Bay; a circumstance which the islanders

assured us was quite a rare thing. The wireless masts were rafted

ashore. These were of oregon pine, each composed of four sections.

Digging the pits for bedding the heavy, wooden ``dead men,'' and

erecting the wireless masts, the engine-hut and the operating-hut

provided plenty of work for all. Here was as busy a scene as one

could witness anywhere--some with the picks and shovels, others

with hammers and nails, sailors splicing ropes and fitting masts,

and a stream of men hauling the loads up from the sea-shore to

their destination on the summit.

Some details of the working of the ``flying fox'' will be of interest.

The distance between the lower and upper terminals was some eight

hundred feet. This was spanned by two steel-wire carrying cables,

secured above by ``dead men'' sunk in the soil, and below by a turn

around a huge rock which outcropped amongst the tussock-grass on the

flat, some fifty yards from the head of the boat harbour. For hauling

up the loads, a thin wire line, with a pulley-block at either

extremity, rolling one on each of the carrying wires, passed round a

snatch-block at the upper station. It was of such a length that when

the loading end was at the lower station, the counterpoise end was in

position to descend at the other. Thus a freight was dispatched to

the top of the hill by filling a bag, acting as counterpoise, with

earth, until slightly in excess of the weight of the top load; then

off it would start gathering speed as it went.

Several devices were developed for arresting the pace as the freight

neared the end of its journey, but accidents were always liable to

occur if the counterpoise were unduly loaded. Wild was injured by

one of these brake-devices, which consisted of a bar of iron Iying on

the ground about thirty yards in front of the terminus, and attached

by a rope with a loose-running noose to the down-carrying wire. On the

arrival of the counterpoise at that point on the wire, its speed would

be checked owing to the drag exerted. On the occasion referred to,

the rope was struck with such velocity that the iron bar was jerked

into the air and struck Wild a solid blow on the thigh. Though

incapacitated for a few days, he continued to supervise at the lower

terminal.

The larger sections of the wireless masts gave the greatest trouble,

as they were not only heavy but awkward. A special arrangement was

necessary for all loads exceeding one hundredweight, as the single

wire carrier-cables were not sufficiently strong. In such cases both

carrier-cables were lashed together making a single support, the

hauling being done by a straight pull on the top of the hill. The

hauling was carried out to the accompanirrlcnt of chanties, and these

helped to relieve the strain of the Work. It was a familiar sight

to see a string of twenty men on the hauling-line scaring the

skua-gulls with popular choruses like ``A' roving'' and ``Ho, boys,

pull her along.'' In calm weather the parties at either terminal

could communicate by shouting but were much assisted by megaphones

improvised from a pair of leggings.

Considering the heavy weights handled and the speed at which the work

was done, we were fortunate in suffering only one breakage, and that

might have been more serious than it proved. The mishap in question

occurred to the generator. In order to lighten the load, the rotor

had been taken out. When almost at the summit of the hill, the

ascending weight, causing the carrying-wires to sag unusually low,

struck a rock, unhitched the lashing and fell, striking the steep

rubble slope, to go bounding in great leaps out amongst the grass to

the flat below. Marvellous to relate, it was found to have suffered

no damage other than a double fracture of the end-plate casting, which

could be repaired. And so it was decided to exchange the generators

in the two equipments, as there would be greater facilities for

engineering work at the Main Base, Adelie Land. Fortunately, the

other generator was almost at the top of the ship's hold, and

therefore accessible. The three pieces into which the casting had

been broken were found to be sprung, and would not fit together.

However, after our arrival at Adelie Land, Hannam found, curiously

enough, that the pieces fitted into place perfectly--apparently an

effect of contraction due to the cold--and with the aid of a few plates

and belts the generator was made as serviceable as ever.

In the meantime, Hurley, Harrisson, and the sealer, Hutchinson, had

returned from their trip to Caroline Cove, after a most interesting

though arduous journey. They had camped the first evening at The

Nuggets, a rocky point on the east coast some four miles to the south

of North-East Bay. From The Nuggets, the trail struck inland up the

steep hillsides until the summit of the island was reached; then over

pebble-strewn, undulating ground with occasional small lakes,

arriving at the west coast near its southern extremity. Owing to

rain and fog they overshot the mark and had to spend the night close

to a bay at the south-end. There Hurley obtained some good photographs

of sea elephants and of the penguin rookeries.

The next morning, December 15, they set off again, this time finding

Caroline Cove without further difficulty. Harrisson remained on the

brow of the hill overlooking the cove, and there captured some prions

and their eggs. Hurley and his companion found the lost lens and

returned to Harrisson securing a fine albatross on the way. This

solitary bird was descried sitting on the hill side, several hundreds

of feet above sea-level. Its plumage was in such good condition that

they could not resist the impulse to secure it for our collection,

for the moment not considering the enormous weight to be carried.

They had neither firearms nor an Ancient Mariner's cross-bow, and no

stones were to be had in the vicinity--when the resourceful Hurley

suddenly bethought himself of a small tin of meat in his haversack,

and, with a fortunate throw, hit the bird on the head, killing the

majestic creature on the spot.

Shouldering their prize, they trudged on to Lusitania Bay, camping

there that night in an old dilapidated hut; a remnant of the sealing

days. Close by there was known to be a large rookery of King

penguins; a variety of penguin with richly tinted plumage on the

head and shoulders, and next in size to the Emperor--the sovereign bird

of the Antarctic Regions. The breeding season was at its height, so

Harrisson secured and preserved a great number of their eggs.

Hutchinson kindly volunteered to carry the albatross in addition to

his original load. If they had skinned the bird, the weight would

have been materially reduced, but with the meagre appliances at hand,

it would undoubtedly have been spoiled as a specimen. Hurley, very

ambitiously, had taken a heavy camera, in addition to a blanket and

other sundries. During the rough and wet walking of the previous day,

his boots had worn out and caused him to twist a tendon in the right

foot, so that he was not up to his usual form, while Harrisson was

hampered with a bulky cargo of eggs and specimens.

Saddled with these heavy burdens, the party found the return journey

very laborious. Hurley's leg set the pace, and so, later in the day,

Harrisson decided to push on ahead in order to give us news, as they

had orders to be back as soon as possible and were then overdue. When

darkness came on, Harrisson was near The Nuggets, where he passed the

night amongst the tussock-grass. Hurley and Hutchinson, who were

five miles behind, also slept by the wayside. When dawn appeared,

Harrisson moved on, reaching the north-end huts at about 9 A.M. Mertz

and Whetter immediately set out and came to the relief of the other

two men a few hours later.

Fatigue and the lame leg subdued Hurley for the rest of the day, but

the next morning he was off to get pictures of the ``flying fox'' in

action. It was practically impossible for him to walk to the top

of the hill, but not to be baffled, he sent the cinematograph machine

up by the ``flying fox,'' and then followed himself. Long before

reaching the top he realized how much his integrity depended on the

strength of the hauling-line and the care of those on Wireless Hill.

During the latter part of our stay at the island, the wind veered to

the north and north-north-east. We took advantage of this change to

steam round to the east side, intending to increase our supply of

fresh water at The Nuggets, where a stream comes down the hillside on

to the beach. In this, however, we were disappointed, for the sea was

breaking too heavily on the beach, and so we steamed back to North-

East Bay and dropped anchor. Wild went off in the launch to search

for a landing-place but found the sea everywhere too formidable.

Signals were made to those on shore, instructing them to finish off

the work on the wireless plant, and to kill a dozen sheep--enough for

our needs for some days.

The ship was now found to be drifting, and, as the wind was blowing

inshore, the anchor was raised, and with the launch in tow we steamed

round to the calmer waters of Hasselborough Bay. At the north end of

the island, for several miles out to sea along the line of a submerged

reef, the northerly swell was found to be piling up in an ugly manner,

and occasioned considerable damage to the launch. This happened as the

`Aurora' swung around; a sea catching the launch and rushing it forward

so that it struck the stern of the ship bow-on, notwithstanding the

fact that several of the men exerted themselves to their utmost to

prevent a collision. On arrival at the anchorage, the launch was

noticeably settling down, as water had entered at several seams which

had been started.

After being partly bailed out, it was left in the water with Hodgeman

and Close aboard, as we wished to run ashore as soon as the weather

improved. Contrary to expectation the wind increased, and it was

discovered that the `Aurora' was drifting rapidly, although ninety

fathoms of chain had been paid out. Before a steam-winch** was

installed, the anchor could be raised only by means of an antiquated

man-power lever-windlass. In this type, a see-saw-like lever is

worked by a gang of men at each extremity, and it takes a long time

to get in any considerable length of chain. The chorus and chanty

came to our aid once more, and the long hours of heaving on the

fo'c'sle head were a bright if strenuous spot in our memories of

Macquarie Island. In course of time, during which the ship steamed

slowly ahead, the end came in sight--'Vast heaving!--but the anchor

was missing. This put us in an awkward situation, for the stock of

our other heavy anchor had already been lost. There was no other

course but to steam up and down waiting for the weather to moderate.

In the meantime, we had been too busy to relieve Close and Hodgeman,

who had been doing duty in the launch, bailing for five hours, and

were thoroughly soaked with spray. All hands now helped with the

tackle, and we soon had the launch on board in its old position near

the main hatch.

** Fitted on return to Sydney after the first Antarctic cruise.

These operations were unusually protracted for we were short handed;

the boatswain, some of the sailors and most of the land party being

marooned on shore. We were now anxious to get everybody on board and

to be off. The completion of their quarters was to be left to the

Macquarie Island party, and it was important that we should make the

most of the southern season. The wind blew so strongly, however, that

there was no immediate prospect of departure.

The ship continued to steam up and down. On the morning of December

23 it was found possible to lower the whale-boat, and Wild went off

with a complement of sturdy oarsmen, including Madigan, Moyes, Watson

and Kennedy, and succeeded in bringing off the dogs. Several trips

were made with difficulty during the day, but at last all the men,

dogs and sheep were brought off.

Both Wild and I went with the whale-boat on its last trip at dusk on

the evening of December 23. The only possible landing-place, with

the sea then running, was at the extreme north-eastern corner of the

beach. No time was lost in getting the men and the remainder of the

cargo into the boat, though in the darkness this was not easily

managed. The final parting with our Macquarie Island party took

place on the beach, their cheers echoing to ours as we breasted the

surf and ``gave way'' for the ship.

CHAPTER III FROM MACQUARIE ISLAND TO ADELIE LAND

The morning following our farewell to Ainsworth and party at the

north end of the island found us steaming down the west coast,

southward bound.

Our supply of fresh water was scanty, and the only resource was to

touch at Caroline Cove. As a matter of fact, there were several

suitable localities on the east coast, but the strong easterly

weather then prevailing made a landing impossible.

On the ship nearing the south end, the wind subsided. She then

crept into the lee of the cliffs, a boat was dropped and soundings

disclosed a deep passage at the mouth of Caroline Cove and ample

water within. There was, however, limited space for manoeuvring

the vessel if a change should occur in the direction of the wind.

The risk was taken; the `Aurora' felt her way in, and, to provide

against accident, was anchored by Captain Davis with her bow

toward the entrance. Wild then ran out a kedge anchor to secure

the stern.

During the cruise down the coast the missing stock of our only

anchor had been replaced by Gillies and Hannam. Two oregon

``dead men'', bolted together on the shank, made a clumsy but

efficient makeshift.

Two large barrels were taken ashore, repeatedly filled and towed

off to the ship. It was difficult at first to find good water,

for the main stream flowing down from the head of the bay was

contaminated by the penguins which made it their highway to a

rookery. After a search, an almost dry gulley bed was found to

yield water when a pit was dug in its bed. This spot was some

eighty yards from the beach and to reach it one traversed an area

of tussocks between which sea elephants wallowed in soft mire.

A cordon of men was made and buckets were interchanged, the full

ones descending and the empty ones ascending. The barrels on the

beach were thus speedily filled and taken off by a boat's crew. At

11 P.M. darkness came, and it was decided to complete the work on the

following day.

As we rowed to the ship, the water was serenely placid. From the

dark environing hills came the weird cries of strange birds. There

was a hint of wildness, soon to be forgotten in the chorus of a

'Varsity song and the hearty shouts of the rowers.

About 2 A.M. the officer on watch came down to report to Captain

Davis a slight change in the direction of the breeze. At 3 A.M.

I was again awakened by hearing Captain Davis hasten on deck, and

by a gentle bumping of the ship, undoubtedly against rock. It

appeared that the officer on watch had left the bridge for a few

minutes, while the wind freshened and was blowing at the time nearly

broadside-on from the north. This caused the ship to sag to leeward,

stretching the bow and stern cables, until she came in contact with

the kelp-covered, steep, rocky bank on the south side. The narrow

limits of the anchorage were responsible for this dangerous situation.

All hands were immediately called on deck and set to work hauling on

the stern cable. In a few minutes the propeller and rudder were out

of danger. The engines were then started slowly ahead, and, as we

came up to the bower anchor, the cable was taken in. The wind was

blowing across the narrow entrance to the Cove, so that it was

advisable to get quickly under way. The kedge anchor was abandoned,

and we steamed straight out to sea with the bower hanging below the

bows. The wind increased, and there was no other course open but to

continue the southward voyage.

The day so inauspiciously begun turned out beautifully sunny.

There was additional verve in our Christmas celebration, as Macquarie

Island and the Bishop and Clerk, in turn, sank below the northern

horizon.

During the stay at the island little attention had been given to

scientific matters. All our energies had been concentrated on

speedily landing the party which was to carry out such special

work, so as to allow us to get away south as soon as possible.

Enough had been seen to indicate the wide scientific possibilities

of the place.

For some days we were favoured by exceptional weather; a moderate

breeze from the north-east and a long, lazy swell combining to make

our progress rapid.

The sum of the experiences of earlier expeditions had shown that the

prevailing winds south of 60 degrees S. latitude were mainly

south-easterly, causing a continuous streaming of the pack from east

to west. Our obvious expedient on encountering the ice was to steam

in the same direction as this drift. It had been decided before

setting out that we would confine ourselves to the region west of the

meridian of 158 degrees E. longitude. So it was intended to reach the

pack, approximately in that meridian, and, should we be repulsed,

to work steadily to the west in expectation of breaking through to

the land.

Regarding the ice conditions over the whole segment of the unknown

tract upon which our attack was directed, very little was known.

Critically examined, the reports of the American squadron under the

command of Wilkes were highly discouraging. D'Urville appeared to

have reached his landfall without much hindrance by ice, but that was

a fortunate circumstance in view of the difficulties Wilkes had met.

At the western limit of the area we were to explore, the Germans in

the `Gauss' had been irrevocably trapped in the ice as early as the

month of February. At the eastern limit, only the year before, the

`Terra Nova' of Scott's expedition, making a sally into unexplored

waters, had sighted new land almost on the 158th meridian, but even

though it was then the end of summer, and the sea was almost free

from the previous season's ice, they were not able to reach the land

on account of the dense pack.

In the early southern summer, at the time of our arrival, the ice

conditions were expected to be at their worst. This followed from the

fact that not only would local floes be encountered, but also a vast

expanse of pack fed by the disintegrating floes of the Ross Sea, since,

between Cape Adare and the Balleny Islands, the ice drifting to the

north-west under the influence of the south-east winds is arrested in

an extensive sheet. On the other hand, were we to wait for the later

season, no time would remain for the accomplishment of the programme

which had been arranged. So we svere forced to accept things as we

found them, being also prepared to make the most of any chance

opportunity.

In planning the Expedition, the probability of meeting unusually

heavy pack had been borne in mind, and the three units into which

the land parties and equipment were divided had been disposed so as

to facilitate the landing of a base with despatch, and, maybe, under

difficult circumstances. Further, in case the ship were frozen in,

``wireless'' could be installed and the news immediately communicated

through Macquarie Island to Australia.

At noon on December 27 whales were spouting all round us, and appeared

to be travelling from west to east. Albatrosses of several species

constantly hovered about, and swallow-like Wilson petrels--those

nervous rangers of the high seas--would sail along the troughs and

flit over the crests of the waves, to vanish into sombre distance.

Already we were steaming through untravelled waters, and new

discoveries might be expected at any moment. A keen interest spread

throughout the ship. On several occasions, fantastic clouds on the

horizon gave hope of land, only to be abandoned on further advance.

On December 28 and 29 large masses of floating kelp were seen, and,

like the flotsam met with by Columbus, still further raised our hopes.

The possibility of undiscovered islands existing in the Southern

Ocean, south of Australia and outside the ice-bound region, kept us

vigilant. So few ships had ever navigated the waters south of

latitude 55 degrees, that some one and a quarter million square miles

lay open to exploration. As an instance of such a discovery in the

seas south of New Zealand may be mentioned Scott Island, first

observed by the `Morning', one of the relief ships of the British

Expedition of 1902.

The weather remained favourable for sounding and other oceanographical

work, but as it was uncertain how long these conditions would last,

and in view of the anxiety arising from overloaded decks and the

probability of gales which are chronic in these latitudes, it was

resolved to land one of the bases as soon as possible, and thus rid

the ship of superfluous cargo. The interesting but time-absorbing

study of the ocean-depths was therefore postponed for a while.

With regard to the Antarctic land to be expected ahead, many of

Wilkes's landfalls, where they had been investigated by later

expeditions, had been disproved. It seemed as if he had regarded the

northern margin of the solid floe and shelf-ice as land; perhaps

also mistaking bergs, frozen in the floe and distorted by mirage, for

ice-covered land. Nevertheless, his soundings, and the light thrown

upon the subject by the Scott and Shackleton expeditions, left no

doubt in my mind that land would be found within a reasonable

distance south of the position assigned by Wilkes. Some authorities

had held that any land existing in this region would be found to be

of the nature of isolated islands. Those familiar with the adjacent

land, however, were all in favour of it being continental--a

continuation of the Victoria Land plateau. The land lay to the south

beyond doubt; the problem was to reach it through the belt of ice-

bound sea. Still, navigable pack-ice might be ahead, obviating the

need of driving too far to the west.

``Ice on the starboard bow!'' At 4 P.M. on December 29 the cry was

raised, and shortly after we passed alongside a small caverned berg

whose bluish-green tints called forth general admiration. In the

distance others could be seen. One larger than the average stood

almost in our path. It was of the flat-topped, sheer-walled type,

so characteristic of the Antarctic regions; three-quarters of a mile

long and half a mile wide, rising eighty feet above the sea.

It has been stated that tabular bergs are typical of the Antarctic as

opposed to the Arctic. This diversity is explained by a difference

in the glacial conditions. In the north, glaciation is not so marked

and, as a rule, coastal areas are free from ice, except for valley-

glaciers which transport ice from the high interior down to sea-level.

There, the summer temperature is so warm that the lower parts of the

glaciers become much decayed, and, reaching the sea, break up readily

into numerous irregular, pinnacled bergs of clear ice. In the south,

the tabular forms result from the fact that the average annual

temperature is colder than that prevailing at the northern axis of the

earth. They are so formed because, even at sea-level, no appreciable

amount of thawing takes place in midsummer. The inland ice pushes out

to sea in enormous masses, and remains floating long before it

``calves'' to form bergs. Even though its surface has been thrown

into ridges as it was creeping over the uneven land, all are reduced to

a dead level or slightly undulating plain, in the free-floating

condition, and are still further effaced by dense drifts and repeated

falls of snow descending upon them. The upper portion of a table-

topped berg consists, therefore, of consolidated snow; neither

temperature nor pressure having been sufficient to metamorphose it

into clear ice. Such a berg in old age becomes worn into an

irregular shape by the action of waves and weather, and often

completely capsizes, exposing its corroded basement.

A light fog obscured the surrounding sea and distant bergs glided by

like spectres. A monstrous block on the starboard side had not been

long adrift, for it showed but slight signs of weathering.

The fog thickened over a grey swell that shimmered with an oily

lustre. At 7 P.M. pack-ice came suddenly to view, and towards it we

steered, vainly peering through the mists ahead in search of a

passage. The ice was closely packed, the pieces being small and

wellworn. On the outskirts was a light brash which steadily gave

place to a heavier variety, composed of larger and more angular

fragments. A swishing murmur like the wind in the tree-tops came

from the great expanse. It was alabaster-white and through the small,

separate chips was diffused a pale lilac coloration. The larger

chunks, by their motion and exposure to wind and current, had a circle

of clear water; the deep sea-blue hovering round their water-worn

niches. Here and there appeared the ochreous-yellow colour of

adhering films of diatoms.

As we could not see what lay beyond, and the pack was becoming

heavier, the ship was swung round and headed out.

Steering to the west through open water and patches of trailing brash,

we were encouraged to find the pack trending towards the south. By

pushing through bars of jammed floes and dodging numerous bergs,

twenty miles were gained due southwards before the conditions had

changed. The fog cleared, and right ahead massive bergs rose out of

an ice-strewn sea. We neared one which was a mile in length and one

hundred feet in height. The heaving ocean, dashing against its

mighty, glistening walls, rushed with a hollow boom into caverns of

ethereal blue; gothic portals to a cathedral of resplendent purity.

The smaller bergs and fragments of floe crowded closer together, and

the two men at the wheel had little time for reverie. Orders came in

quick succession--``Starboard! Steady!'' and in a flash--``Hard-a-

port!'' Then repeated all over again, while the rudder-chains

scraped and rattled in their channels.

Gradually the swell subsided, smoothed by the weight of ice. The

tranquillity of the water heightened the superb effects of this

glacial world. Majestic tabular bergs whose crevices exhaled a

vaporous azure; lofty spires, radiant turrets and splendid castles;

honeycombed masses illumined by pale green light within whose fairy

labyrinths the water washed and gurgled. Seals and penguins on

magic gondolas were the silent denizens of this dreamy Venice.

In the soft glamour of the midsummer midnight sun, we were

possessed by a rapturous wonder--the rare thrill of unreality.

The ice closed in, and shock after shock made the ship vibrate as she

struck the smaller pieces full and fair, followed by a crunching and

grinding as they scraped past the sides. The dense pack had come,

and hardly a square foot of space showed amongst the blocks; smaller

ones packing in between the larger, until the sea was covered with a

continuous armour of ice. The ominous sound arising from thousands

of faces rubbing together as they gently oscillated in the swell

was impressive. It spoke of a force all-powerful, in whose grip puny

ships might be locked for years and the less fortunate receive their

last embrace.

The pack grew heavier and the bergs more numerous, embattled in a

formidable array. If an ideal picture, from our point of view it was

impenetrable. No ``water sky'' showed as a distant beacon; over all

was reflected the pitiless, white glare of the ice. The `Aurora'

retreated to the open sea, and headed to the west in search of a break

in the ice-front. The wind blew from the south-east, and, with sails

set to assist the engines, rapid progress was made.

The southern prospect was disappointing, for the heavy pack was

ranged in a continuous bar. The over-arching sky invariably shone

with that yellowish-white effulgence known as ``ice blink,"

indicative of continuous ice, in contrast with the dark water sky,

a sign of open water, or a mottled sky proceeding from an ice-strewn

but navigable sea.

Though progress can be made in dense pack, provided it is not too

heavy, advance is necessarily very slow--a few miles a day, and that

at the expense of much coal. Without a well-defined ``water sky''it

would have been foolish to have entered. Further, everything pointed

to heavier ice-conditions in the south, and, indeed, in several places

we reconnoitred, and such was proved to be the case. Large bergs were

numerous, which, on account of being almost unaffected by surface

currents because of their ponderous bulk and stupendous draught,

helped to compact the sllallow surface-ice under the free influence

of currents and winds. In our westerly course we were sometimes able

to edge a little to the south, but were always reduced to our old

position within a few hours. Long projecting ``tongues'' were met at

intervals and, when narrow or open, we pushed through them.

Whales were frequently seen, both rorquals and killers. On the pack,

sea-leopards and crab-eater seals sometimes appeared. At one time as

many as a hundred would be counted from the bridge and at other

moments not a single one could be sighted. They were not alarmed,

unless the ship happened to bump against ice-masses within a short

distance of them. A small sea-leopard, shot from the fo'c'sle by a

well-directed bullet from Wild, was taken on board as a specimen; the

meat serving as a great treat for the dogs.

On January 2, when driving through a tongue of pack, a halt was made

to ``ice ship.'' A number of men scrambled over the side on to a

large piece of floe and handed up the ice. It was soon discovered,

however, that the swell was too great, for masses of ice ten tons or

more in weight swayed about under the stern, endangering the propeller

and rudder--the vulnerable parts of the vessel. So we moved on,

having secured enough fresh-water ice to supply a pleasant change after

the sormewhat discoloured tank-water then being served out. The ice

still remained compact and forbidding, but each day we hoped to

discover a weak spot through which we might probe to the land itself.

On the evening of January 2 we saw a high, pinnacled berg, a few

miles within the edge of the pack, closely resembling a rocky peak;

the transparent ice of which it was composed appeared, in the dull

light, of a much darker hue than the surrounding bergs. Another

adjacent block exhibited a large black patch on its northern face,

the exact nature of which could not be ascertained at a distance.

Examples of rock debris embedded in bergs had already been observed,

and it was presumed that this was a similar case. These were all

hopeful signs, for the earthy matter must, of course, have been

picked up by the ice during its repose upon some adjacent land.

At this same spot, large flocks of silver-grey petrels were seen

resting on the ice and skimming the water in search of food. As soon

as we had entered the ice-zone, most of our old companions, such as

the albatross, had deserted, while a new suite of Antarctic birds

had taken their place. These included the beautiful snow petrel, the

Antarctic petrel, and the small, lissome Wilson petrel--a link with

the bird-life of more temperate seas.

On the evening of January 3 the wind was blowing fresh from the south-

east and falling snow obscured the horizon. The pack took a decided

turn to the north, which fact was particularly disappointing in view

of the distance we had already traversed to the west. We were now

approaching the longitude of D'Urville's landfall, and still the

pack showed no signs of slackening. I was beginning to feel very

anxious, and had decided not to pass that longitude without resorting

to desperate measures.

The change in our fortunes occurred at five o'clock next morning,

when the Chief Officer, Toucher, came down from the bridge to report

that the atmosphere was clearing and that there appeared to be land-

ice near by. Sure enough, on the port side, within a quarter of a

mile, rose a massive barrier of ice extending far into the mist and

separated from the ship by a little loose pack-ice. The problem to

be solved was, whether it was the seaward face of an ice-covered

continent, the ice-capping of a low island or only a flat-topped

iceberg of immense proportions.

By 7 A.M. a corner was reached where the ice-wall trended southward,

limned on the horizon in a series of bays and headlands. An El Dorado

had opened before us, for the winds coming from the east of south had

cleared the pack away from the lee of the ice-wall, so that in the

distance a comparatively clear sea was visible, closed by a bar of

ice, a few miles in extent. Into this we steered, hugging the

ice-wall, and were soon in the open, speeding along in glorious

sunshine, bringing new sights into view every moment.

The wall, along the northern face, was low--from thirty to seventy

feet in height--but the face along which we were now progressing

gradually rose in altitude to the south. It was obviously a

shelf-ice formation (or a glacier-tongue projection of it), exactly

similar in build, for instance, to the Great Ross Barrier so well

described by Ross, Scott, and others. At the north-west corner, at

half a dozen places within a few miles of each other, the wall was

puckered up and surmounted by semi-conical eminences, half as high

as the face itself. These peculiar elevations were unlike anything

previously recorded and remained unexplained for a while, until

closer inspection showed them to be the result of impact with other

ice-masses--a curious but conceivable cause.

On pieces of broken floe Weddell seals were noted. They were the

first seen on the voyage and a sure indication of land, for their

habitat ranges over the coastal waters of Antarctic lands.

A large, low, dome-topped elevation, about one mile in diameter, was

passed on the starboard side, at a distance of two miles from the long

ice-cliff. This corresponded in shape with what Ross frequently

referred to as an ``ice island,'' uncertain whether it was a berg or

ice-covered land. A sounding close by gave two hundred and eight

fathoms, showing that we were on the continental shelf, and increasing

tile probability that the ``ice island'' was aground.

Birds innumerable appeared on every hand: snow petrels, silver

petrels, Cape pigeons and Antarctic petrels. They fluttered in

hundreds about our bows. Cape pigeons are well known in lower

latitudes, and it was interesting to find them so far south. As they

have chessboard-like markings on the back when seen in flight, there

is no mistaking them.

The ice-wall or glacier-tongue now took a turn to the south-east. At

this point it had risen to a great height, about two hundred feet

sheer. A fresh wind was blowing in our teeth from the south-south-

east, and beyond this point would be driving us on to the cliffs.

We put the ship about, therefore, and made for the lee side of the

``ice island.''

In isolated coveys on the inclined top of the ``island'' were several

flocks, each containing hundreds of Antarctic petrels. At intervals

they would rise into the air in clouds, shortly afterwards to settle

down again on the snow.

Captain Davis moved the ship carefully against the lee wall of the

``island,'' with a view of replenishing our watersupply, but it was

unscalable, and we were forced to withdraw. Crouched on a small

projection near the water's edge was a seal, trying to evade the eyes

of a dozen large grampuses which were playing about near our stern.

These monsters appeared to be about twenty-five feet in length. They

are the most formidable predacious mammals of the Antarctic seas, and

annually account for large numbers of seals, penguins, and other

cetaceans. The sea-leopard is its competitor, though not nearly so

ferocious as the grampus, of whom it lives in terror.

The midnight hours were spent off the ``ice island'' while we wafted

for a decrease in the wind. Bars of cirrus clouds covered the whole

sky--the presage of a coming storm. The wind arose, and distant

objects were blotted out by driving snow. An attempt was made to

keep the ship in shelter by steaming into the wind, but as ``ice

island'' and glacier-tongue were lost in clouds of snow, we were

fortunate to make the lee of the latter, about fourteen miles to the

north. There we steamed up and down until the afternoon of January 5,

when the weather improved. A sounding was taken and the course was

once more set for the south.

The sky remained overcast, the atmosphere foggy, and a south-south-

east wind was blowing as we came abreast of the ``ice island,'' which,

by the way, was discovered to have drifted several miles to the north,

thus proving itself to be a free-floating berg. The glacier-tongue on

the port side took a sharp turn to the east-south-east, disappearing

on the horizon. As there was no pack in sight and the water was merely

littered with fragments of ice, it appeared most likely that the turn

in the glacier-tongue was part of a great sweeping curve ultimately

joining with the southward land. On our south-south-east course we soon

lost sight of the ice-cliffs in a gathering fog.

On the afternoon of January 6 the wind abated and the fog began to

clear. At 5 P.M. a line of ice confronted us and, an hour later,

the `Aurora' was in calm water under another mighty ice face trending

across our course. This wall was precisely similar to the one seen

on the previous evening, and might well have been a continuation of

it. It is scarcely credible that when the `Aurora' came south the

following year, the glacier-tongue first discovered had entirely

disappeared. It was apparently nothing more than a huge iceberg

measuring forty miles in length. Specially valuable, as clearing up

any doubt that may have remained, was its re-discovery the following

year some fifty miles to the north-west. Close to the face of the

new ice-wall, which proved to he a true glacier-tongue, a mud bottom

was found at a depth of three hundred and ninety-five fathoms.

While we were steaming in calm water to the south-west, the massive

front, serrated by shallow bays and capes, passed in magnificent

review. Its height attained a maximum of one hundred and fifty feet.

In places the sea had eaten out enormous blue grottoes. At one spot,

several of these had broken into each other to form a huge domed

cavern, the roof of which hung one hundred feet above the sea. The

noble portico was flanked by giant pillars.

The glacier-tongue bore all the characters of shelf-ice, by which is

meant a floating extension of the land-ice.** A table-topped berg in

the act of formation was seen, separated from the parent body of

shelf-ice by a deep fissure several yards in width.

** Subsequently this shelf-ice formation was found to be a floating

glacier-tongue sixty miles in length, the seaward exttension of a

large glacier which we named the Mertz Glacier.

At 11 P.M. the `Aurora' entered a bay, ten miles wide, bounded on the

east by the shelf-ice wall and on the west by a steep snow-covered

promontory rising approximately two thousand feet in height, as yet

seen dimly in hazy outline through the mist. No rock was visible,

but the contour of the ridge was clearly that of ice-capped land.

There was much jubilation among the watchers on deck at the prospect.

Every available field-glass and telescope was brought to bear upon it.

It was almost certainly the Antarctic continent, though, at that time,

its extension to the east, west and south remained to be proved. The

shelf-ice was seen to be securely attached to it and, near its point

of junction with the undulating land-ice, we beheld the mountains of

this mysterious land haloed in ghostly mist.

While passing the extremity of the western promontory, we observed an

exposure of rock, jutting out of the ice near sea-level, in the face

of a scar left by an avalanche. Later, when passing within half a

cable's length of several berg-like masses of ice lying off the coast,

rock was again visible in black relief against the water's edge,

forming a pedestal for the ice. The ship was kept farther offshore,

after this warning, for though she was designed to buffet with the ice,

we had no desire to test her resistance to rock.

The bottom was very irregular, and as an extra precaution, soundings

were taken every few minutes. Through a light fog all that could be

seen landwards was a steep, sloping, icy surface descending from the

interior, and terminating abruptly in a seaward cliff fifty to two

hundred feet in height.

The ice-sheet terminating in this wall presented a more broken

surface than the floating shelf-ice. It was riven and distorted by

gaping crevasses; an indication of the rough bed over which it had

travelled.

Towards midnight another bay was entered and many rocky islets

appeared on its western side. The engines were stopped for a few

hours, and the voyage was resumed in clearer weather on the following

morning.

All day we threaded our way between islands and bergs. Seals and

penguins swam around, the latter squawking and diving in a most

amusing manner.

Cautiously we glided by an iceberg, at least one hundred and fifty

feet high, rising with a faceted, perpendicular face chased with soft,

snowy traceries and ornamented with stalactites. Splits and rents

broke into the margin, and from each streamed the evanescent, azure

vapour. Each puncture and tiny grotto was filled with it, and a

sloping cap of shimmering snow spread over the summit. The

profile-view was an exact replica of a battleship, grounded astern.

The bold contour of the bow was perfect, and the massive flank had

been torn and shattered by shell-fire in a desperate naval battle.

This berg had heeled over considerably, and the original water-line

ran as a definite rim, thirty feet above the green water. From this

rim shelved down a smooth and polished base, marked with fine vertical

striae.

Soundings varied from twenty to two hundred fathoms, and, accordingly,

the navigation was particularly anxious work.

Extending along about fifteen miles of coast, where the inland ice

came down steeply to the sea, was a marginal belt of sea, about two

or three miles in width, thickly strewn with rocky islets. Of these

some were flat and others peaked, but all were thickly populated by

penguins, petrels and seals. The rocks appeared all to be gneisses

and schists.

Later that night we lay off a possible landing-place for one of our

bases, but, on more closely inspecting it in the morning, we decided

to proceed farther west into a wide sweeping bay which opened ahead.

About fifty miles ahead, on the far side of Commonwealth Bay, as we

named it, was a cape which roughly represented in position Cape

Decouverte, the most easterly extension of Adelie Land seen by

D'Urville in 1840. Though Commonwealth Bay and the land already

seen had never before been sighted, all was placed under the

territorial name of Adelie Land.

The land was so overwhelmed with ice that, even at sea-level, the rock

was all but entirely hidden. Here was an ice age in all earnestness;

a picture of Northern Europe during the Great Ice Age some fifty

thousand years ago. It was evident that the glaciation of Adelie Land

was much more severe than that in higher Antarctic latitudes, as

exampled on the borders of the Ross Sea; the arena of Scott's,

Shackleton's and other expeditions. The temperature could not be

colder, so we were led to surmise that the snowfall must be excessive.

The full truth was to be ascertained by bitter experience, after

spending a year on the spot.

I had hoped to find the Antarctic continent in these latitudes

bounded by a rocky and attractive coast like that in the vicinity of

Cape Adare; the nearest well-explored region. It had proved otherwise,

only too well endorsing the scanty information supplied by D'Urville

and Wilkes of the coastline seen by them. A glance at the austere

plateau and the ice-fettered coast was evidence of a rigid,

inhospitable climate. It was apparent, too, that only a short summer

could be expected in these latitudes, thus placing limitations upon

our operations.

If three bases were to be landed it was important that they should be

spread at sufficiently wide intervals. If one were placed in Adelie

Land, the ship would probably have to break through the pack in

establishing each of the other two ba ses. Judging by our previous

experience there was no certain prospect of this being effected.

The successful landing of three bases in suitable positions,

sufficiently far apart for advantageous co-operation in geographical,

meteorological and other observations, had now become problematical.

In addition, one of the parties was not as strong as I would have

liked, considering what would be undoubtedly its strenuous future.

For some days the various phases of the situation had occupied my

mind, and I now determined to risk two bases, combining the smallest

of the three parties with the Main Base. Alterations in the personnel

of the third party were also made, by which the Main Base would be

increased in strength for scientific work, and the other party under

the leadership of Wild would be composed of men of specially good

sledging calibre, besides being representative of the leading branches

of our scientific programme.

We had a splendid lot of men, and I had no difficulty in choosing for

Wild seven companions who could be relied upon to give a good account

of themselves. It was only by assuring myself of their high

efficiency that I could expect to rest from undue anxiety throughout

the year of our separation. The composition of the two parties was as

follows:

Main Base: R. Bage, F. H. Bickerton, J. H. Close, P. E. Correll,

W. H. Hannam, A. J. Hodgeman, J. G. Hunter, J. F. Hurley, C. F. Laseron,

C. T. Madigan, A. L. McLean, X. Mertz, H. D. Murphy, B. E. S. Ninnis,

F. L. Stillwell, E. N. Webb, L. H. Whetter and myself.

Western Party: G. Dovers, C. T. Harrisson, C. A. Hoadley, S. E. Jones,

A. L. Kennedy, M. H. Moyes, A. D. Watson, and F. Wild (leader).

I was now anxious to find a suitable location for our Main Base; two

reasons making it an urgent matter. The first was, that as we

advanced to the west we were leaving the South Magnetic Pole, and I

was anxious to have our magnetographs running as near the latter as

possible. Secondly, we would be daily increasing our distance from

Macquarie Island, making wireless communication more uncertain.

At noon on January 8, while I was weighing the pros and cons with

Captain Davis, Wild came in to say that there was a rocky exposure

about fifteen miles off on the port side, and suggested altering our

course to obtain a better view of it.

Just after 4 P.M., when the ship was about one mile from the nearest

rocks, the whale-boat was lowered and manned. We rowed in with the

object of making a closer investigation. From the ship's deck, even

when within a mile, the outcrop had appeared to project directly from

under the inland ice-sheet. Now, however, we were surprised to find

ourselves amongst an archipelago of islets. These were named the

Mackellar Islets, in remembrance of one who had proved a staunch

friend of the Expedition.

Weddell seals and Adelie penguins in thousands rested upon the rocks;

the latter chiefly congregated upon a long, low, bare islet situated

in the centre. This was the largest of the group, measuring about

half a mile in length; others were not above twenty yards in

diameter. As we came inshore, the main body of the archipelago was

found to be separated by a mile and a half from the mainland. A

point which struck us at the time was that the islets situated on the

southern side of the group were capped by unique masses of ice;

resembling iced cakes. Later we were able to see them in process of

formation. In the violent southerly hurricanes prevalent in Adelie

Land, the spray breaks right over them. Part of it is deposited and

frozen, and by increments the icing of these monstrous ``cakes'' is

built up. The amount contributed in winter makes up for loss by

thawing in midsummer. As the islets to windward shelter those in

their lee, the latter are destitute of these natural canopies.

Soundings were taken at frequent intervals with a hand lead-line,

manipulated by Madigan. The water was on the whole shallow, varying

from a few to twenty fathoms. The bottom was clothed by dense,

luxuriant seaweed. This rank growth along the littoral was unexpected,

for nothing of the kind exists on the Ross Sea coasts within five or

six fathoms of the surface.

Advancing towards the mainland, we observed a small islet amongst the

rocks, and towards it the boat was directed. We were soon inside a

beautiful, miniature harbour com-pletely land-locked. The sun shone

gloriously in a blue sky as we stepped ashore on a charming ice-quay--

the first to set foot on the Antarctic continent between Cape Adare

and Gaussberg, a distance of one thousand eight hundred miles.

Wild and I proceeded to make a tour of exploration. The rocky area

at Cape Denison, as it was named, was found to be about one mile in

length and half a mile in extreme width. Behind it rose the inland

ice, ascending in a regular slope and apparently free of crevasses--

an outlet for our sledging parties in the event of the sea not firmly

freezing over. To right and left of this oasis, as the visitor to

Adelie Land must regard the welcome rock, the ice was heavily

crevassed and fell sheer to the sea in cliffs, sixty to one hundred

and fifty feet in height. Two small dark patches in the distance

were the only evidences of rock to relieve the white monotony of the

coast.

In landing cargo on Antarctic shores, advantage is generally taken of

the floe-ice on to which the materials can be unloaded and at once

sledged away to their destination. Here, on the other hand, there

was open water, too shallow for the `Aurora' to be moored alongside

the ice-foot. The only alternative was to anchor the ship at a

distance and discharge the cargo by boats running to the ideal harbour

we had discovered. Close to the boat harbour was suitable ground for

the erection of a hut, so that the various impedimenta would have to

be carried only a short distance. For supplies of fresh meat, in

the emergency of being marooned for a number of years, there were

many Weddell seals at hand, and on almost all the neighbouring ridges

colonies of penguins were busy rearing their young.64

As a station for scientific investigations, it offered a wider field

than the casual observer would have imagined. So it came about that

the Main Base was finally settled at Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay.

We arrived on board at 8 P.M., taking a seal as food for the dogs.

Without delay, the motor-launch was dropped into the water, and both

it and the whale-boat loaded with frozen carcasses of mutton, cases of

eggs and other perishable goods.

While some of us went ashore in the motor-launch, with the whale-boat

in tow, the `Aurora' steamed round the Mackellar Islets seeking for a

good anchorage under the icy barrier, immediately to the west of the

boat harbour. The day had been perfect, vibrant with summer and

life, but towards evening a chill breeze sprang up, and we in the

motor-launch had to beat against it. By the time we had reached the

head of the harbour, Hoadley had several fingers frost-bitten and all

were feeling the cold, for we were wearing light garments in

anticipation of fine weather. The wind strengthened every minute,

and showers of fine snow were soon whistling down the glacier. No

time was lost in landing the cargo, and, with a rising blizzard at our

backs, we drove out to meet the `Aurora'. On reaching the ship a small

gale was blowing and our boats were taken in tow.

The first thing to be considered was the mooring of the `Aurora' under

the lee of the ice-wall, so as to give us an opportunity of getting

the boats aboard. In the meantime they were passed astern, each

manned by several hands to keep them bailed out; the rest of us

having scrambled up the side. Bringing the ship to anchor in such a

wind in uncharted, shoal water was difficult to do in a cool and

methodical manner. The sounding machine was kept running with rather

dramatic results; depths jumping from five to thirty fathoms in the

ship's length, and back again to the original figure in the same

distance. A feeling of relief passed round when, after much

manceuvring, the anchor was successfully bedded five hundred yards

from the face of the cliff.

Just at this time the motor-launch broke adrift. Away it swept

before a wind of forty-five miles per hour. On account of the cold,

and because the engine was drenched with sea-water, some difficulty

was found in starting the motor. From the ship's deck we could see

Bickerton busily engaged with it. The rudder had been unshipped, and

there was no chance of replacing it, for the boat was bobbing about on

the waves in a most extraordinary manner. However, Whetter managed

to make a jury-rudder which served the purpose, while Hunter, the

other occupant, was kept laboriously active with the pump.

They had drifted half a mile, and were approaching the rocks of an

islet on which the sea was breaking heavily. Just as every one was

becoming very apprehensive, the launch began to forge ahead, and

the men had soon escaped from their dangerous predicament. By the

united efforts of all hands the boats were hoisted on board and

everything was made as ``snug'' as possible.

The wind steadily increased, and it seemed impossible for the anchor

to hold. The strain on the cable straightened out a steel hook two

inches in diameter. This caused some embarrassment, as the hook was

part of the cable attachment under the fo'c'sle-head. It is

remarkable, however, that after this was adjusted the ship did not

lose her position up to the time of departure from Adelie Land.

Though we were so close under the shelter of a lofty wall, the waves

around us were at least four feet in height and when the wind

increased to sixty-five and seventy miles per hour, their crests were

cut off and the surface was hidden by a sheet of racing spindrift.

Everything was securely lashed in readiness for going to sea, in case

the cable should part. Final arrangements were then made to discharge

the cargo quickly as soon as the wind moderated.

Two days had elapsed before the wind showed any signs of abatement.

It was 8 P.M. on January 10 when the first boat ventured off with a

small cargo, but it was not till the following morning that a

serious start was made. In good weather, every trip between the ship

and the boat harbour, a distance of a mile, meant that five or six

tons had been landed. It was usual for the loaded launch to tow both

whale-boats heavily laden and, in addition, a raft of hut timbers or

wireless masts. Some of the sailors, while engaged in building rafts

alongside the ship, were capsized into the water and after that the

occupation was not a popular one.

Ashore, Wild had rigged a derrick, using for its construction two of

the wireless royal masts. It was thus possible to cope with the

heavier packages at the landing-place. Of the last-named the

air-tractor sledge was by far the most troublesome. With plenty of

manual labour, under Wild's skilful direction, this heavy machine was

hoisted from the motor-launch, and then carefully swung on to the

solid ice-foot.

Captain Davis superintended the discharging operations on the ship,

effected by the crew and some of the land party under the direction

of the ship's officers. Wild supervised conveyance ashore, and the

landing, classification, and safe storage of the various boat-loads.

Gillies and Bickerton took alternate shifts in driving the motor-

launch. The launch proved invaluable, and we were very glad that it

had been included in the equipment, for it did a remarkable amount of

work in a minimum of time.

In view of the difficulty of embarking the boats, if another

hurricane should arise, tents were erected ashore, so that a party

could remain there with the boats moored in a sheltered harbour.

Everything went well until just before midnight on January 12, when

the wind again swept down. Wild, four of the men and I were forced

to remain ashore. We spent the time constructing a temporary hut

of benzine cases, roofed with planks; the walls of which were made

massive to resist the winds. This structure was henceforth known

as the ``Benzine Hut'.

The barometer dropped to 28.5 inches and the wind remained high.

We were struck with the singular fact that, even in the height of

some of these hurricanes, the sky remained serene and the sun shone

brightly. It had been very different when the ship was amongst the

pack a few miles to the north, for, there, cloudy and foggy conditions

had been the rule. The wind coming to us from the south was dry;

obviously an argument for the continental extension of the land in

that direction.

At 2 A.M. on January 15 a pre-arranged whistle was sounded from the

`Aurora', advising those of us ashore that the sea had moderated

sufficiently to continue unloading. Wild sped away in the launch,

but before he had reached the ship the wind renewed its activity.

At last, after 2 P.M. on the same day it ceased, and we were able

to carry on work until midnight, when the wind descended on us once

more. This time, eighteen men remained ashore. After twelve hours

there was another lull, and unloading was then continued with only

a few intermissions from 1 P.M. on January 16 until the afternoon of

January 19.

Never was landing so hampered by adverse conditions, and yet, thanks

to the assiduous application of all, a great assortment of materials

was safely embarked. Comprised among them were the following:

twenty-three tons of coal briquettes, two complete living-huts, a

magnetic observatory, the whole of the wireless equipment, including

masts, and more than two thousand packages of general supplies

containing sufficient food for two years, utensils, instruments,

benzine, kerosene, lubricating oils an air-tractor and other sledges.

Then came the time for parting. There was a great field before Wild's

party to the west, and it was important that they should be able to

make the most of the remainder of the season. My great regret was

that I could not be with them. I knew that I had men of experience

and ability in Davis and Wild, and felt that the work entrusted to

them was in the best of hands. Through the medium of wireless

telegraphy I hoped to keep in touch with the Macquarie Island party,

the Western Base,** and the ship itself, when in Australian waters.

** They were supplied with masts and a receiving set sufficiently

sensitive to pick up messages from a distance of fivc or six hundred

miles.

It was my idea that Wild's party should proceed west and attempt to

effect a landing and establish a western wintering station at some

place not less than four hundred miles west of Adelie Land. On the

way, whenever opportunity presented itself, they were to cache

provisions at intervals along the coast in places liable to be visited

by sledging parties.

The location of such caches and of the Western Base, it was hoped,

would be communicated to us at the Main Base, through the medium of

wireless telegraphy from Hobart.

All members of the land parties and the ship's officers met in the

ward-room. There were mutual good wishes expressed all round, and

then we celebrated previous Antarctic explorers, more especially

D'Urville and Wilkes. The toast was drunk in excellent Madeira

presented to us by Mr. J. T. Buchanan, who had carried this sample

round the world with him when a member of the celebrated `Challenger'

expedition.

The motor-launch was hoisted and the anchor raised. Then at 8.45 P.M.

on January 19 we clambered over the side into one of the whale-boats

and pushed off for Cape Denison, shouting farewells back to the

`Aurora'. Several hours later she had disappeared below the

north-western horizon, and we had set to work to carve out a home

in Adelie Land.

CHAPTER IV NEW LANDS

Leaving the land party under my charge at Commonwealth Bay on the

evening of January 19, the `Aurora' set her course to round a headland

visible on the north-western horizon. At midnight the ship came

abreast of this point and continued steaming west, keeping within a

distance of five miles of the coast. A break in the icy monotony

came with a short tract of islets fronting a background of dark rocky

coastline similar to that at Cape Denison but more extensive.

Some six miles east of D'Urville's Cape Discovery, a dangerous reef

was sighted extending at right angles across the course. The ship

steamed along it and her soundings demonstrated a submerged ridge

continuing some twelve miles out to sea. Captain Davis's narrative

proceeds:

``Having cleared this obstacle we followed the coastline to the west

from point to point. Twelve miles away we could see the snow-covered

slopes rising from the seaward cliffs to an elevation of one thousand

five hundred feet. Several small islands were visible close to a shore

fringed by numerous large bergs.

``At 10 P.M. on January 20, our progress to the west was stopped by

a fleet of bergs off the mainland and an extensive field of berg-laden

pack-ice, trending to the north and north-east. Adelie Land could be

traced continuing to the west. Where it disappeared from view there

was the appearance of a barrier-formation, suggestive of shelf-ice,

running in a northerly direction. Skirting the pack-ice on a north

and north-west course, we observed the same appearance from the

crow's-nest on January 21 and 22.''

The stretch of open, navigable, coastal water to the north of Adelie

Land, barred by the Mertz Glacier on the east and delimited on the

west by more or less compact ice, has been named the D'Urville Sea.

We found subsequently that its freedom from obstruction by ice is

due to the persistent gales which set off the land in that locality.

To the north, pack-ice in variable amount is encountered before

reaching the wide open ocean.

The existence of such a ``barrier-formation,''** as indicated above,

probably resting on a line of reef similar to the one near Cape

Discovery, would account for the presence of this ice-field in

practically the same position as it was seen by D'Urville in 1840.

** An analysis of the data derived from the later voyages of the

`Aurora' makes it practically certain that there is a permanent

obstacle to the westerly drift of the pack-ice in longitude 137

degrees E. There is, however, some uncertainty as to the cause of

this blockage. An alternative explanation is advanced, namely,

that within the area of comparatively shallow water, large bergs

are entrapped, and these entangle the drifting pack-ice.

At a distance, large bergs would be undistinguishable from shelf-ice,

appearances of which were reported above.

Quoting further: ``We were unable to see any trace of the high land

reported by the United States Squadron (1840) as lying to the west

and south beyond the compact ice.

``At 1.30 A.M. on the 23rd the pack-ice was seen to trend to the

south-west. After steaming west for twenty-five miles, we stood south

in longitude 182 degrees 30' E, shortly afterwards passing over the

charted position of Cote Clarie. The water here was clear of pack-ice,

but studded with bergs of immense size. The great barrier which the

French ships followed in 1840 had vanished. A collection of huge

bergs was the sole remnant to mark its former position.

``At 10 A.M., having passed to the south of the charted position of

D'Urville's Cote Clarie, we altered course to S. 10 degrees E. true.

Good observations placed us at noon in latitude 65 degrees 2' S. and

132 degrees 26' E. A sounding on sand and small stones was taken in

one hundred and sixty fathoms. We sailed over the charted position of

land east of Wilkes's Cape Carr in clear weather.

``At 5.30 P.M. land was sighted to the southward--snowy highlands

similar to those of Adelie Land but greater in elevation.

``After sounding in one hundred and fifty-six fathoms on mud, the

ship stood directly towards the land until 9 P.M. The distance to

the nearest point was estimated at twenty miles; heavy floe-ice

extending from our position, latitude 65 degrees 45' S. and longitude

132 degrees 40' E., right up to the shore. Another sounding realized

two hundred and thirty fathoms, on sand and small stones. Some open

water was seen to the south-east, but an attempt to force a passage

in that direction was frustrated.

``At 3 A.M. on the 24th we were about twelve miles from the nearest

point of the coast, and further progress became impossible. The

southern slopes were seamed with numerous crevasses, but at a distance

the precise nature of the shores could not be accurately determined.''

To this country, which had never before been seen, was given the name

of Wilkes's Land; as it is only just to commemorate the American

Exploring Expedition on the Continent which its leader believed he had

discovered in these seas and which he would have found had Fortune

favoured him with a fair return for his heroic endeavours.

``We steered round on a north-westerly course, and at noon on

January 24 were slightly to the north of our position at 5.30 A.M.

on the 23rd. A sounding reached one hundred and seventy fathoms and

a muddy bottom. Environing us were enormous bergs of every kind,

one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet in height. During the

afternoon a westerly course was maintained in clear water until 4

P.M., when the course was altered to S. 30 degrees W., in the hope of

winning through to the land visible on the southern horizon.''

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Ship's tracks in the vicinity ot Totten's Land and North's Land

At 8 P.M. the sky was very clear to the southward, and the land

could be traced to a great distance until it faded in the south-west.

But the ship had come up with the solid floe-ice once more, and had to

give way and steam along its edge. This floating breakwater held us

off and frustrated all attempts to reach the goal which we sought.

``The next four days was a period of violent gales and heavy seas

which drove the ship some distance to the north. Nothing was visible

through swirling clouds of snow. The `Aurora' behaved admirably, as she

invariably does in heavy weather. The main pack was encountered on

January 29, but foggy weather prevailed. It was not until noon on

January 31 that the atmosphere was sufficiently clear to obtain good

observations. The ship was by this time in the midst of heavy floe

in the vicinity of longitude 119 degrees E., and again the course had

swung round to south. We had soon passed to the south of Balleny's

Sabrina Land without any indication of its existence. Considering the

doubtful character of the statements justifying its appearance on the

chart, it is not surprising that we did not verify them.

``At 11 A.M. the floes were found too heavy for further advance.

The ship was made fast to a big one and a large quantity of ice was

taken on board to replenish the fresh-water supply. A tank of two

hundred gallons' capacity, heated within by a steam coil from the

engineroom, stood on the poop deck. Into this ice was continuously

fed, flowing away as it melted into the main tanks in the bottom of

the ship.

``At noon the weather was clear, but nothing could be discerned in

the south except a faint blue line on the horizon. It may have been

a 'lead ' of water, an effect of mirage, or even land-ice--in any

case we could not approach it.''

The position as indicated by the noon observations placed the ship

within seven miles of a portion of Totten's High Land in Wilkes's

charts. As high land would have been visible at a great distance, it

is clear that Totten's High Land either does not exist or is situated

a considerable distance from its charted location. A sounding was

made in three hundred and forty fathoms.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Ship's track in the vicinity of Knox Land and Budd Land

Towards evening the `Aurora' turned back to open water and cruised

along the pack-ice. A sounding next day showed nine hundred and

twenty-seven fathoms.

It was about this time that a marked improvement was noted in the

compass. Ever since the first approach to Adelie Land it had been

found unreliable, for, on account of the proximity to the magnetic

pole, the directive force of the needle was so slight that very large

local variations were experienced.

The longitude of Wilkes's Knox Land was now approaching. With the

exception of Adelie Land, the account by Wilkes concerning Knox Land

is more convincing than any other of his statements relating to new

Antarctic land. If they had not already disembarked, we had hoped

to land the western party in that neighbourhood. It was, therefore,

most disappointing when impenetrable ice blocked the way, before

Wilkes's``farthest south'' in that locality had been reached. Three

determined efforts were made to find a weak spot, but each time the

`Aurora' was forced to retreat, and the third time was extricated only

with great difficulty. In latitude 65 degrees 5' S. longitude 107

degrees 20' E., a sounding of three hundred fathoms was made on a

rocky bottom. This sounding pointed to the probability of land within

sixty miles.

Repulsed from his attack on the pack, Captain Davis set out westward

towards the charted position of Termination Land, and in following the

trend of the ice was forced a long way to the north.

At 7.40 A.M., February 8, in foggy weather, the ice-cliff of

floating shelf-ice was met. This was disposed so as to point in a

north-westerly direction and it was late in the day before the ship

doubled its northern end. Here the sounding wire ran out for eight

hundred and fifty fathoms without reaching bottom. Following the wall

towards the south-south-east, it was interesting at 5.30 P.M. to find a

sounding of one hundred and ten fathoms in latitude 64 degrees 45'.

A line of large grounded bergs and massive floe-ice was observed ahead

trailing away from the ice-wall towards the north-west.

On plotting the observations, it became apparent that the shelf-ice

was in the form of a prolonged tongue some seven miles in breadth.

As it occupied the position of the ``Termination Land'' which has

appeared on some charts, (after WiIkes) it was named Termination

Ice-Tongue.

A blizzard sprang up, and, after it had been safely weathered in the

lee of some grounded bergs, the `Aurora' moved off on the afternoon

of February 11. The horizon was obscured by mist, as she pursued a

tortuous track amongst bergs and scattered lumps of heavy floe.

Gradually the sea became more open, and by noon on February 12 the

water had deepened to two hundred and thirty-five fathoms. Good

progress was made to the south; the vessel dodging icebergs and

detached floes.

The discovery of a comparatively open sea southward of the main

pack was a matter of some moment. As later voyages and the

observations of the Western Party showed, this tract of sea is a

permanent feature of the neighbourhood. I have called it the Davis

Sea, after the captain of the `Aurora', in appreciation of the fact

that he placed it on the chart.

At noon, on February 13, in latitude 65 degrees 54 1/2' S. longitude

94 degrees 25' E., the western face of a long, floating ice-tongue

loomed into view. There were five hundred fathoms of water off its

extremity, and the cliffs rose vertically to one hundred feet. Soon

afterwards land was clearly defined low in the south extending to east

and west. This was thenceforth known as Queen Mary Land.

The sphere of operations of the German expedition of 1902 was near at

hand, for its vessel, the `Gauss', had wintered, frozen in the pack,

one hundred and twenty-five miles to the west. It appeared probable

that Queen Mary Land would be found to be continuous** with Kaiser

Wilhelm II Land, which the Germans had reached by a sledging journey

from their ship across the intervening sea-ice.

** Such was eventually proved to be the case.

The `Aurora' followed the western side of the ice-tongue for about

twenty miles in a southerly direction, at which point there was a

white expanse of floe extending right up to the land. Wild and

Kennedy, walking several miles towards the land, estimated that it was

about twenty-five miles distant. As the surface over which they

travelled was traversed by cracks and liable to drift away to sea,

all projects of landing there had to be abandoned; furthermore, it

was discovered that the ice-tongue, alongside of which the ship lay,

was a huge iceberg. A landing on it had been contemplated, but was

now out of question.

The main difficulty which arose at this juncture was the failing

coal-supply. It was high time to return to Hobart, and, if a western

base was to be formed at all, Wild's party would have to be landed

without further delay. After a consultation, Davis and Wild decided

that under the circumstances an attempt should be made to gain a

footing on the adjacent shelf-ice, if nothing better presented itself.

The night was passed anchored to the floe, on the edge of which were

numerous Emperor penguins and Weddell seals. A fresh south-easterly

wind blew on February 14, and the ship was kept in the shelter of the

iceberg. During the day enormous pieces were observed to be

continually breaking away from the berg and drifting to leeward.

Captain Davis continues: ``At midnight there was a strong swell from

the north-east and the temperature went down to 18 degrees F. At 4 A.M.,

February 15, we reached the northern end of the berg and stood first

of all to the east, and then later to the south-east.

``At 8.45 A.M., shelf-ice was observed from aloft, trending

approximately north and south in a long wall. At noon we came up

with the floe-ice again, in about the same latitude as on the western

side of the long iceberg. Land could be seen to the southward. At

1 P.M. the ship stopped at the junction of the floe and the shelf-ice.''

Wild, Harrison and Hoadley went to examine the shelf-ice with a view

to its suitability for a wintering station. The cliff was eighty to

one hundred feet in height, so that the ice in total thickness must

have attained at least as much as six hundred feet. Assisted by

snow-ramps slanting down on to the floe, the ascent with ice-axes and

alpine rope was fairly easy.

Two hundred yards from the brink, the shelf-ice was thrown into

pressure-undulations and fissured by crevasses, but beyond that was

apparently sound and unbroken. About seventeen miles to the south

the rising slopes of ice-mantled land were visible, fading away to

the far east and west.

The ice-shelf was proved later on to extend for two hundred miles

from east to west, ostensibly fusing with the Termination Ice-Tongue,

whose extremity is one hundred and eighty miles to the north. The

whole has been called the Shackleton Ice-Shelf.

Wild and his party unanimously agreed to seize upon this last

opportunity, and to winter on the floating ice.

The work of discharging stores was at once commenced. To raise the

packages from the floe to the top of the ice-shelf, a ``flying-fox``

was rigged.

``A kedge-anchor was buried in the sea-ice, and from this a two-and-

a-half-inch wire-hawser was led upwards over a pair of sheer-legs on

top of the cliff to another anchor buried some distance back. The

whole was set taut by a tackle. The stores were then slung to a

travelling pulley on the wire, and hauled on to the glacier by means

of a rope led through a second pulley on the sheer-legs. The ship's

company broke stores out of the hold and sledged them three hundred

yards to the foot of an aerial, where they were hooked on to the

travelling-block by which the shore party, under Wild, raised them to

their destination.''

``It was most important to accelerate the landing as much as possible,

not only on account of the lateness of the season--the `Gauss' had been

frozen in on February 22 at a spot only one hundred and seventy

miles away--but because the floe was gradually breaking up and

floating away. When the last load was hoisted, the water was lapping

within ten yards of the ``flying-fox''.

A fresh west-north-west wind on February 17 caused some trouble.

Captain Davis writes:

``February 19. The floe to which we have been attached is covered

by a foot of water. The ship has been bumping a good deal to-day.

Notwithstanding the keen wind and driving snow, every one has worked

well. Twelve tons of coal were the last item to go up the cliff.''

In all, thirty-six tons of stores were raised on to the shelf-ice,

one hundred feet above sea-level, in four days.

``February 20. The weather is very fine and quite a contrast to

yesterday. We did not get the coal ashore a moment too soon, as this

morning the ice marked by our sledge tracks went to sea in a

north-westerly direction, and this afternoon it is drifting back as

if under the influence of a tide or current. We sail at 7 A.M.

to-morrow.

``I went on to the glacier with Wild during the afternoon. It is

somewhat crevassed for about two hundred yards inland, and then a flat

surface stretches away as far as the eye can see. I wished the party

`God-speed' this evening, as we sail early to-morrow.''

Early on February 21, the ship's company gave their hearty farewell

cheers, and the `Aurora' sailed north, leaving Wild and his seven

companions on the floating ice.

The bright weather of the immediate coastal region was soon exchanged

for the foggy gloom of the pack.

``February 21, 11 P.M. We are now passing a line of grounded bergs

and some heavy floe-ice. Fortunately it is calm, but in the

darkness it is difficult to see an opening. The weather is getting

thick, and I expect we shall have trouble in working through this line

of bergs.

``February 22. I cannot explain how we managed to clear some of the

bergs between 11 P.M. last night and 3 A.M. this morning. At first

stopping and lying-to was tried, but it was soon evident that the big

bergs were moving and would soon hem us in: probably in a position

from which we should be unable to extricate ourselves this season.

``So we pushed this way and that, endeavouring to retain freedom at

any cost. For instance, about midnight I was `starboarding' to

clear what appeared to be the loom of a berg on the starboard bow,

when, suddenly, out of the haze a wall seemed to stretch across our

course. There was no room to turn, so `full speed astern' was the

only alternative. The engines responded immediately, or we must

have crashed right into a huge berg. Until daylight it was ice ahead,

to port and to starboard--ice everywhere all the time. The absence of

wind saved us from disaster. It was a great relief when day broke,

showing clearer water to the northward.''

On February 23, the `Aurora' left the shelter of Termination

Ice-Tongue, and a course was set nearly true north. There was a

fresh breeze from the north-east and a high sea. The ship was

desperately short of ballast and the coal had to be carefully

husbanded. All movable gear was placed in the bottom of the ship,

while the ashes were saved, wetted and put below. The ballast-tanks

were found to be leaking and Gillies had considerable trouble in

making them watertight.

The distance from the Western Base in Queen Mary Land to Hobart was

two thousand three hundred miles, through the turbulent seas of the

fifties and forties. It was the end of a perilous voyage when the

`Aurora' arrived in Hobart with nine tons of coal.

On March 12, the captain's log records:

``The `Aurora' has done splendidly, beating all attempts of the weather

to turn her over. We had two heavy gales during the first week of

March, but reached Hobart safely to-day, passing on our way up the

Derwent the famous Polar ship, `Fram', at anchor in Sandy Bay. Flags

were dipped and a hearty cheer given for Captain Amundsen and his

gallant comrades who had raised the siege of the South Pole.''

CHAPTER V FIRST DAYS IN ADELIE LAND

The overcrowded whale-boat disgorged its cargo at 1O P.M. on the

ice-quay at Cape Denison. The only shelter was a cluster of four

tents and the Benzine Hut, so the first consideration was the erection

of a commodious living-hut.

While the majority retired to rest to be ready for a fresh burst of

work on the morrow, a few of us discussed the preliminary details,

and struck the first blows in the laying of the foundations.

A site for the living-hut was finally approved. This was a nearly

flat piece of rocky ground of just sufficient size, partially

sheltered on the southern side by a large upstanding rock. Other

points to recommend it were, proximity to the boat harbour and to a

good sledging surface; the ice of the glacier extending to the

``front door'' on the western side. Several large rocks had to be

shifted, and difficulty was anticipated in the firm setting of the

stumps. The latter were blocks of wood, three feet in length,

embedded in the ground, forming the foundation of the structure.

Unfortunately, no such thing as earth or gravel existed in which to

sink these posts, and the rock being of the variety known as gneiss,

was more than ordinarily tough.

Since two parties had combined, there were two huts available, and

these were to be erected so that the smaller adjoined and was in the

lee of the larger. The latter was to be the living-room; the former

serving as a vestibule, a workshop and an engine-room for the wireless

plant. Slight modifications were made in the construction of both

huts, but these did not affect the framework. After the completion of

the living-hut, regular scientific observations were to commence,

and the smaller hut was then to be built as opportunity offered.

Nothing has so far been said about the type of hut adopted by our

Antarctic stations. As the subject is important, and we had expended

much thought thereon before coming to a final decision, a few remarks

will not be out of place.

Strength to resist hurricanes, simplicity of construction, portability

and resistance to external cold were fundamental. My first idea was

to have the huts in the form of pyramids on a square base, to ensure

stability in heavy winds and with a large floor-area to reduce the

amount of timber used. The final type was designed at the expense

of floor-space, which would have been of little use because of the

low roof in the parts thus eliminated. In this form, the pyramid

extended to within five feet of the ground on the three windward

sides so as to include an outside veranda. That veranda, like the

motor-launch, was a wonderful convenience, and another of the many

things of which we made full use. It lent stability to the structure,

assisted to keep the hut warm, served as a store-house, physical

laboratory and a dogshelter.

Round the outside of the three veranda walls boxes of stores were

stacked, so as to continue the roof-slope to the ground. Thus, the

wind striking the hut met no vertical face, but was partly deflected;

the other force-component tending to pin the building to the ground.

All three huts were essentially of the same construction. The

largest, on account of its breadth, had four special supporting posts,

symmetrically placed near the centre, stretching from the ground to

the roof framework. The only subdivisions inside were a small

vestibule, a photographic darkroom and my own room. This rough idea

I had handed over to Hodgeman, leaving him to complete the details

and to draw up the plans. The frame timbers he employed were stronger

than usual in a building of the size, and were all securely bolted

together. The walls and roof, both inside and outside, were of

tongued and grooved pine-boards, made extra wind-proof by two courses

of tarred paper. As rain was not expected, this roofing was

sufficient. There were four windows in the roof, one on each side of

the pyramid. We should thereby get light even though almost buried

in snow.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Plan of the hut, Adelie Land

The largest hut was presented by the timber merchants of Sydney,

and proved its astonishing strength during the winter hurricanes.

The smallest was purchased in Adelaide, the third was built and

presented by Messrs. Anthony of Melbourne.

On the morning of January 20 all were at work betimes. As we were

securely isolated from a trades hall, our hours of labour ranged from

7 A.M. till 11 P.M.

Dynamite was to be used for blasting out the holes for the reception

of the stumps, and so the steel rock-drills were unpacked and boring

commenced. This was easier than it appeared, because the rock was

much traversed by cracks. By the end of the day a good deal of

damage had been done to the rock, at the expense of a few sore fingers

and wrists caused by the sledge-hammers missing the drills. The work

was tedious, for water introduced into the holes had a habit of

freezing. The metal drills, too, tended to be brittle in the cold and

required to be tempered softer than usual. Hannam operated the forge,

and picks and drills were sent along for pointing; an outcrop of

gneiss serving as an anvil.

Among other things it was found difficult to fire the charges, for,

when frozen, dynamite is not readily exploded. This was overcome by

carrying the sticks inside one's pocket until the last moment. In the

absence of earth or clay, we had no tamping material until some one

suggested guano from the penguin rookeries, which proved a great

success.

Next day the stumps were in place; most of them being fixed by wedges

and other devices. Cement was tried, but it is doubtful if any good

came of it, for the low temperature did not encourage it to set well.

By the evening, the bottom plates were laid on and bolted to the tops

of the stumps, and everything was ready for the superstructure.

On January 22, while some were busy with the floor-joists and wall-

frames, others carried boulders from the neighbouring moraine,

filling in the whole space between the stumps. These were eventually

embedded in a mass of boulders, as much as three feet deep in places.

By the time both huts were erected, nearly fifty tons of stones had

been used in the foundations--a circumstance we did not regret at a

later date.

Hodgeman was appointed clerk of works on the construction, and was

kept unusually busy selecting timber, patrolling among the workmen,

and searching for his foot-rule which had an unaccountable trick of

vanishing in thin air.

Hannam had various occupations, but one was to attend to the needs

of the inner man, until the completion of the hut. There is no doubt

that he was regarded at this time as the most important and popular

member of the party, for our appetites were abnormally good. About

an hour before meals he was to be seen rummaging amongst the cases of

provisions, selecting tins of various brands and hues from the great

confusion. However remote their source or diverse their colour,

experience taught us that only one preparation would emerge from the

tent-kitchen. It was a multifarious stew. Its good quality was

undoubted, for a few minutes after the ``dinner-bell rang'' there was

not a particle left. The ``dinner-bell'' was a lusty shout from the

master cook, which was re-echoed by the brawny mob who rushed madly

to the Benzine Hut. Plates and mugs were seized and portions measured

out, while the diners distributed themselves on odd boxes lying about

on the ice. Many who were accustomed to restaurants built tables of

kerosene cases and dined al fresco. After the limited stew, the

company fared on cocoa, biscuits--``hard tack''--and jam, all ad

libitum.

On those rare summer days, the sun blazed down on the blue ice; skua

gulls nestled in groups on the snow; sly penguins waddled along to

inspect the building operations; seals basked in torpid slumber on

the shore; out on the sapphire bay the milk-white bergs floated in

the swell. We can all paint our own picture of the good times round

the Benzine Hut. We worked hard, ate heartily and enjoyed life.

By the evening of January 24 the floor and outside walls were

finished, and the roof-frame was in position. Work on the roof was

the coldest job of all, for now there was rarely an hour free from a

cold breeze, at times reaching the velocity of a gale. This came

directly down from the plateau, and to sit with exposed fingers

handling hammer and nails was not an enviable job. To add to our

troubles, the boards were all badly warped from being continually

wet with sea-water on the voyage. However, by judicious ``gadgetting,''

as the phrase went, they were got into place.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Sections across the hut, Adelie Land

The windward roof was up on January 25, and several of us camped in

sleeping-bags under its shelter. Already Hannam had unpacked the

large range and put the parts together in the kitchen. Henceforth the

cooking operations were simplified, for previously a sledging-cooker

had been used.

Mention of the stove recalls a very cold episode. It happened that

while our goods were being lifted from the boats to the landing-stage,

a case had fallen into the harbour. When the parts of the stove were

being assembled, several important items were found to be missing, and

it was thought that they might compose the contents of the unknown

case lying in the kelp at the bottom of the bay.

Laseron and I went on board the whale-boat one day at low water, and

located the box with a pole, but though we used several devices with

hooks, we were unable to get hold of it. At last I went in, and,

standing on tip-toe, could just reach it and keep my head above

water. It took some time to extricate from the kelp, following which

I established a new record for myself in dressing. The case turned

out to be full of jam, and we had to make a new search for the

missing parts. I do not think I looked very exhilarated after that

bath, but strange to say, a few days later Correll tried an early

morning swim which was the last voluntary dip attempted by any one.

The enthusiasm of the builders rose to its highest pitch as the roof

neared completion, and we came in sight of a firm and solid

habitation, secure from the winds which harassed us daily. A dozen

hammers worked at once, each concentrated upon a specific job. The

ardour with which those engaged upon the ceiling inside the hut plied

their nails resulted in several minor casualties to those sitting on

the roof, deeply intent on the outer lining. A climax was reached

when McLean, working on the steeply inclined roof, lost his footing

and, in passing, seized hold of the wire-stay of the chimney as a

last hope. Alas, that was the only stay, and as he proceeded over

the end of the roof into a bank of snow, Ninnis, within the hut,

convinced that nothing less than a cyclone had struck the building,

gallantly held on to the lower hot section amidst a shower of soot.

Everybody was in the best of spirits, and things went ahead merrily.

On January 30 the main building was almost completed, and all slept

under its roof. Bunks had been constructed, forming a double tier

around three sides of the room. For the first time since coming

ashore we retired to sleep in blankets; fur sleeping-bags had been

previously used. That night the sky which had been clear for a

fortnight banked up with nimbus cloud, and Murphy, who was sleeping

under a gap in the roof, woke up next morning to find over him a fine

counterpane of snow. He received hearty congratulations all round.

Regular meteorological observations began on February 1. The

various instruments had been unpacked as soon as the outer shell of

the Hut was completed. The barometer and barograph were kept running

inside. Outside there were two large screens for the reception of a

number of the instruments. It was important to erect these as near

the Hut as possible. The standard thermometer, thermograph and

hygrograph were to occupy one of the screens, a convenient site for

which was chosen about twenty yards to the east. Close by there was

also a nephoscope for determining the motion of clouds. The immediate

vicinity of the Hut, being a gully-like depression, was unsuitable

for the wind and sunshine recorders. A more distant site, on a rocky

ridge to the east, was chosen for these. There were set up a

recording anemometer (wind-velocity meter), a sunshine-meter and the

second screen containing the anemograph (wind-direction recorder).

Madigan was to take charge of the meteorological observations and he,

assisted by Ninnis and Mertz, erected the two screens and mounted the

instruments. Special care was taken to secure the screens against

violent winds. Phosphor-bronze wire-stays, with a breaking strength

of one ton, were used, attached to billets of wood driven into

fissures in the rock. Strong as these wires were, several breakages

had to be replaced during the year.

Webb was busy with the magnetic work. For this two huts were to be

erected; the first for ``absolute'' determinations, the second for

housing the recording instruments--the magnetographs. Distant sites,

away from the magnetic disturbances of the Hut, were chosen. Webb

and Stillwell immediately set to work as soon as they could be

spared from the main building. For the ``absolute hut'' there were

only scrap materials available; the ``magnetograph house,'' alone,

had been brought complete. They had a chilly job, for as the days

went by the weather steadily became worse. Yet in a little over a

week there were only the finishing touches to make, and the first

observations were started.

It was now necessary to institute a routine of nightwatchmen, cooks

and messmen. The night-watchman's duties included periodic

meteorological observations, attention to the fire in the range, and

other miscellaneous duties arising between the hours of 8 P.M. and

8 A. M. The cook prepared the meals, and the messman of the day

rendered any assistance necessary. A rotation was adopted, so

arranged that those most actively engaged in scientific observations

were least saddled with domestic duties. Thus each contributed his

equivalent share of work.

Whilst others were occupied finishing off the interior of the hut,

Whetter and Close sledged the cases of stores across from the

landing-stage, classified them and stacked them against the veranda

walls. An additional barricade was constructed of flour cases, in

the form of a wall, which increased the breadth of the rocky

break-wind on the southern side.

Murphy, who was in charge of all the stores, saw that a good stock

of food was accessible in the veranda. Here he put up shelves and

unpacked cases, so that samples of everything were at hand on the

shortest notice. Liquids liable to freeze and burst their bottles

were taken into the Hut.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

The vicinity of the main base, Adelie Land

Already we had several times seized the opportunity of a calm hour

to take out the whale-boat and assist Hunter to set traps and make a

few hauls with the hand-dredge. Even in five fathoms, bright red and

brown star-fish had been caught in the trap, as well as numerous

specimens of a common Antarctic fish known as `Notothenia'. In ten

fathoms and over the results were better, though in no case was the

catch so abundant as one would expect from the amount of life in the

water. The luxuriant kelp probably interfered with the proper

working of the traps. Fish of the same species as the above were

caught on a hand-line.

Hunter, our biologist, was very unfortunate in crushing some of his

fingers while carrying a heavy case. This accident came at a time

when he had just recovered from a severe strain of the knee-joint

which he suffered during our activities in the Queen's Wharf shed at

Hobart. Several of us were just going out to the traps one afternoon

when the casualty occurred. Hunter was very anxious to go, so we

waited until McLean had sewn up a couple of his fingertips.

Weddell, and with them occasional crab-eater seals, were at this time

always to be found in numbers sleeping on the ice-foot around the boat

harbour. It appeared as if we would have plenty of meat throughout

the year, so I waited until the building was completed before laying

in a stock. The penguins, however, were diminishing in numbers fast

and the young birds in the rookeries had grown very large and were

beginning to migrate to warmer regions. Several parties, therefore,

raided them and secured some hundreds for the winter.

Giant petrels and skua gulls swarmed in flocks round the seals' and

penguins' carcases. These scavengers demolish an incredible amount

of meat and blubber in a short time. It is a diabolical sight to

witness a group of birds tearing out the viscera of a seal, dancing

the while with wings outspread.

During the afternoon of February 11 Webb came in with the news that

a sea elephant was making its way over the rocks near the shore. We

rushed out in time to see it standing over Johnson, one of the dogs,

who, true to his name, did not look abashed. Attracted by more

formidable antagonists, the monster left Johnson and came towards us.

He was a fair-sized male with a good skin, so we shot him before he

had time to get back into the sea. His measurements were seventeen

feet six inches in length and twelve feet in maximum circumference.

With the temperature well below freezing-point, skinning is cold work

in the wind, and must be done before the animal has time to freeze

stiff. A number of us set to work flaying. In order to move the

mountain of flesh a Westing purchase and a ``handy-billy'' (rope and

block purchase) had to be rigged. It was several hours before

everything was disposed of; the skin and skull for the biological

collection and the meat and blubber for the dogs. Ninnis and Mertz,

who were the wardens of the dogs, cut up about one ton of meat and

blubber, and stored it as a winter reserve for their charges.

It may be mentioned that sea elephants are sub-antarctic in

distribution, and only rarely have these animals been observed on

the shores of the Antarctic continent. As far as I am aware, the only

other occasion of such an occurrence was noted by Captain Scott in

MacMurdo Sound. Wilkes reported many of them on the pack-ice to the

north of the Balleny Islands, so possibly they have a stronghold in

that vicinity.

The dogs, ever since their arrival ashore, had been chained up on the

rocks be]ow the Hut. The continuous wind worried them a good deal,

but they had a substantial offset to the cold in a plentiful supply

of seal-meat. On the whole, they were in a much better condition

then when they left the `Aurora'. Nineteen in all, they had an odd

assemblage of names, which seemed to grow into them until nothing else

was so suitable: Basilisk, Betli, Caruso, Castor, Franklin, Fusilier,

Gadget, George, Ginger, Ginger Bitch, Grandmother, Haldane, Jappy,

John Bull, Johnson, Mary, Pavlova, Scott and Shackleton. Grandmother

would have been better known as Grandfather. He was said to have a

grandmotherly appearance; that is why he received the former name.

The head dog was Basilisk, and next to him came Shackleton.

Early in February, after having experienced nothing but a succession

of gales for nearly a month, I was driven to conclude that the

average local weather must be much more windy than in any other

part of Antarctica. The conditions were not at all favourable

for sledging, which I had hoped to commence as soon as the Hut was

completed. Now that the time had arrived and the weather was still

adverse, it seemed clear that our first duty was to see everything

snug for the winter before making an attempt.

Hannam, assisted by Bickerton, Madigan and others, had laid heavy

and firm foundations for the petrol-motor and generator. The floor of

the smaller room was then built around these bed-plates, and last of

all came the walls and roof. Murphy, Bage and Hodgeman were chiefly

responsible for the last-named, which was practically completed by

February 10. Minor additions and modifications were added after that

date. Meanwhile, Hannam continued to unpack and mount the instruments

forming the wireless plants. Along one wall and portion of another,

in the outer hut, a bench was built for mechanical work and for

scientific purposes. This was in future to be the work-room.

Our home had attained to a stage of complex perfection. To penetrate

to the inside hut, the stranger reverently steps through a hole in

the snow to the veranda, then by way of a vestibule with an inner

and outer door he has invaded the privacy of the work-room, from

which with fear and trembling he passes by a third door into the

sanctum sanctorum. Later, when the snow-tunnel system came into

vogue, the place became another Labyrinth of Minos.

The three doors were fitted with springs to keep them shut unless

they were jammed open for ventilation, which was at once obtained by

opening an aperture in the cooking-range flue. A current of air would

then circulate through the open doors. The roof windows were

immovable and sealed on the inside by a thick accumulation of ice.

An officer of public health, unacquainted with the climate of Adelie

Land, would be inclined to regard the absence of more adequate

ventilation as a serious omission. It would enlighten him to know

that much of our spare time, for a month after the completion of the

building, was spent in plugging off draughts which found their way

through most unexpected places, urged by a wind-pressure from without

of many pounds to the square foot.

Excepting the small portion used as an entrance-porch, the verandas

were left without any better flooring than well-trodden snow. In the

boarded floor of the porch was a trap-door which led down into a

shallow cellar extending under a portion of the work-room. The cellar

was a refrigerating chamber for fresh meat and contained fifteen

carcases of mutton, besides piles of seal-meat and penguins.

In preparation for our contemplated sledging, masts, spars and sails

were fitted to some of the sledges, rations were prepared and

alterations made to harness and clothing. Soon a sledge stood packed,

ready to set out on the first fine day.

For several days in succession, about the middle of February, the

otherwise continuous wind fell off to a calm for several hours in the

evening. On those occasions Mertz gave us some fine exhibitions of

skiing, of which art he was a consummate master. Skis had been

provided for every one, in case we should have to traverse a country

where the snow lay soft and deep. From the outset, there was little

chance of that being the case in wind-scoured Adelie Land.

Nevertheless, most of the men seized the few opportunities we had to

become more practiced in their use. My final opinion, however, was

that if we had all been experts like Mertz, we could have used them

with advantage from time to time.

The end of February approached. We were fully prepared for sledging,

and were looking forward to it with great expectation. The wind

still continued, often rising to the force of a hurricane, and

was mostly accompanied by snow.

One evening, when we were all at dinner, there was a sudden noise

which drowned the rush of the blizzard. It was found that several

sledges had been blown away from their position to the south of the

Hut, striking the building as they passed. They were all rescued

except one, which had already reached the sea and was travelling

rapidly toward Australia.

Mertz, Bage and I had taken advantage of a lull to ascend the

ice-slope to the south, and to erect a flag-pole at a distance of

two miles. Besides being a beacon for sledging parties, it was used

for ablation measurements. These were determinations of the annual

wasting of the ice-surface, whether by evaporation, melting, or

wind-abrasion.

Webb and Stillwell, assisted by others, had commenced to build the

Magnetograph House. Dr. Chree, of the British National Physical

Laboratory, had arranged that the German Antarctic Expedition,

several observatories in low latitudes and our own Expedition, should

take special ``quick runs,'' synchronously, twice each month. A

``quick run'' was a continuous, careful observation made over a

period of two hours, on a more searching time-scale then usual.

Until the Magnetograph House was established this could not be done

efficiently, and so the construction of this hut was pushed on as

quickly as possible.

Many other schemes required our attention, and there was not a spare

moment for any one. Though we chafed at the delay in sledging,

there was some consolation in the {act that the scientific programme

was daily becoming more and more complete.

CHAPTER VI AUTUMN PROSPECTS

As far as we could see, the inland ice was an unbroken plateau with

no natural landmarks. From the hinterland in a vast solid stream

the ice flowed, with heavily crevassed downfalls near the coast.

Traversing this from north to south was a narrow belt, reasonably

free from pitfalls, running as a spur down to the sea. To reach the

Hut in safety it would be necessary for sledging parties returning

from the interior to descend by this highway. The problem was to

locate the path. Determinations of latitude and longitude would guide

them to the neighbourhood of Commonwealth Bay, but the coastline in

the vicinity of Winter Quarters, with the rocks and islets, would not

come into view until within two miles, as above that point the icy

slopes filled the foreground up to the distant berg-studded horizon.

Delays in reaching the Hut owing to the difficult descent might have

serious consequences, for provisions are usually short near the

conclusion of a sledging journey.

The necessity of making artificial landmarks was, therefore, most

obvious. Already we had a flagstaff two miles to the south. It was

now my intention to run a line of similar marks backwards to the

plateau.

Bage, Madigan and I were to form a reconnoitring party to plant

these flags, and to make a journey of a few days' duration into the

hinterland, to see its possibilities, and with a view to an extended

sledging campaign to commence as soon as possible after our return.

It was decided not to make use of the dogs until later in the year,

when they would be in better form.

The wind continued, accompanied by more or less drift-snow. This

appeared to be the settled state of the weather. We decided to move

out as soon as a moderate phase should occur.

On the afternoon of February 28 the weather cleared up for several

hours, and we decided to leave on the following day. The wind resumed

operations once more, but fell off late on February 29, when we made

a start. We intended to get the packed sledge up the first steep

slope, there to leave it until the morrow. The drift was slight and

low, flowing along like a stream below our knees. Bickerton, Hurley

and Mertz assisted us with the hauling. At a distance of a little

more than a mile, at an elevation of five hundred feet, the sledge was

anchored and we returned to the Hut for the night.

Next morning the weather cleared still more, and we left just before

noon. Three miles out, a mast and flag were erected, when our

companions of the day before, who had again assisted us, turned back.

At five and a half miles the brow of the main rise was reached, and

the gradient became much flatter beyond it. The elevation was found

to be one thousand five hundred feet.

To the south nothing was visible but a great, wan, icy wilderness.

To the north a headland appeared on either hand, each about

twenty-five miles away, and between them lay an expanse of sea dotted

with many bergs. The nearer portions of the coast, together with the

Mackellar Islets, were lost to view on account of the curvature of the

foreground.

During most of the day we had travelled over a surface of clear ice,

marked by occasional scars where fissuring, now healed, had at some

time taken place. Beyond the three-mile flag, however, the ice was

gashed at frequent intervals, producing irregular crevasses, usually

a few yards in length and, for the most part, choked with snow. At

five and a half miles we were on the edge of a strip of snow, half a

mile across, whose whiteness was thrown in dazzling contrast against

the foil of transparent, dark ice.

It was dusk, and light drift commenced to scud by, so, as this was

a suitable place to erect a flag, we decided to camp for the night.

Some hours later I woke up to hear a blizzard blowing outside, and

to find Madigan fumbling amongst some gear at the head-end of the

tent. From inside my bag I called out to inquire if there was

anything wrong, and received a reply that he was looking for the

primus-pricker. Then he slipped back into his sleeping-bag, and all

became quiet, except for the snow beating against the tent. So I

presumed that he had found it. Revolving the incident in my mind,

and dimly wondering what use he could have for a primus-pricker in

the middle of the night, I again fell asleep. In the morning the

blizzard was still blowing, accompanied by a good deal of drift. On

inquiry I found that Madigan knew nothing of his midnight escapade.

It was a touch of somnambulism.

It would serve no useful purpose to go on in thick drift, for the

main object of our journey was to define the best route through the

crevassed zone; and that could only be done on a clear day. I

decided, accordingly, that if the weather did not improve by noon to

leave the sledge with the gear and walk back to the Hut, intending

to make another attempt when conditions became more settled.

Whilst the others erected a flagstaff and froze the legs of a drift-

proof box (containing a thermograph) into the ice, I made lunch and

prepared for our departure. The tent was taken down and everything

lashed securely on the sledge.

It was nearly 3 P.M. when we set out in thick drift, and in two

hours we were at the Hut; the weather having steadily improved as we

descended. On comparing notes with those at home it appeared that we,

at the fifteen hundred feet level, had experienced much more wind and

drift than they at sea-level.

Webb and his assistants were beginning to make quite a display at

the Magnetograph House. The framework, which had already been

erected once, to be demolished by the wind, was now strongly rebuilt

and was ready for the outside covering of boards.

From the night of our return to March 8 there was a high wind

accompanied by much drift; for some hours it continued at eighty

miles per hour, the mean temperature being about 15 degrees F.,

with a minimum of 5 degrees F.

Up to this date the dogs had been kept on the chain, on account

of their depredations amongst the seals and penguins. The severe

weather now made it necessary to release them. Thenceforth, their

abode for part of the day was inside the veranda, where a section was

barricaded-off for their exclusive use. Outside in heavy drift their

habit was to take up a position in the lee of some large object, such

as the Hut. In such a position they were soon completely buried and

oblivious to the outside elements. Thus one would sometimes tread on

a dog, hidden beneath the snow; and the dog often showed less

surprise than the offending man. What the dogs detested most of all

during the blizzard-spells was the drift-snow filling their eyes until

they were forced to stop and brush it away frantically with their

paws. Other inconveniences were the icy casing which formed from the

thawing snow on their thick coats, and the fact that when they lay

in one position, especially on ice, for any length of time they

become frozen down, and only freed themselves at the expense of tufts

of hair. In high winds, accompanied by a low temperature, they were

certainly very miserable, unless in some kind of shelter.

Several families were born at this time, but although we did

everything possible for them they all perished, except one; the

offspring of Gadget. This puppy was called ``Blizzard.'' It was

housed for a while in the veranda and, later on, in the Hangar.

Needless to say, Blizzard was a great favourite and much in demand

as a pet.

On the night of March 7, Caruso, who had been in poor condition for

some time, was found to have a gaping wound around the neck. It

was a clean cut, an inch deep and almost a foot in length. The cause

was never satisfactorily explained, though a piece of strong string

embedded in the wound evidently made the incision. Caruso was brought

inside, and, whilst Whetter administered chloroform, McLean sewed up

the wound. After careful attention for some days, it healed fairly

well, but as the dog's general health was worse, it was deemed

advisable to shoot him.

The outer shell of the Magnetograph House was nearly completed,

affording a protection for those who worked on the interior linings.

When completed, the walls and roof consisted of two coverings of

tongued and grooved pine boards and three layers of thick tarred

paper.

While there still remained a breach in the wall, Hurley repaired

there with his cinematograph camera and took a film showing the clouds

of drift-snow whirling past. In those days we were not educated in

methods of progression against heavy winds; so, in order to get

Hurley and his bulky camera back to the Hut, we formed a scrum on

the windward side and with a strong ``forward'' rush beat our

formidable opponent.

On March 8 the blizzard died away and a good day followed. All

hands joined in building a solid stone outside of the Magnetograph

House. This piece of work, in which thirty tons of rock were

utilized, was completed on the following day. The wall reached

almost to the roof on every side. The unprotected roof was lagged

with sacks and sheep-skins and, after this had been effected, the

hut became practically windtight. The external covering controlled

the influx of cold from the penetrating winds, and, on the other hand,

the conduction of the sun's warmth in summer. Thus a steady

temperature was maintained; a most desirable feature in a magnetograph

house. Webb had the instruments set up in a few days, and they were

working before the end of the month.

After the calm of March 8, the wind steadily increased and became

worse than ever. Madigan, who was in charge of the whale-boat,

kept it moored in the boat-harbour under shelter of the ice-foot.

An excursion was made to the fish traps, buoyed half a mile off shore,

on February 8, and it was found that one had been carried away in the

hurricane. The other was brought in very much battered. That night

it was decided at the first opportunity to haul up the boat and house

it for the winter. Alas! the wind came down again too quickly,

increasing in force, with dense drift. It was still in full career

on the 12th, when Madigan came in with the news that the boat had

disappeared. It was no fault of the rope-attachments for they were

securely made and so we were left to conclude that a great mass of

ice had broken away from the overhanging shelf and carried everything

before it.

The regularity of the high-velocity winds was already recognized

as one of the most remarkable features of Adelie Land. By itself

such wind would have been bad enough, but, accompanied by dense

volumes of drifting snow, it effectually put a stop to most outdoor

occupations.

The roof and walls of the veranda being covered with a single layer

of tongued and grooved boards, the snow drove through every chink.

The cases outside were a partial protection, but the cracks were

innumerable, and in the course of twenty-four hours the snow inside

had collected in deep drifts. This required to be shovelled out each

day or the veranda would have been entirely blocked.

Much time was spent endeavouring to make it drift-tight; but as the

materials at our disposal were very limited, the result was never

absolutely satisfactory. The small veranda serving as an entrance-

porch was deluged with snow which drove in past the canvas doorway.

The only way to get over this trouble was to shovel out the

accumulations every morning. On one occasion, when Close was

nightwatchman, the drift poured through in such volume that each time

he wished to go outside it took him half an hour to dig his way out.

On account of this periodic influx, the vestibule doorway to the

workroom was moved to the other end of the wall, where the invading

snow had farther to travel and was consequently less obstructive.

One advantage of the deposit of snow around the Hut was that all

draughts were sealed off. Before this happened it was found very

difficult to keep the inside temperature up to 40° F. A temperature

taken within the Hut varied according to the specific position in

reference to the walls and stove. That shown by the thermometer

attached to the standard barometer, which was suspended near the

centre of the room, was taken as the ``hut temperature''. Near the

floor and walls it was lower, and higher, of course, near the stove.

On one occasion, in the early days, I remember the ``hut temperature''

being 19° F., notwithstanding the heat from the large range. Under

these conditions the writing-ink and various solutions all over the

place froze, and, when the night-watchman woke up the shivering

community he had many clamorous demands to satisfy. The photographer

produced an interesting product from the dark room--a transparent

cast of a developing-dish in which a photographic plate left

overnight to wash was firmly set.

We arranged to maintain an inside temperature of 40 degrees F.; when

it rose to 50 degrees F. means were taken to reduce it. The cooking-

range, a large one designed to burn anthracite coal, was the general

warming apparatus. To raise the temperature quickly, blocks of seal

blubber, of which there was always a supply at hand, were used. The

coal consumption averaged one hundred pounds a day, approximately,

this being reduced at a later date to seventy-five pounds by employing

a special damper for the chimney. The damper designed for ordinary

climates allowed too much draught to be sucked through during the high

winds which prevailed continually.

The chimney was fitted with a cowl which had to be specially secured

to keep it in place. During heavy drifts the cowl became choked with

snow and ice, and the Hut would rapidly fill with smoke until some one,

hurriedly donning burberrys, rushed out with an ice-axe to chip an

outlet for the draught. The chimney was very short and securely stayed,

projecting through the lee side of the roof, where the pressure of the

wind was least felt.

The first good display of aurora polaris was witnessed during the

evening of March 12, though no doubt there had been other exhibitions

obscured by the drift. As the days went by and the equinox drew

near, auroral phenomena were with few exceptions visible on clear

evenings. In the majority of cases they showed up low in the

northern sky.

In the midst of a torment of wind, March 15 came as a beautiful,

sunny, almost calm day. I remarked in my diary that it was ``typical

Antarctic weather,'' thinking of those halcyon days which belong to the

climate of the southern shores of the Ross Sea. In Adelie Land, we

were destined to find, it was hard to number more than a dozen or two

in the year.

A fine day! the psychological effect was remarkable; pessimism

vanished, and we argued that with the passing of the equinox there

would be a marked change for the better. Not a moment was lost: some

were employed in making anchorages for the wireless masts; others

commenced to construct a Hangar to house the air-tractor sledge.

In building the Hangar, the western wall of the Hut was used for one

side; the low southern end and the western wall were constructed of

full and empty cases, the lee side was closed with a tarpaulin and

blocks of snow and over all was nailed a roof of thick timber--part

of the air-tractor's case. To stiffen the whole structure, a small

amount of framework, in the form of heavy uprights, was set in the

ground. The dimensions inside were thirty-four feet by eleven feet;

the height, eleven feet at the northern and six feet at the southern

end. As a break-wind a crescent-shaped wall of benzine cases was built

several yards to the south. As in the case of the veranda, it was

very difficult to make the Hangar impervious to drift; a certain

quantity of snow always made its way in, and was duly shovelled out.

Seals had suddenly become very scarce, no doubt disgusted with the

continuous winds. Every one that came ashore was shot for food.

Unfortunately, the amount of meat necessary for the dogs throughout

the winter was so great that dog-biscuits had to be used to eke it

out.

Only a few penguins remained by the middle of March. They were

all young ones, waiting for the completion of their second moult

before taking to the sea. The old feathers hung in untidy tufts,

and the birds were often in a wretched plight owing to the wind and

drift-snow. Many were added to the bleaching carcases which fill the

crevices or lie in heaps on ancient rookeries among the rocky ridges.

None were free from the encumbrance of hard cakes of snow which often

covered their eyes or dangled in pendent icicles from their bodies.

The result was very ludicrous.

Hurley obtained some excellent photographs of the seals and penguins,

as of all other subjects. So good were they that most of us withdrew

from competition. His enthusiasm and resourcefulness knew no bounds.

Occasional days, during which cameras that had been maltreated by the

wind were patched up, were now looked upon as inevitable. One day,

when Webb and Hurley were both holding on to the cinematograph camera,

they were blown away, with sundry damages all around. It was later

in the year when Hurley with his whole-plate camera broke through

the sea-ice--a sad affair for the camera.

The good conditions on the 15th lasted only a few hours, and back

came the enemy as bad as ever. On the 18th the wind was only thirty

miles per hour, giving us an opportunity of continuing the buildings

outside. It was only by making the most of every odd hour when the

weather was tolerable that our outdoor enterprises made any headway.

Sometimes when it was too windy for building we were able to improve

our knowledge of the neighbourhood.

A glance at Stillwell's map is instruct*e as to the extent and

character of the rocky area. It is devoid of any forms of vegetation

sufficiently prominent to meet the casual eye. Soil is lacking, for

all light materials and even gravel are carried away by the winds.

The bare rock rises up into miniature ridges, separated by valleys

largely occupied by ice-slabs and lakelets. Snow fills all the

crevices and tails away in sloping ramps on the lee side of every

obstacle. In midsummer a good deal thaws, and, re-freezing, is

converted into ice. The highest point of the rock is one hundred and

forty feet. The seaward margin is deeply indented, and the islets

off shore tell of a continuation of the rugged, rocky surface below

the sea. On the northern faces of the ridges, fronting the ice-foot,

large, yellowish patches mark the sites of penguin rookeries. These

are formed by a superficial deposit of guano which never becomes

thick, for it blows away as fast as it accumulates. Standing on the

shore, one can see kelp growing amongst the rocks even in the

shallowest spots, below low-water level.

To the south, the rocks are overridden by the inland ice which bears

down upon and overwhelms them. The ice-sheet shows a definite basal

moraine, which means that the lowest stratum, about forty feet in

thickness, is charged with stones and earthy matter. Above this

stratum the ice is free from foreign matter and rises steeply to

several hundred feet, after which the ascending gradient is reduced.

The continental glacier moves down to the sea, regularly but slowly;

the rate of movement of some portions of the adjacent coastal ice

cliffs was found to be one hundred feet per annum. The rocky

promontory at Winter Quarters, acting as an obstacle, reduces the

motion of the ice to an annual rate measured in inches only. Perhaps

the conditions now prevailing are those of a comparative ``drought,''

for there is clear evidence that our small promontory was at one time

completely enveloped. In a broad way this is illustrated by the

topography, but the final proof came when Stillwell and others

discovered rock-faces polished and grooved by the ice.

Whatever ``ice-floods'' there may have been in the past, the

position of the margin of the glacier must have remained for a long

period in its present situation. The evidence for this is found in

the presence of a continuous, terminal moraine, at or just in advance

of the present ice-front. This moraine, an accumulation of stones of

all kinds brought to their present resting-place by the ice-sheet,

was in itself a veritable museum. Rocks, showing every variety in

colour and form, were assembled, transported from far and wide over

the great expanse of the continent.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

A section of the coastal slope of the Continental Ice Sheet inland

from Winter Quarters, Adelie Land

Stillwell found these moraines a ``happy hunting-ground'' for the

geologist. His plane-table survey and rock collections are practical

evidence of work carried out in weather which made it seldom short of

an ordeal.

The story of the buried land to the south is in large measure

revealed in the samples brought by the ice and so conveniently

dumped. Let us swiftly review the operations leading to the

deposition of this natural museum.

As the ice of the hinterland moves forward, it plucks fragments from

the rocky floor. Secure in its grip, these are used as graving-tools

to erode its bed. Throwing its whole weight upon them it grinds and

scratches, pulverizes and grooves. The rocky basement is gradually

reduced in level, especially the softer regions. The tools are

faceted, polished and furrowed, for ever moving onwards. Finally,

the rock-powder or ``rock-flour,'' as it is termed, and the boulders,

thenceforth known as ``erratics,'' arrive at the terminal ice-face.

Here, the melting due to the sun's heat keeps pace with the

``on-thrust'' and some of the erratics may remain stationary, or else,

floating in the sea, a berg laden with boulders breaks off and

deposits its load in the depths of the ocean. Each summer the

ice-face above the rocks at Winter Quarters thawed back a short

distance and the water ran away in rivulets, milky-white on account

of the ``rock-flour'' in suspension. The pebbles and boulders too

heavy to be washed away remained behind to form the moraine.

The ``erratics'' comprised a great variety of metamorphic and

igneous rocks, and, on a more limited scale, sedimentary types.

Amongst the latter were sandstones, slates, shales and limestones.

Apart from the moraines, the rock exposed in situ was mainly a

uniform type of gneiss, crumpled and folded, showing all the signs of

great antiquity--pre-Cambrian, in the geological phrase. Relieving

the grey sheen of the gneiss were dark bands of schist which tracked

about in an irregular manner. Sporadic quartz veins here and there

showed a light tint. They were specially interesting, for they

carried some less common minerals such as beryl, tourmaline, garnet,

coarse mica and ores of iron, copper and molybdenum. The ores were

present in small quantities, but gave promise of larger bodies in the

vicinity and indicated the probability of mineral wealth beneath the

continental ice-cap.

CHAPTER VII THE BLIZZARD

The equinox arrived, and the only indication o£ settled weather was

a more marked regularity in the winds. Nothing like it had been

reported from any part of the world. Any trace of elation we may

have felt at this meteorological discovery could not compensate for

the ever-present discomforts of life. Day after day the wind

fluctuated between a gale and a hurricane. Overcast skies of heavy

nimbus cloud were the rule and the air was continually charged with

drifting snow.

Lulls of a singular nature occasionally relieved the monotony.

During these visitations the sequence of events could almost be

predicted; indeed, they would often occur at the same time on

several succeeding days.

On March 19 the first well-marked lull intervened at the height of a

gale. On that day the wind, which had been blowing with great force

during the morning, commenced to subside rapidly just after noon.

Towards evening, the air about the Hut was quite still except for

gusts from the north and rather frequent ``whirlies.''

This was the name adopted for whirlwinds of a few yards to a hundred

yards or more in diameter which came to be regarded as peculiar to the

country. Similar disturbances have been observed in every part of

the world, but seldom possessed of the same violence and regularity

as is the case in Adelie Land.

The whirlies tracked about in a most irregular manner and woe betide

any light object which came in their path. The velocity of the wind

in the rotating column being very great, a corresponding lifting

power was imparted to it. As an illustration of this force, it may

be mentioned that the lid of the air-tractor case had been left lying

on the snow near the Hut. It weighed more than three hundredweights,

yet it was whisked into the air one morning and dropped fifty yards

away in a north-easterly direction. An hour afterwards it was picked

up again and returned near its original position, this time striking

the rocks with such force that part of it was shivered to pieces.

Webb and Stillwell watched the last proceeding at a respectful distance.

Again, the radius of activity of these whirlies was strictly limited;

objects directly in their path only being disturbed. For instance,

Laseron one day was skinning at one end of a seal and remained in

perfect calm, while McLean, at the other extremity, was on the edge

of a furious vortex.

Travelling over the sea the whirlies displayed fresh capabilities.

Columns of brash-ice, frozen spray and water-vapour were frequently

seen lifted to heights of from two hundred to four hundred feet,

simulating water spouts.

Reverting to the afternoon of March 19. Beyond the strange stillness

of the immediate vicinity, broken occasionally by the tumult of a

passing, wandering whirly, an incessant, seething roar could be heard.

One could not be certain from whence it came, but it seemed to proceed

either from the south or overhead. Away on the icy promontories to

the east and west, where the slopes were visible, mounting to an

altitude of several thousand feet, clouds of drift-snow blotted out

the details of the surface above a level of about six hundred feet.

It certainly appeared as if the gale, for some reason, had lifted and

was still raging overhead. At 7.30 P.M. the sound we had heard, like

the distant lashing of ocean waves, became louder. Soon gusts swept

the tops of the rocky ridges, gradually descending to throw up the

snow at a lower level. Then a volley raked the Hut, and within a few

minutes we were once more enveloped in a sea of drifting snow, and the

wind blew stronger than ever.

The duration of the lulls was ordinarily from a few minutes to several

hours; that of March 19 was longer than usual. In the course of time,

after repeated observations, much light was thrown on this phenomenon.

On one occasion, a party ascending the ice slopes to the south met

the wind blowing at an elevation of four hundred feet. At the same

time snow could be seen pouring over the ``Barrier'' to the west of

the Winter Quarters, and across a foaming turmoil of water. This was

evidently the main cause of the seething roar, but it was mingled with

an undernote of deeper tone from the upland plateau--like the wind in

a million tree-tops.

In the early spring, while we were transporting provisions to the

south, frequent journeys were made to higher elevations. It was then

established that even when whole days of calm prevailed at the Hut,

the wind almost without exception blew above a level of one thousand

feet. On such occasions it appeared that the gale was impelled to

blow straight out from the plateau slopes over a lower stratum of

dead-air. An explanation was thereby afforded of the movement of

condensation clouds which appeared in the zenith at these times.

A formation of delicate, gauzy clouds developed at a low altitude,

apparently in still air, but doubtless at the base of a hurricane

stratum. Whirling round rapidly in eddying flocculi, they quickly

tailed away to the north, evaporating and disappearing.

The auditory sense was strangely affected by these lulls. The

contrast was so severe when the racking gusts of an abating wind

suddenly gave way to intense, eerie silence, that the habitual

droning of many weeks would still reverberate in the ears. At night

one would involuntarily wake up if the wind died away, and be loth to

sleep ``for the hunger of a sound.'' In the open air the stillness

conveyed to the brain an impression of audibility, interpreted as a

vibratory murmur.

During one hour on March 22 it blew eighty-six miles. On the morning

of that day there was not much snow in the air and the raging sea was

a fearful sight. Even the nearest of the islands, only half a mile

off the land, was partially hidden in the clouds of spray. What an

impossible coast this would be for the wintering of a ship!

Everybody knows that the pressure exerted by a wind against an

object in its path mounts up in much greater proportion than the

velocity of the wind. Thus may be realized the stupendous force of

the winds of Adelie Land in comparison with those of half the velocity

which fall within one's ordinary experience. As this subject was

ever before us, the following figures quoted from a work of reference

will be instructive. The classification of winds, here stated, is

that known as the ``Beaufort scale.'' The corresponding velocities in

each case are those measured by the ``Robinson patent ``anemometer;

our instrument being of a similar pattern

___________________________________________________________________

Beaufort scale |Velocities|Pressures | Apparent effect |

| in miles | in lbs. | |

| per hour | square | |

| foot | |

| | area | |

__________________|__________| _________|_________________________|

0|Calm | 2 | 0.02 |May cause smoke to |

1|Light air | 4 | 0.06 |Moves the leaves of trees|

2|Light breeze | 7 | 0.19 |Moves small branches of |

3|Gentle breeze | 10 | 0.37 | trees and blows up dust |

4|Moderate breeze| 14 | 0.67 | |

5|Fresh breeze | 19 | 1.16 |Good sailing breeze and |

6|Strong breeze | 25 | 1.90 | makes white caps |

7|Moderate gale | 31 | 2.81 |Sways trees and breaks |

8|Fresh gale | 37 | 3.87 | small branches |

9|Strong gale | 44 | 5.27 |Dangerous for sailing |

10|Whole gale | 53 | 7.40 | vessels |

11|Storm | 64 | 10.40 |Prostrates exposed trees |

12|Hurricane | 77 | 14.40 | and frail houses |

___________________________________________________________________

Beyond the limits of this scale, the pressures exerted rise very

rapidly. A wind recorded as blowing at the rate of a hundred miles

per hour exerts a pressure of about twenty-three pounds per square

foot of surface exposed to it. Wind above eighty miles per hour is

stated to ``prostrate everything.''

The mileages registered by our anemometer were the mean for a whole

hour, neglecting individual gusts, whose velocity much exceeded the

average and which were always the potent factors in destructive work.

Obviously the greatest care had to be taken to secure everything.

Still, articles of value were occasionally missed. They were

usually recovered, caught in crevices of rock or amongst the broken

ice. Northward from the Hut there was a trail of miscellaneous

objects scattered among the hummocks and pressure-ridges out towards

Penguin Hill on the eastern side of the boat harbour: tins of all

kinds and sizes, timber in small scraps, cases and boards, paper,

ashes, dirt, worn-out finnesko, ragged mitts and all the other details

of a rubbish heap. One of the losses was a heavy case which formed

the packing of part of the magnetometer. Weighted - down by stones

this had stood for a long time in what was regarded as a safe place.

One morning it was discovered to be missing. It was surmised that a

hurricane had started it on an ocean voyage during the previous day.

Boxes in which Whetter used to carry ice for domestic requirements

were as a rule short-lived. His problem was to fill the boxes without

losing hold of them, and the wind often gained the ascendancy before

a sufficient ballast had been added. We sometimes wondered whether

any of the flotsam thus cast upon the waters ever reached the

civilized world.

Whatever has been said relative to the wind-pressure exerted on

inanimate objects, the same applied, with even more point, to our

persons; so that progression in a hurricane became a fine art. The

first difficulty to be encountered was a smooth, slippery surface

offering no grip for the feet. Stepping out of the shelter of the

Hut, one was apt to be immediately hurled at full length down wind.

No amount of exertion was of any avail unless a firm foothold had

been secured. The strongest man, stepping on to ice or hard snow

in plain leather or fur boots, would start sliding away with

gradually increasing velocity; in the space of a few seconds, or

earlier, exchanging the vertical for the horizontal position. He

would then either stop suddenly against a jutting point of ice, or

glide along for twenty or thirty yards till he reached a patch of

rocks or some rough sastrugi.

Of course we soon learned never to go about without crampons on the

feet. Many experiments in the manufacture of crampons were tried

with the limited materials at our disposal. Those designed for normal

Antarctic conditions had been found unserviceable. A few detachable

pairs made of wrought iron with spikes about one and a half inches in

length, purchased in Switzerland, gave a secure foothold. Some of the

men covered the soles of their boots with long, bristling spikes and

these served their purpose well. Ice-nails, screwed into the soles

without being riveted on plates, were liable to tear out when put to a

severe test, besides being too short. Spikes of less than an inch in

length were inadequate in hurricanes. Nothing devised by us gave the

grip of the Swiss crampons, but, to affix them, one had to wear

leather boots, which, though padded to increase their warmth, had to

be tightly bound by lashings compressing the feet and increasing

the liability to frost-bite.

Shod with good spikes, in a steady wind, one had only to push hard

to keep a sure footing. It would not be true to say ``to keep

erect,'' for equilibrium was maintained by leaning against the wind.

In course of time, those whose duties habitually took them out of

doors became thorough masters of the art of walking in hurricanes--

an accomplishment comparable to skating or skiing. Ensconced in the

lee of a substantial break-wind, one could leisurely observe the

unnatural appearance of others walking about, apparently in imminent

peril of falling on their faces.

Experiments were tried in the steady winds; firmly planting the

feet on the ground, keeping the body rigid and leaning over on the

invisible support. This ``lying on the wind,'' at equilibrium, was

a unique experience. As a rule the velocity remained uniform; when it

fluctuated in a series of gusts, all our experience was likely to fail,

for no sooner had the correct angle for the maximum velocity been

assumed than a lull intervened--with the obvious result.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

A copy of the wind-velocity (anenometer) and the wind direction

(anemograph) for a period of twenty-four hours, Adelie Land

This particular record illustrates a day of constant high velocity

wind. In the case of the upper chart each rise of the pen from the

bottom to the top of the paper indicates that another 100 miles of

wind has passed the instrument. The regularity of these curves

shows the steadiness of the wind. It will be observed that the

average velocity for twenty-four hours was 90.1 miles, and the

maximum of the average hourly velocities throughout that period was

ninety-seven miles. The lower chart, the record of the direction

from which the wind blew, is marked only by a single broad bar in

the position of South-by-East, the wind not having veered in the

slightest degree.

Before the art of ``hurricane-walking'' was learnt, and in the

primitive days of ice-nails and finnesko, progression in high winds

degenerated into crawling on hands and knees. Many of the more

conservative persisted in this method, and, as a compensation, became

the first exponents of the popular art of ``board-sliding.'' A small

piece of board, a wide ice flat and a hurricane were the three

essentials for this new sport.

Wind alone would not have been so bad; drift snow accompanied it in

overwhelming amount. In the autumn overcast weather with heavy falls

of snow prevailed, with the result that the air for several months was

seldom free from drift. Indeed, during that time, there were not many

days when objects a hundred yards away could be seen distinctly.

Whatever else happened, the wind never abated, and so, even when

the snow had ceased falling and the sky was clear, the drift

continued until all the loose accumulations on the hinterland, for

hundreds of miles back, had been swept out to sea. Day after day

deluges of drift streamed past the Hut, at times so dense as to

obscure objects three feet away, until it seemed as if the atmosphere

were almost solid snow.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

A comparison of wind-velocities and temperatures prevailing at Cape

Royds, Mcmurdo Sound, and at winter quarters, Adelie Land, during

the months of May and June

At the time of plotting only the above two months were available,

but they are enough to illustrate the unusually severe winter

conditions of Adelie Land. The data for Cape Royds is that supplied

by the Shackleton Expedition. The solid black line refers to Adelie

Land, the broken line to Cape Royds. It will be noted that whereas

the average temperature conditions are closely similar at both

stations, only on three days during the period did the average wind

velocity at Cape Royds reach that of the lowest daily value of

Adelie Land.

Picture drift so dense that daylight comes through dully, though,

maybe, the sun shines in a cloudless sky; the drift is hurled,

screaming through space at a hundred miles an hour, and the

temperature is below zero, Fahrenheit.** You have then the bare,

rough facts concerning the worst blizzards of Adelie I,and.

The actual experience of them is another thing.

** Temperatures as low as -28 degrees F. (60 degrees below freezing-

point) were experienced in hurricane winds, which blew at a velocity

occasionally exceeding one hundred miles per hour. Still air and

low temperatures, or high winds and moderate temperatures, are well

enough; but the combination of high winds and low temperatures is

difficult to bear.

Shroud the infuriated elements in the darkness of a polar night,

and the blizzard is presented in a severer aspect. A plunge into

the writhing storm-whirl stamps upon the senses an indelible and

awful impression seldom equalled in the whole gamut of natural

experience. The world a void, grisly, fierce and appalling. We

stumble and struggle through the Stygian gloom; the merciless blast--

an incubus of vengeance--stabs, buffets and freezes; the stinging

drift blinds and chokes. In a ruthless grip we realize that we are

poor windlestraws

On the great, sullen, roaring pool of Time.

It may well be imagined that none of us went out on these occasions

for the pleasure of it. The scientific work required all too frequent

journeys to the instruments at a distance from the Hut, and, in addition,

supplies of ice and stores had to be brought in, while the dogs needed

constant attention.

Every morning, Madigan visited all the meteorological instruments

and changed the daily charts; at times having to feel his way from

one place to the other. Attending to the exposed instruments in a

high wind with low temperature was bad enough, but with suffocating

drift difficulties were increased tenfold.

Around the Hut there was a small fraternity who chose the outside

veranda as a rendezvous. Here the latest gossip was exchanged, and

the weather invariably discussed in forcible terms. There was

Whetter, who replenished the water-supply from the unfailing

fountain-head of the glacier. For cooking, washing clothes and for

photographic and other purposes, eighteen men consumed a good deal of

water, and, to keep up with the demand, Whetter piled up many

hardly-won boxes of ice in the veranda. Close unearthed coal

briquettes from the heap outside, shovelled tons of snow from the

veranda and made himself useful and amiable to every one. Murphy,

our stand-by in small talk, travel, history, literature and what not,

was the versatile storeman. The store in the veranda was continually

invaded by similar snow to that which covered the provision boxes

outside. To keep the veranda cleared, renew the supplies and satisfy

the demands of the kitchen required no other than Murphy. Ninnis and

Mertz completed the ``Veranda Club,'' to which honorary members from

within the Hut were constantly being added.

The meteorological instruments, carefully nursed and housed though

they were, were bound to suffer in such a climate. Correll, who was

well fitted out with a lathe and all the requirements for instrument-

making, attended to repairs, doing splendid service. The anemometer

gave the greatest trouble, and, before Correll had finished with it,

most of the working parts had been replaced in stronger metal.

When the recording sheets of the instruments had been successfully

changed, the meteorologist packed them in a leather bag, strapped on

his shoulders, so that they would not be lost on the way to the Hut.

As soon as he arrived indoors the bag was opened and emptied; the

papers being picked out from a small heap of snow.

It was a fortunate thing that no one was lost through failing to

discover the Hut during the denser drifts. Hodgeman on one occasion

caused every one a good deal of anxiety. Among other things, he

regularly assisted Madigan by relieving him of outdoor duties on

the day after his nightwatch, when the chief meteorologist was due

for a ``watch below.'' It was in the early autumn--few of us, then,

were adepts at finding our way by instinct--that Hodgeman and Madigan

set out, one morning, for the anemometer. Leaving the door of the

Hut, they lost sight of each other at once, but anticipated meeting

at the instrument. Madigan reached his destination, changed the

records, waited for a while and then returned, expecting to see his

companion at the Hut. He did not appear, so, after a reasonable

interval, search parties set off in different directions.

The wind was blowing at eighty miles per hour, making it tedious

work groping about and hallooing in the drift. The sea was close at

hand and we realized that, as the wind was directly off shore, a man

without crampons was in a dangerous situation. Two men, therefore,

roped together and carefully searched round the head of the boat

harbour; one anchoring himself with an ice-axe, whilst the other,

at the end of the rope, worked along the edge of the sea. Meanwhile

Hodgeman returned to the Hut, unaided, having spent a very unpleasant

two hours struggling from one landmark to another, his outer garments

filled with snow.

The fact that the wind came steadily from the same direction made it

possible to steer, otherwise outdoor operations would not have been

conducted so successfully. For instance, Webb, who visited the

Magnetograph House, a quarter of a mile distant, at least once a day,

made his way between various ``beacons'' by preserving a definite

bearing on the wind. His journeys were rendered all the more

difficult because they were frequently undertaken at night.

In struggling along through very dense drifts one would be inclined

to think that the presence of the sun was a matter of small concern.

As a matter of fact there was, during the day, a good deal of

reflected white light and a dark object looms up within a yard or two.

In darkness there was nothing to recognize. So Webb would often run

by dead reckoning on to the roof of the Hut, and would then feel his

way round it till he caught the glimmer of a hurricane lantern coming

through the veranda entrance.

I had always the greatest admiration for the unfailing manner in

which those responsible for the tidal, magnetic and meteorological

work carried out their duties.

As a measure of the enormous amount of drift, we set about

constructing a gauge, which, it was hoped, would give us a rough

estimate of the quantity passing the Hut in a year. Hannam,

following the approved design, produced a very satisfactory

contrivance. It consisted of a large drift-tight box, fitted on the

windward side with a long metal cone, tapering to an aperture

three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The drift-laden air entered

the aperture, its speed was checked on entering the capacious body of

the gauge and consequently the snow fell to the bottom of the box and

the air passed out behind through a trap-door. The catch was taken

out periodically through a bolted lid, the snow was melted, the

resulting water measured and its weight calculated.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

The drift gauge

In thick drifts, one's face inside the funnel of the burberry helmet

became rapidly packed with snow, which, by the warmth of the skin

and breath, was changed into a mask of ice. This adhered firmly to

the rim of the helmet and to the beard and face. The mask became so

complete that one had to clear away obstructions continually from the

eyes. It was not easy to remove the casing of ice, outside in the

wind, because this could only be done slowly, with bare fingers

exposed. An experienced man, once inside the Hut, would first see

that the ice was broken along the rim of the helmet; otherwise, when

it came to be hastily dragged off, the hairs of the beard would follow

as well. As soon as the helmet was off the head, the icicles hanging

on the beard and glazing the eyelashes were gradually thawed by the

fingers and removed. The above treatment was learned by experience.

The abrasion-effects produced by the impact of the snow particles

were astonishing. Pillars of ice were cut through in a few days,

rope was frayed, wood etched and metal polished. Some rusty dog-

chains were exposed to it, and, in a few days, they had a definite

sheen. A deal box, facing the wind, lost all its painted bands and

in a fortnight was handsomely marked; the hard, knotty fibres being

only slightly attacked, whilst the softer, pithy laminae were corroded

to a depth of one-eighth of an inch.

The effect of constant abrasion upon the snow's surface is to harden

it, and, finally, to carve ridges known as sastrugi. Of these much

will be said when recounting our sledging adventures, because they

increase so much the difficulties of travelling.

Even hard, blue ice may become channelled and pitted by the action

of drift. Again, both neve and ice may receive a wind-polish which

makes them very slippery.

Of the effect of wind and drift upon rock, there was ample evidence

around Winter Quarters. Regarded from the north, the aspect of the

rocks was quite different from that on the southern side. The

southern, windward faces were on the whole smooth and rounded, but

there was no definite polish, because the surface was partly attacked

by the chipping and splitting action of frost. The leeward faces

were rougher and more disintegrated. More remarkable still were the

etchings of the non-homogeneous banded rocks. The harder portions of

these were raised in relief, producing quite an artistic pattern.

In regard to the drift, a point which struck me was the enormous

amount of cold communicated to the sea by billions of tons of

low-temperature snow thrown upon its surface. The effect upon the

water, already at freezing-point, would be to congeal the surface at

once. Whilst the wind continued, however, there was no opportunity

for a crust to form, the uppermost layers being converted into a

pea-soup-like film which streamed away to the north.

A description of the drifts of Adelie Land would not be complete

without mentioning the startling electrical effects which were

sometimes observed. The first record of these was made by McLean,

when on night-watch on March 22. While taking the observations at

midnight, he noticed St. Elmo's fire, a ``brush discharge'' of

electricity, on the points of the nephoscope. As the weather became

colder this curious phenomenon increased in intensity. At any time

in the drift, an electroscope exposed outside became rapidly charged.

A spark gap in a vacuum, connected with a free end of wire, gave a

continuous discharge. At times, when the effects were strong, the

night-watchman would find the edges and wire stays of the screen

outlined in a fashion reminiscent of a pyrotechnic display or an

electric street-advertisement. The corners of boxes and points of

rock glowed with a pale blue light. The same appeared over points on

the clothing, on the mitts and round the funnel of the helmet. No

sensation was transmitted to the body from these points of fire, at

least nothing sufficiently acute to be felt, with the drift and wind

lashing on the body outside. However, the anemograph several times

discharged a continuous stream of sparks into Madigan's fingers while

he was changing the records. Once these sparks reached half an inch

in length, and, as his fingers were bared for the work, there was no

mistaking the feeling.

For regular observations on the subject, Correll fixed a pointed

collector--a miniature lightning-conductor--above the flagpole on the

summit of the roof. A wire was led through an insulator, so that the

stream of electricity could be subjected to experiment in the Hut.

Here a ``brush'' of blue light radiated outwards to a distance of one

inch. When a conductor was held close to it, a rattling volley of

sparks immediately crossed the interval and the air was pervaded with

a strong smell of ozone. Of course sparks were not always being

emitted by the collector, and it was important to determine the

periods of activity. To ensure this, Hurley devised an automatic

arrangement, so that an electric bell was set ringing whenever a

current was passing; the night-watchman would then note the fact in

the log-book. However, the bell responded so often and so vigorously

that it was soon dismantled for the benefit of sleepers. It was

singular that the ``brush discharge'' was sometimes most copious when

the atmosphere was filled with very fine drift, and not necessarily

during dense drift.

After what has been said, it will be obvious that the drift-laden

hurricanes of the country were more than ordinarily formidable.

They scarcely seemed to provide a subject for poetic inspiration;

still the following effusion appeared by McLean, Editor of the `Adelie

Blizzard':--

THE BLIZZARD

A snow-hush brooding o'er the grey rock-hills!

A wold of silence, ominous, that fills

The wide seascape of ice-roofed islands, rolls

To ether-zones that gird the frigid Poles!

Realm of purest alabaster-white,

Wreathed in a vast infinitude of light;

The royal orb swings to thy summer gaze

A glitt'ring azure world of crystal days.

The lorn bird-voices of an unseen land--

No hue of forest, gleam of ocean sand--

Rise in a ceaseless plaint of raucous din,

On northern tides the bergs come floating in.

The wind-sprites murmuring in hinter-snow--

The pent heart-throbbings of the wan plateau--

Wing through the pulsing spell thrown o'er the sea,

In wild and shrieking blizzard minstrelsy.

Swirl of the drift-cloud's shimm'ring sleet;

Race of the spray-smoke's hurtling sheet

Swelling trail of the streaming, sunbright foam,

Wafting sinuous brash to an ice-field home.

Eddy-wraiths o'er the splintered schist--

Torrent spume down the glacier hissed!

Throbbing surge of the ebbing seaward gust,

Raping stillness vast in its madd'ning lust.

Lotus-floe 'neath the Barrier brink,

Starting sheer--a marble blink--

Pelting shafts from the show'ring arrow-blast

Strike--ill the blackened flood seethe riven past.

Glow of the vibrant, yellow west

Pallid fades in the dread unrest.

Low'ring shades through the fury-stricken night

Rack the screaming void in shudd'ring might.

Requiem peace from the hinter-snows

Soft as river music flows.

Dawn in a flushing glamour tints the sea;

Serene her thrill of rhythmic ecstasy.

Sledging was out of the question. Indeed, we recognized how

fortunate we were not to have pushed farther south in March. Had we

advanced, it is more than likely that provisions would have been

exhausted before we could have located the Hut in the sea of drift.

Our hopes were now centred on midwinter calms.

Looking through my diary, I notice that on March 24, ``we experienced

a rise in spirits because of the improved weather.'' I find the

average velocity of the wind for that day to have been forty-five

miles per hour, corresponding to a ``strong gale'' on the Beaufort

scale. This tells its own story.

When the high wind blew off shore, there was no backswell, on account

of the pack-ice to the north quelling the sea. The arrival of a true

ocean swell meant that the pack had been dispersed. On March 24 such

appears to have been the case, for then, during the day, a big

northerly swell set in, dashing over the ice-foot and scattering

seaweed on the rocks.

After the equinox, the temperatures remained in the vicinity of

zero, Fahrenheit. The penguins took to the sea, and, save for the

glimpse of an occasional petrel on the wing, the landscape was

desolate.

It was high time that our programme of construction was completed,

but, however much we tried, it was impossible to do a great deal in

winds exceeding fifty miles an hour. By taking advantage of days

freest from drift, the exterior of the Hangar was completed by April

6. After the air-tractor sledge had been moved inside, the snow was

piled so high on the leeward face, that the shelter became naturally

blocked with a rampart of snow which served admirably in place of the

wall of tarpaulin which we originally intended to use.

Bickerton could now proceed at leisure to make any necessary

alterations. The Hangar was also used as a store for many articles

which had been crowded into odd corners or rescued from the snow

outside. To increase its size, tunnels were afterwards driven into

the bank of snow and timber was stowed in these so as to be safe from

burial and loss.

The building was finished just in the nick of time. Snow came down

so thickly that had the falls occurred a few days earlier, the cases

from which the place was constructed would have been effectually

buried and the construction made an impossibility.

But for the wind, the Hut would have been lost to sight. Still, it

was completely surrounded by massive drifts, and the snow was driven

by the wind past the canvas flap and through the entrance, until the

veranda became choked.

Close, who was night-watchman during the early morning hours of

April 7, had the greatest difficulty in getting outside to attend

to his duties. To dig his way through the entrance, reach the

instruments and to return occupied a whole hour.

We were inundated with snow; even a portion of the roof was buried.

The situation required immediate attention; so it was decided to make

a tunnel connecting the entrance veranda with the store veranda. From

the north-western end of the latter, an out-draught had established

itself, preserving a vertical funnel-like opening in the snow bank,

always free for entrance or exit. This proved a fortunate accident.

Further, a second tunnel, over twenty feet in length, was driven out

from the original entrance with a view to reaching the surface at a

point beyond the lee of the Hut. It was thought that the scouring

effect of the wind, there, would keep the opening of the tunnel free

of drift. But when completed, it filled rapidly with snow and had

to be sealed. It was then used to receive slop-water. While the

fever for excavation was at its height, Whetter drove, as an off-

shoot to the first, another tunnel which came to be used as a

nursery for the pups.

At this stage, to leave the Hut, it was necessary to crawl through a

low trap-door in the wall of the inside or entrance veranda; the way

then led to the connecting tunnel and onwards to the store veranda;

finally one climbed through a manhole in the snow into the elements

without. From the store veranda there was access to the Hangar by

a hinged door in the common wall, and, as an additional convenience,

a trap-door was made in the roof of the inner veranda to be used during

spells of clear weather or in light drift.

The old landmarks became smothered in snow, making the Hut's position

a matter of greater uncertainty. A journey by night to the magnetic

huts was an outing with a spice of adventure.

Climbing out of the veranda, one was immediately swallowed in the

chaos of hurtling drift, the darkness sinister and menacing. The

shrill wind fled by--

...the noise of a drive of the Dead,

Striving before the irresistible will

Through the strange dusk of this, the Debatable land

Between their place and ours.

Unseen wizard hands clutched with insane fury, hacked and harried.

It was ``the raw-ribbed Wild that abhors all life, the Wild that

would crush and rend.''

Cowering blindly, pushing fiercely through the turmoil, one strove

to keep a course to reach the rocks in which the huts were hidden--

such and such a bearing on the wind--so far. When the rocks came

in sight, the position of the final destination was only deduced by

recognising a few surrounding objects.

On the return journey, the vicinity of the Hut would be heralded by

such accidents as tripping over the ``wireless'' ground wires or

kicking against a box or a heap of coal briquettes. These clues,

properly followed up, would lead to the Hut itself, or at least to

its shelving roof. In the very thick drifts it was even possible to

stand on portions of the roof without any notion of the fact.

Fossicking about, one kept on the alert for the feel of woodwork.

When found and proved to be too extensive to be a partially buried

box, it might safely be concluded to be some part of the roof,

and only required to be skirted in order to reach the vertical

entrance. The lost man often discovered this pitfall by dropping

suddenly through into the veranda.

At the entrance to the tunnel, the roar of the tempest died away

into a rumble, the trap-door opened and perhaps the strains of the

gramophone would come in a kind of flippant defiance from the

interior. Passing through the vestibule and work-room one beheld a

scene in utter variance with the outer hell. Here were warm bunks,

rest, food, light and companionship--for the time being, heaven!

Outside, the crude and naked elements of a primitive and desolate

world flowed in writhing torrents.

The night-watchman's duty of taking the meteorological observations

at the screen adjacent to the Hut was a small matter compared with the

foregoing. First of all, it was necessary for him to don a complete

outfit of protective clothing. Dressing and undressing were tedious,

and absorbed a good deal of time. At the screen, he would spend a

lively few minutes wrestling in order to hold his ground, forcing the

door back against the pressure of wind, endeavouring to make the light

shine on the instruments, and, finally, clearing them of snow and

reading them. For illumination a hurricane lantern wrapped in a

calico wind-shield was first used, to be displaced later by an

electrical signalling-lamp and, while the batteries lasted, by a

light permanently fixed by Hannam in the screen itself. To assist

in finding the manhole on his return, the night-watchman was in the

habit of leaving a light burning in the outer veranda.

I remember waking up early one morning to find the Hut unusually

cold. On rising, I discovered Hurley also awake, busy lighting the

fire which had died out. There was no sign of Correll, the

night-watchman, and we found that the last entry in the log-book had

been made several hours previously. Hurley dressed in full burberrys

and went out to make a search, in which he was soon successful.

It appeared that Correll, running short of coal during the early

morning hours, had gone out to procure some from the stack. While he

was returning to the entrance, the wind rolled him over a few times,

causing him to lose his bearings. It was blowing a hurricane, the

temperature was -7O F., and the drift-snow was so thick as to be

wall-like in opacity. He abandoned his load of coal, and, after

searching about fruitlessly for some time in the darkness, he decided

to wait for dawn. Hurley found him about twenty yards from the

back of the Hut.

The suppression of outdoor occupations reacted in an outburst of

indoor work. The smaller room had been well fitted up as a workshop,

and all kinds of schemes were in progress for adapting our

sledging-gear and instruments to the severe conditions. Correll

worked long hours to keep up with the demands made upon him. Nobody

was idle during the day, for, when there was nothing else to be done,

there always remained the manufacture and alteration of garments and

crampons.

As soon as the wind abated to a reasonable velocity, there was a rush

to the outside jobs. Lulls would come unexpectedly, activity inside

ceased, and the Hut, as seen by a spectator, resembled an ants' nest

upon which a strange foot had trodden: eighteen men swarming through

the manhole in rapid succession, hurrying hither and thither.

The neighbouring sea still remained free from an ice-crust. This,

of course, did not mean that freezing was not going on continuously.

On the contrary, the chilling was no doubt accelerated, but the bulk

of the ice was carried off to the north as fast as it was formed.

Quantities, however, remained as ground-ice, anchored to the kelp and

stones on the bottom. Gazing down through the clear waters one saw

a white, mamillated sheath covering the jungle of giant seaweed,

recalling a forest after a heavy snowfall. The ice, instead of being

a dead weight bearing down the branches, tended to float, and, when

accumulated in large masses, sometimes succeeded in rising to the

surface, uprooting and lifting great lengths of seaweed with it.

One branching stem, found floating in the harbour, measured eighteen

feet in length.

Whenever a temporary calm intervened, a skin of ice quickly

appeared over the whole surface of the water. In the early stages,

this formation consisted of loose, blade-like crystals, previously

floating freely below the surface and rising by their own buoyancy.

At the surface, if undisturbed, they soon became cemented together.

For example, during a calm interval on April 6, within the interval of

an hour, an even crust, one inch thick, covered the sea. But the wind

returned before the ice was sufficiently strong to resist it, and it

all broke up and drifted away to the north, except a piece which

remained wedged firmly between the sides of the boat harbour.

In the calm weather, abundant ``worms'' freely swimming, jelly-fish,

pteropods and small fish were observed. Traps were lowered along the

edge of the harbour-ice and dredgings were made in every possible

situation. The bulk of the biological collecting was effected under

circumstances in which Hunter and Laseron might well have given up

work in disgust. For instance, I noted in my diary that on May 16,

with an off shore wind of forty-three miles per hour, they and

several others were dredging from the edge of the slippery bay-ice.

The temperature at the time was -2 degrees F.

During April the head of the boat harbour froze over permanently,

the ice reaching a thickness of eighteen inches in ten days. By

that time it was strong enough to be suitable for a tide-gauge.

This was one of Bage's charges, destined to take him out for many

months in fair and foul weather.

There were several occasions in April when the velocity of the wind

exceeded ninety miles an hour. On the evening of the 26th, the wind

slackened, and for part of the 27th had almost fallen to a calm. This

brought the optimists to the fore, once again, with the theory that

the worst was over. The prediction was far from being fulfilled, for,

as the days passed, the average velocity steadily rose. On May 11

the average for the twenty-four hours was eighty miles per hour. By

that time the Hut had been further protected by a crescent of cases,

erected behind the first break-wind. In height this erection stood

above the Hangar, and, when the snow became piled in a solid ramp on

the leeward side, it was more compact than ever. Inside the Hut extra

struts were introduced, stiffening the principal rafters on the

southern side. It was reassuring to know that these precautions had

been taken, for, on May 15, the wind blew at an average velocity of

ninety miles per hour throughout the whole twenty-four hours.

Having failed to demolish us by dogged persistence, the hurricane

tried new tactics on the evening of May 24, in the form of a terrific

series of Herculean gusts. As we learned afterwards, the momentary

velocity of these doubtless approached two hundred miles per hour.

At 11.30 P.M. the situation was cheerfully discussed, though every

one was tuned up to a nervous pitch as the Hut creaked and shuddered

under successive blows. It seemed very doubtful whether the roof

would resist the gusts, and the feasibility of the meat cellar as a

last haven of refuge was discussed. After the passage of each gust,

the barometer dropped, rising again immediately afterwards. Similar

pulsations of the barometer were observed many times later in the

year. The maximum sudden movement noted was one-fifth inch. Had the

interior of the Hut been more freely in communication with the

outside air, instead of resembling a hermetically sealed box, the

``kicks'' would undoubtedly have been much greater.

Cyclonic gusts were repeated a few days after, when the upper tiers

of boxes composing the break-wind were thrown down and pebbles from

the moraine were hurled on the roof. The average velocity of the

wind for each of the three autumn months was as follows: March, 49

miles per hour; April, 51.5 miles per hour, and May 60.7 miles per

hour.

On May 1 the temperatures became lower, so that it was difficult to

move about in the gales without the face getting frost-bitten. Our

usual remedy when this occurred was to hold a mitt over the part

affected; thus sheltered, its circulation of blood was soon

re-established, unless the cold were very intense. In the

extremities--the fingers and toes--warmth was not so easily restored.

Returning from attending the instruments at noon on May 22, Madigan,

according to the usual habit, before taking off his wind-proof

clothes, commenced clearing away the ice adhering to his helmet and

face. One white patch refused to leave the side of his face, until

some one observed that it was a frost-bite, and acquainted him of the

fact. Frost-bites that day were excusable enough, for the wind was

blowing between ninety-five and hundred miles per hour, there was

dense drifting snow and a temperature of -28 degrees F.

We had found an accursed country. On the fringe of an unspanned

continent along whose gelid coast our comrades had made their home--

we knew not where--we dwelt where the chill breath of a vast, Polar

wilderness, quickening to the rushing might of eternal blizzards,

surged to the northern seas. Already, and for long months we were

beneath ``frost-fettered Winter's frown.''

CHAPTER VIII DOMESTIC LIFE

Our hearth and home was the living Hut and its focus was the stove.

Kitchen and stove were indissolubly linked, and beyond their pale was

a wilderness of hanging clothes, boots, finnesko, mitts and what not,

bounded by tiers of bunks and blankets, more hanging clothes and

dim photographs between the frost-rimed cracks of the wooden walls.

One might see as much in the first flicker of the acetylene through

a maze of hurrying figures, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the

light, the plot would thicken: books orderly and disorderly, on

bracketed shelves, cameras great and small in motley confusion, guns

and a gramophone-horn, serpentine yards of gas-tubing, sewing

machines, a microscope, rows of pint-mugs, until--thud! he has

obstructed a wild-eyed messman staggering into the kitchen with a box

of ice.

The wilderness was always inhabited, so much so that it often became

a bear-garden in which raucous good humour prevailed over everything.

Noise was a necessary evil, and it commenced at 7.30 A.M., with the

subdued melodies of the gramophone, mingled with the stirring of the

porridge-pot and the clang of plates deposited none too gently on the

table. At 7.50 A.M. came the stentorian: ``Rise and shine!'' of

the night-watchman, and a curious assortment of cat-calls, beating on

pots and pans and fragmentary chaff. At the background, so to speak,

of all these sounds was the swishing rush of the wind and the creaking

strain of the roof, but these had become neglected. In fact, if there

were a calm, every one was restless and uneasy.

The seasoned sleeper who survived the ten minutes' bombardment before

8 o'clock was an unusual person, and he was often the Astronomer

Royal. Besides his dignified name he possessed a wrist-watch, and

there was never a movement in his mountain of blankets until 7.59

A.M., unless the jocular night-watchman chose to make a heap of them

on the floor. To calls like ``Breakfast all ready! Porridge on the

table getting cold!'' seventeen persons in varying stages of

wakefulness responded. No one was guilty of an elaborate toilet,

water being a scarce commodity. There were adherents of the snow-wash

theory, but these belonged to an earlier and warmer epoch of our

history.

For downright, tantalizing cheerfulness there was no one to equal

the night-watchman. While others strove to collect their befuddled

senses, this individual prated of ``wind eighty miles per hour with

moderate drift and brilliant St. Elmo's fire.'' He boasted of the

number of garments he had washed, expanded vigorously on bread

making--his brown, appetizing specimens in full public view--told of

the latest escapade among the dogs, spoke of the fitful gleams of

the aurora between 1.30 and 2 A.M., of his many adventures on the way

to the meteorological screen and so forth; until from being a mere

night-watchman he had raised himself to the status of a public hero.

For a time he was most objectionable, but under the solid influence of

porridge, tinned fruit, fresh bread, butter and tea and the soothing

aroma of innumerable pipes, other public heroes arose and ousted this

upstart of the night. Meanwhile, the latter began to show signs of

abating energy after twelve hours' work. Soon some wag had caught

him having a private nap, a whispered signal was passed round and

the unfortunate hero was startled into life with a rousing ``Rise

and shine!'' in which all past scores were paid off.

Every one was at last awake and the day began in earnest. The first

hint of this came from the messman and cook who commenced to make a

Herculean sweep of the pint-mugs and tin plates. The former

deferentially proceeded to scrape the plates, the master-cook

presiding over a tub of boiling water in which he vigorously scoured

knives, forks and spoons, transferring them in dripping handfuls to

the cleanest part of the kitchen-table. Cooks of lyric inclination

would enliven the company with the score of the latest gramophone

opera, and the messman and company would often feel impelled to join

in the choruses.

The night-watchman had sunk into log-like slumber, and the

meteorologist and his merry men were making preparations to go

abroad. The merry men included the ice-carrier, the magnetician,

the two wardens of the dogs, the snow-shoveller and coal-carrier

and the storeman. The rest subdivided themselves between the living

Hut at 45 degrees F. and the outer Hut below freezing-point, taking

up their endless series of jobs.

The merry men began to make an organized raid on the kitchen. Around

and above the stove hung oddments like wolf-skin mitts, finnesko,

socks, stockings and helmets, which had passed from icy rigidity

through sodden limpness to a state of parchment dryness. The problem

was to recover one's own property and at the same time to avoid the

cook scraping the porridge saucepan and the messman scrubbing the

table.

The urbane storeman saved the situation by inquiring of the cook:

``What will you have for lunch?'' Then followed a heated colloquy,

the former, like a Cingalese vendor, having previously made up his

mind. The argument finally crystallized down to lambs' tongues and

beetroot, through herrings and tomato sauce, fresh herrings, kippered

herrings, sardines and corn beef.

The second question was a preliminary to more serious business; ``What

would you like for dinner?''

Although much trouble might have been saved by reference to the

regulation programme, which was composed to provide variety in diet

and to eliminate any remote chance of scurvy, most cooks adopted an

attitude of surly independence, counting it no mean thing to have

wheedled from the storeman a few more ounces of ``glaxo,'' another tin

of peas or an extra ration of penguin meat. All this chaffering took

place in the open market-place, so to speak, and there was no lack of

frank criticism from bystanders, onlookers and distant eavesdroppers.

In case the cook was worsted, the messman sturdily upheld his

opinions, and in case the weight of public opinion was too much for

the storeman, he slipped on his felt mitts, shouldered a Venesta box

and made for the tunnel which led to the store.

He reaches an overhead vent admitting a cool torrent of snow, and with

the inseparable box plunges ahead into darkness. An hour later his

ruddy face reappears in the Hut, and a load of frosted tins is soon

unceremoniously dumped on to the kitchen table. The cook in a swift

survey notes the absence of penguin meat. ``That'll take two hours

to dig out!'' is the storeman's rejoinder, and to make good his

word, proceeds to pull off blouse and helmet. By careful inquiry in

the outer Hut he finds an ice-axe, crowbar and hurricane lantern. The

next move is to the outer veranda, where a few loose boards are soon

removed, and the storeman, with a lithe twist, is out of sight.

We have pushed the tools down and, following the storeman, painfully

squeezed into an Arcadia of starry mounds of snow and glistening

plaques of ice, through which project a few boulders and several

carcases of mutton. The storeman rummages in the snow and discloses

a pile of penguins, crusted hard together in a homogeneous lump.

Dislodging a couple of penguins appears an easy proposition, but

we are soon disillusioned. The storeman seizes the head of one bird,

wrenches hard, and off it breaks as brittle as a stalactite. The

same distracting thing happens to both legs, and the only remedy

is to chip laboriously an icy channel around it.

In a crouching or lying posture, within a confined space, this means

the expenditure of much patience, not to mention the exhaustion of

all invective. A crowbar decides the question. One part of the

channel is undermined, into this the end of the crowbar is thrust

and the penguin shoots up and hits the floor of the Hut.

The storeman, plastered with snow, reappears hot and triumphant

before the cook, but this dignitary is awkwardly kneading the dough

of wholemeal scones, and the messman is feeding the fire with seal-

blubber to ensure a ``quick'' oven. Every one is too busy to

notice the storeman, for, like the night-watchman, his day is over

and he must find another job.

Jobs in the Hut were the elixir of life, and a day's cooking was no

exception to the rule. It began at 7 A.M., and, with a brief

intermission between lunch and afternoon tea, continued strenuously

till 8.30 P.M. Cooks were broadly classified as ``Crook Cooks'' and

``Unconventional Cooks'' by the eating public. Such flattering

titles as ``Assistant Grand Past Master of the Crook Cooks'

Association'' or ``Associate of the Society of Muddling Messmen''

were not empty inanities; they were founded on solid fact--on actual

achievement. If there were no constitutional affiliation, strong

sympathy undoubtedly existed between the ``Crook Cooks' Association''

and ``The Society of Muddling Messmen.'' Both contained members who

had committed ``championships.''

``Championship'' was a term evolved from the local dialect, applying

to a slight mishap, careless accident or unintentional disaster in any

department of Hut life. The fall of a dozen plates from the shelf to

the floor, the fracture of a table-knife in frozen honey, the burning

of the porridge or the explosion of a tin thawing in the oven brought

down on the unfortunate cook a storm of derisive applause and shouts

of ``Championship! Championship!''

Thawing-out tinned foods by the heroic aid of a red-hot stove was a

common practice. One day a tin of baked beans was shattered in the

"port" oven, and fragments of dried beans were

visible on the walls and door for weeks. Our military cook would

often facetiously refer to ``platoon-firing in the starboard oven.''

One junior member of the ``Crook Cooks' Association'' had the

hardihood to omit baking powder in a loaf of soda-bread, trusting

that prolonged baking would repair the omission. The result was a

``championship'' of a very superior order. Being somewhat modest,

he committed it through the trap-door to the mercy of the wind, and

for a time it was lost in the straggling rubbish which tailed away

to the north. Even the prowling dogs in their wolfish hunger could

not overcome a certain prejudice. Of course some one found it, and

the public hailed it with delight. A searching inquiry was made,

but the perpetrator was never discovered. That loaf, however, like

the proverbial bad penny, turned up for months. When the intricate

system of snow-tunnels was being perfected, it was excavated. In the

early summer, when the aeroplane was dug out of the Hangar, that loaf

appeared once more, and almost the last thing we saw when leaving the

Hut, nearly two years after, was this petrifaction on an icy

pedestal near the Boat Harbour.

No one ever forgot the roly-poly pudding made without suet;

synthetic rubber was its scientific name. And the muddling messman

could never be surpassed who lost the cutter of the sausage machine

and put salt-water ice in the melting-pots.

There appeared in the columns of `The Adelie Blizzard' an article by

the meteorologist descriptive of an occasion when two members of the

``Crook Cooks' Association'' officiated in the kitchen:

TEREBUS AND ERROR IN ERUPTION

An 'Orrible Affair in One Act

BY A SURVIVOR

Dramatis Personae

TEREBUS |

| Crook Cooks

ERROR |

Other Expedition Members

Scene: Kitchen, Winter Quarters.

Time: 5.30 P.M.

ERROR. Now, Terebus, just bring me a nice clean pot, will you?

TEREBUS [from his bunk]. Go on, do something yourself!

ERROR. Do something? I've done everything that has been done this

afternoon.

TEREBUS. Well, you ought to feel pretty fresh.

ERROR. And all the melting-pots are empty and I'm not going to fill

them. Besides, it's not in the regulations.

Voices. Who's going crook? Error!

[TEREBUS climbs from his bunk and exit for ice. ERROR attempts to

extricate a pot from the nails in the shelves. Loud alarums.

Voices. Champ-ion-ship!

[Alarums without. Loud cries of ``Door!'' Enter TEREBUS with box

of ice; fills all the pots on the stove.

ERROR. Good heavens, man, you've filled up the tea water with ice.

TEREBUS [with hoarse laugh]. Never mind, they won't want so much

glaxo to cool it.

ERROR [who has meanwhile been mixing bread]. What shall we bake the

bread in? I believe it is considered that a square tin is more

suitable for ordinary ovens, but, on the other hand, Nansen in his

`Farthest North' used flat dishes.

TEREBUS. Use a tin. There'll be less surface exposed to the cold

oven.

ERROR. What's all this water on the floor? I thought my feet

seemed cold. Some one must have upset a bucket.

TEREBUS. Oh, it's one of the taps turned on. Never mind, there's

plenty more ice where that came from. Get your sea-boots.

[Enter METEOROLOGICAL STAFF and others with snow-covered burberrys,

mitts, etc., crowd kitchen and hang impedimenta round the stove.

Great tumult.

TEREBUS. Here, out of the kitchen. This isn't the time to worry the

cooks.

ERROR. Take those burberrys away, please, old man. They're dripping

into the soup.

TEREBUS. Give it some flavour at least.

[Great activity in the crater of ERROR while TEREBUS clears the

kitchen. ERROR continues stirring Soup and tapioca custard on the

stove. Strong smell of burning.

VOICES [in peculiarly joyful chorus]. Something burning!

ERROR [aside to TEREBUS]. It's all right. It will taste all right.

Say it's cloth on the stove.

TEREBUS. Somebody's burberrys burning against the stove!!

[General rush to the stove.

TEREBUS. It's all right, I've taken them away.

[Interval, during which much sotto voce discussion is heard in the

kitchen.

ERROR. We haven't put the spinach on to thaw and it's after six

o'clock.

TEREBUS. Warm it up and put it on the table with the tin-openers.

ERROR. I'm afraid that's against the regulations. Put it in the oven

and shut the door.

[TEREBUS does so. Later, terrific explosion, followed by strong

smell of spinach.

VOICES. What's the matter? Terebus in eruption!

TEREBUS [wiping spinach off his face]. Nothing wrong. Only a tin of

spinach opened automatically.

ERROR. It's plastered all over the oven and on everything.

TEREBUS. Don't worry, it will be served up with the baked penguin.

[Period of partial quiescence of TEREBUS and ERROR, which is regarded

as an evil omen.

ERROR [in persuasive tone]. Have you made the tea, old boy? It's

nearly half-past six.

[TEREBUS takes off the lid of the tea-boiler, peers inside, making a

scoop with his hand.

ERROR. Here, don't do that. Mind your hands.

TEREBUS. It's all right, it's not hot.

ERROR. What shall we do, then? We'll never keep them quiet if we

are late with the tea.

TEREBUS. Put the tea in now. It will be warmed up by the second

course.

[TEREBUS puts the infusers in the pot and stirs them round.

ERROR. Taste it.

[BOTH taste with a dirty spoon.

TEREBUS. Tastes like your soup--'orrible!

ERROR. There's nothing wrong with the soup. You attend to the tea.

TEREBUS. I think we'll have coffee. Pass the coffee and I'll put

that in and bring it to the boil. The coffee will kill the taste of

the tea.

ERROR. Hope you make it stronger than that.

[During quiescent stage while each is thinking of a retort, 6.30 P.M.

arrives, and the soup is put on the table. Interval elapses during

which the victims are expected to eat the soup.

VOICES [in loud chant from the table]. How did you do it, Error?

TEREBUS [after a suitable period]. Any one like any more soup?

A VOICE. Couldn't risk it, Governor. TEREBUS. Bowls up! Lick

spoons!

[Bowls are cleared away and baked penguin is put on the table.

ERROR. Cooks have got their penguin, gentlemen.

[Suspicious glances exchanged at table. Later, monotonous chant goes

up, preceded by a soft ``One, two, three.'' ``Didn't scrape the

blubber off, Error.''

[PIates cleared away and scraped into dogs' bucket. ERROR takes

tapioca custard from oven in two dishes.

ERROR [aside to TEREBUS]. Take some out of this one for us and don't

forget to put that dish in front of the Doctor, because I spilled soda

in the other.

[TEREBUS takes two large helpings out and puts rest on table as

directed.

TEREBUS. You need not remember the cooks, gentlemen.

A VOICE. Don't want to, if I can manage it.

ERROR [aside to TEREBUS]. Put on the Algerian sweets, and then we can

have ours.

TEREBUS [taking several handfuls]. We'll put these aside for perks.

[The sweets on the table, TEREBUS and ERROR retire to kitchen to have

their dinner.

ERROR. Is this my pudding? It's only an ordinary share.

[TEREBUS is too busy to reply, and further eruption is prevented by

the temporary plugging of ERROR.

Cooking, under the inspiration of Mrs. Beeton, became a fine art:

On bones we leave no meat on,

For we study Mrs. Beeton.

So said the song. On birthdays and other auspicious occasions dishes

appeared which would tempt a gourmet. Puff-pastry, steam-puddings,

jellies and blancmanges, original potages and consommes, seal curried

and spiced, penguin delicately fried, vegetables reflavoured, trimmed

and adorned were received without comment as the culinary standard

rose.

Birthdays were always greeted with special enthusiasm. Speeches were

made, toasts were drunk, the supple boards of the table creaked with

good things, cook and messman vied with each other in lavish

hospitality, the Hut was ornate with flags, every man was spruce in

his snowiest cardigan and neck-cloth, the gramophone sang of music-

hall days, the wind roared its appreciation through the stove-pipe,

and rollicking merriment was supreme. On such occasions the

photographer and the biologist made a genial combination.

The dark-room was the nursery of the topical song. There, by

lantern or candle-stump, wit Rabelaisian, Aristophanic or Antarctic

was cradled into rhyme. From there, behind the scenes, the comedian

in full dress could step before the footlights into salvoes of savage

applause. ``A Pair of Unconventional Cooks are we, are we,'' and the

famous refrain, ``There he is, that's him,'' were long unrivalled in

our musical annals.

Celebrations were carried on into the night, but no one forgot the

cook and the messman. The table was cleared by many willing hands,

some brought in ice and coal or swept the floor, others scraped plates

or rinsed out mugs and bowls. Soon, everything had passed through the

cauldron of water, soap and soda to the drying-towels and on to the

shelves. The main crowd then repaired with pipes and cigars to ``Hyde

Park Corner,'' where the storeman, our raconteur par excellence,

entertained the smokers' club. A mixed concert brought the evening

to the grand finale--``Auld Lang Syne.''

After events of this character, the higher shelves of the kitchen, in

the interstices between thermographs, photographic plates ink bottles,

and Russian stout, abounded with titbits of pie crust, blancmange,

jelly, Vienna rusks, preserved figs, and other ``perks.'' Such

perks,'' or perquisites, were the property of the presiding cook or

night-watchman and rarely survived for more than a day.

The mania for celebration became so great that reference was

frequently made to the almanac. During one featureless interval,

the anniversary of the First Lighting of London by Gas was observed

with extraordinary eclat.

The great medium of monetary exchange in the Hut was chocolate.

A ration of thirty squares was distributed by the storeman every

Saturday night, and for purposes of betting, games of chance,

``Calcutta sweeps'' on the monthly wind-velocity and general barter,

chocolate held the premier place.

At the ``sweeps,'' the meteorologist stood with a wooden hammer behind

the table, and the gaming public swarmed on the other side. Numbers

ranging from ``low field'' and forty-five to sixty-five and ``high

field'' were sold by auction to the highest bidder. Excitement was

intense while the cartographer in clerical glasses worked out the

unknown number.

As a consequence of wild speculation, there were several cases of

bankruptcy, which was redeemed in the ordinary way by a sale of the

debtor's effects.

Two financiers, indifferent to the charms of chocolate, established

a corner or ``Bank'' in the commodity. ``The Bank,'' by barter and

usurious methods, amassed a great heap of well-thumbed squares, and,

when accused of rapacity, invented a scheme for the common good known

as ``Huntoylette.'' This was a game of chance similar to roulette,

and for a while it completely gulfed the trusting public. In the

reaction which followed, there was a rush on ``The Bank,'' and the

concern was wound up, but the promoters escaped with a large profit

in candles and chocolate.

Throughout the winter months, work went on steadily even after dinner,

and hours of leisure were easy to fill. Some wrote up their diaries,

played games, or smoked and yarned;others read, developed photos, or

imitated the weary cook and went to bed. The MacKellar Library, so

called after the donor, was a boon to all, and the literature of

polar exploration was keenly followed and discussed. Taste in

literature varied, but among a throng of eighteen, the majority

of whom were given to expressing their opinions in no uncertain

terms--there were no rigid conventions in Adelie Land--every book

had a value in accordance with a common standard.

There was not a dissenting voice to the charm of `Lady Betty across

the Water', and the reason for this was a special one. The sudden

breath of a world of warmth and colour, richness and vivacity and

astute, American freshness amid the somewhat grim attractions of an

Antarctic winter was too much for every one. Lady Betty, in the

realm of bright images, had a host of devoted admirers. Her influence

spread beyond the Hut to the plateau itself. Three men went sledging,

and to shelter themselves from the rude wind fashioned an ice-cavern,

which, on account of its magical hues and rare lustre, could be none

other than ``Aladdin's Cave.'' Lady Betty found her hero in a fairy

grotto of the same name.

`Lorna Doone', on the other hand, was liked by many. Still there were

those who thought that John Ridd was a fool, a slow, obtuse rustic,

and so on, while Lorna was too divine and angelic for this life.

`The War of the Carolinas' took the Hut by storm, but it was a ``nine

days' wonder'' and left no permanent impression on the thinking

community. Mostly, the story was voted delightfully funny, but very

foolish and farcical after all. A few exclusive critics predicted

for it a future.

Then there was `The Trail of '98'. For power and blunt realism

there was nothing like it, but the character of the hero was torn

in the shreds of debate. There was general agreement on two points:

that the portrayal of the desolate Alaskan wild had a touch of

``home,'' and that the heroine was a ``true sport.''

All those who had ever hauled on the main braces, sung the topsail-

halliard chanty, learned the intricate Matty Walker, the bowline-

and-a-bite and a crowd of kindred knots, had a warm spot for any

yarn by Jacobs. Night after night, the storeman held the audience

with the humorous escapades of `Ginger Dick', `Sam' and `Peter Russet'.

And lastly, there was a more serious, if divided interest in

`Virginibus Puerisque', `Marcus Aurelius', `The Unveiling of Lhassa'--

but the list is rather interminable.

The whole world is asleep except the night-watchman, and he, having

made the bread, washed a tubful of clothes, kept the fire going,

observed and made notes on the aurora every fifteen minutes and the

weather every half-hour, and, finally, having had a bath, indulges

in buttered toast and a cup of coffee.

The Hut is dark, and a shaded burner hangs by a canvas chair in the

kitchen. The wind is booming in gusts, the dogs howl occasionally in

the veranda, but the night-watchman and his pipe are at peace with all

men. He has discarded a heavy folio for a light romance, while the

hours scud by, broken only by the observations. The romance is

closed, and he steals to his bunk with a hurricane lamp and finds a

bundle of letters. He knows them well, but he reads them--again!

Pearly light rises in the north-east through the lessening drift,

and another day has come.

CHAPTER IX MIDWINTER AND ITS WORK;

With the advent of the fateful Ides of March, winter ii had practically

set in, and work outside had a chequered career. When a few calm hours

intervened between two blizzards a general rush was made to continue

some long-standing job. Often all that could be done was to clear the

field for action, that is, dig away large accumulations of snow. Then

the furies would break loose again, and once more we would play the

waiting game, meanwhile concerning ourselves with more sedentary

occupations.

There was a familiar cry when, for some meteorological reason, the

wind would relapse into fierce gusts and then suddenly stop, to be

succeeded by intense stillness. ``Dead calm, up with the wireless

masts!'' Every one hastily dashed for his burberrys, and soon a

crowd of muffled figures would emerge through the veranda exit,

dragging ropes, blocks, picks, and shovels. There was no time to

be lost.

So the erection of the wireless masts began in earnest on April 4,

continued feverishly till the end of the month, suffered a long

period of partial cessation during May and June, was revived in July

and August, and, by September 1, two masts, each consisting of a

lower-mast and top-mast, had been raised and stayed, while between

them stretched the aerial. For four weeks messages were sent out,

and many of them were caught by Macquarie Island. Nothing was heard

in Adelie Land, although, between certain hours, regular watches

were kept at the receiver. The aerial was about sixty-five feet from

the ground, and it was resolved to increase its height by erecting

the top-gallant masts; but before anything considerable could be done,

a terrific gust of wind on October 13 broke three wire-stays, and

down came the mast, broken and splintered by the fall. That is a

brief resume of the fortunes of the ``wireless'' during the first

year.

During February and March there were various other operations of more

immediate importance which prevented concentration of our workers on

the erection of the masts. There were many odd jobs to finish about

the Hut, the Magnetograph House and Absolute Hut were ``under way,''

the air-tractor sledge had to be efficiently housed, and all these

and many other things could be done in weather during which it was

out of question to hoist a mast into position. At first we were

fastidious and waited for a calm, but later, as we grew more

impatient, a top-mast was actually hauled up in a wind of thirty

miles per hour, with gusts of higher velocity. Such work would

sometimes be interrupted by a more furious outbreak, when all ropes

would be secured and everything made as ship-shape as possible.

On March 15 the following note was made: ``The wind was on the cool

side just after breakfast. A few loads of wireless equipment were

sledged up to the rocks at the back of the Hut, and by the time

several masts were carried to the same place we began to warm to the

work. One of Hannam's coils of frozen rope (one hundred and twenty

fathoms) had become kinked and tangled, so we dragged it up the

ice-slope, straightened it out and coiled it up again. Several

`dead men' to hold the stays were sunk into ice-holes, and, during

the afternoon, one mast was dragged into position by a willing crowd.

Rocks were sledged to and packed around the `dead men' in the holes

to make them compact. Towards sundown snow clouds filled the

northern sky and a blizzard sprang up which is now doing sixty miles

per hour. We philosophically expect another week cooped up in the

Hut.''

It took a long time to establish the twenty good anchorages necessary

for the masts. Within a radius of eighty yards from the centre,

ice-holes were dug, cairns of heavy boulders were built and rocky

prominences dynamited off to secure an efficient holding for the stout

``strops'' of rope. April 24 was a typical day: ``We spent the

morning fixing up `strops' for the wireless masts. The wind was

blowing strongly in fifty- to sixty-mile gusts with drift, but most

of the fellows `stuck at it' all day. It was cold work on the hands

and feet. Handling picks and shovels predisposes to frost-bite.

Several charges of dynamite were fired in one hole wherein a mast will

be stepped.''

Each mast, of oregon timber, was in four sections. The lowest section

was ten inches square and tapered upwards to the small royal mast at a

prospective height of one hundred and twenty feet. At an early

stage it was realized that we could not expect to erect more than

three sections. Round the steel caps at each doubling a good deal of

fitting had to be done, and Bickerton, in such occupation, spent many

hours aloft throughout the year. Fumbling with bulky mitts, handling

hammers and spanners, and manipulating nuts and bolts with bare hands,

while suspended in a boatswain's chair in the wind, the man up the

mast had a difficult and miserable task. Bickerton was the hero of

all such endeavours. Hannam directed the other workers who steadied

the stays, cleared or made fast the ropes, pulled and stood by the

hauling tackle and so forth.

One day the man on the top-mast dislodged a heavy engineering hammer

which he thought secure. No warning was given, as he did not notice

that it had fallen. It whizzed down and buried itself in the snow,

just grazing the heads of Close and Hodgeman.

The ropes securing the aerial and running through various blocks were

in constant danger of chafing during the frequent hurricanes, from

their proximity to the mast and stays, or from friction on the sharp

edges of the blocks. Unknown to us, this had happened to a strong,

new manilla rope by which Murphy was being hauled to the top of the

lower-mast. It gave way, and, but for another rope close by, which

he seized to break his fall, an accident might have ensued.

Frost-bites were common. There were so many occasions when one had

to stand for a long time gripping a rope, pulling or maintaining a

steady strain, that fingers would promptly become numb and feet

unbearably cold. The usual restorative was to stamp about and beat

the chest with the hands--an old sailor's trick. Attempting to climb

to a block on the top-gallant mast one day, McLean had all his fingers

frost-bitten at the same time.

In May the weather was atrocious, and in June building the

Astronomical Hut and digging ice-shafts on the glacier absorbed a

good many hands. In July, despite the enthusiasm and preparation for

sledging, much was done. On August 10 the long looked-for top-mast of

the southern mast became a reality:

``We were early astir--about 7 A.M.--while the pink coloration of dawn

was stealing over the peaceful Barrier. For once, after months, it

was perfectly still. We hurried about making preparations--hauled

Bickerton up to the cross-trees and awaited the moment when we should

raise the top-mast. We pulled it up half-way and Bickerton affixed a

pin in its centre, above which two stays were to be attached.

Suddenly, down came the wind in terrific gusts and, after securing

the stays, the job had to be given up.... We were just about to have

lunch when the wind ceased as suddenly as it had begun. We all

sallied out once more, and, this time, completed the job, though for

a while the top-mast was in imminent peril of being blown away by a

sharp northerly gust.''

Next day the aerial was hoisted in a wind of sixty miles per hour,

but the strain was so severe on the block, upwind, that it carried

away. Fortunately the insulators of the aerial were entangled by

the stays in their fall to ground, otherwise some one may have been

hurt, as there were a dozen men almost directly below.

Six days after this accident, August 17, the top-mast halliard of the

down-wind mast frayed through, and as a stronger block was to be

affixed for the aerial, some one had to climb up to wire it in

position. Bickerton improvized a pair of climbing irons, and, after

some preliminary practice, ascended in fine style.

Finally, by September 30, the aerial was at such a height as to give

hope that long-distance messages might be despatched. There was a

certain amount of suppressed excitement on the evening of that day

when the engine started and gradually got up speed in the dynamo.

The sharp note of the spark rose in accompanying crescendo and, when

it had reached its highest pitch, Hannam struck off a message to the

world at large. No response came after several nights of signalling,

and, since sledging had usurped every other interest, the novelty

soon wore off.

``Atmospherics''--discharges of atmospheric electricity--and

discharges from the drift-snow were heard in the wireless receiver.

While messages were being sent, induction effects were noted in

metallic objects around the Hut. A cook at the stove was the first

to discover this phenomenon, and then every one conceived a mania for

``drawing'' sparks. A rather stimulating experience--the more so as

it usually happened unexpectedly and accidentally--was to brush one's

head against one of the numerous coils of flexible metal gas-piping

festooned about the place. Sparks immediately jumped the interval

with startling effect.

October 13, the day when the mast blew down, was known in wireless

circles as Black Sunday. All had worked keenly to make the

``wireless'' a success, and the final event was considered to be a

public misfortune. However, the honours were to be retrieved during

the following year.

It fell to the lot of most of the Staff that they developed an

interest in terrestrial magnetism. For one thing every man had

carried boulders to the great stockade surrounding the Magnetograph

House. Then, too, recorders were regularly needed to assist the

magnetician in the absolute Hut. There, if the temperature were

not too low and the observations not too lengthy, the recorder

stepped out into the blizzard with the conviction that he had

learned something of value, and, when he sat down to dinner that

night, it was with a genial sense of his own altruism. In his

diary he would write it all up for his own edification.

It would be on this wise: The Earth's magnetic force, which is

the active agent in maintaining the compass-needle in the magnetic

meridian** at any particular spot, acts, not as is popularly

supposed, in a horizontal plane, but at a certain angle of

inclination with the Earth's surface. The nearer the magnetic

poles the more nearly vertical does the freely suspended needle

become. At the South Magnetic Pole it assumes a vertical position

with the south end downwards; at the North Magnetic Pole it stands

on its other end. At the intermediate positions near the equator

the whole force is exerted, swinging the needle in the horizontal

plane, and in such regions ordinary ships' compasses pivoted to

move freely only in a horizontal plane give the greatest satisfaction.

On approaching the magnetic poles, compasses become sluggish, for

the horizontal deflecting force falls off rapidly. The force,

acting in a vertical direction, tending to make the needle dip,

correspondingly increases, but is of no value for navigation

purposes. However, in the scientific discussion of terrestrial

magnetism, both the horizontal and vertical components as well as

the absolute value of the total force are important, and the

determination of these ``elements'' is the work of the magnetician.

Affecting the average values of the ``magnetic elements'' at any

one spot on the Earth's surface are regular diurnal oscillations,

apparent only by the application of very delicate methods of

observation: also there are sudden large irregular movements

referred to as magnetic storms; the latter are always specially

noticeable when unusually bright auroral phenomena are in progress.

** The magnetic meridian is the straight line joining the North

and South Magnetic Poles and passing through the spot in question.

The observations made in the ``Absolute Hut'', carried out at

frequent intervals and on each occasion occupying two men for

several hours together, are necessary to obtain standard values

as a check upon the graphic record of the self-recording instruments

which run day and night in the ``Magnetograph House''.

But this is another story. Three hours, sitting writing figures

in a temperature of -15 degrees F., is no joke. The magnetician

is not so badly off, because he is moving about, though he often

has to stop and warm his fingers, handling the cold metal.

The Magnetograph House had by far the most formidable name. The

Hut, though it symbolized our all in all, sounded very insignificant

unless it were repeated with just the right intonation. The Absolute

Hut had a superadded dignity. The Hangar, in passing, scarcely

seemed to have a right to a capital H. The Transit House, on the

and other hand, was the only dangerous rival to the first mentioned.

But what's in a name?

If the Magnetograph House had been advertised, it would have been

described as ``two minutes from the Hut.'' This can easily be

understood, for the magnetician after leaving home is speedily blown

over a few hillocks and sastrugi, and, coming to an ice-flat about

one hundred and fifty yards wide, swiftly slides over it, alighting

at the snow-packed door of his house. The outside porch is just

roomy enough for a man to slip off burberrys and crampons. The

latter are full of steel spikes, and being capable of upsetting

magnetic equilibrium, are left outside. Walking in soft finnesko,

the magnetician opens an inner door, to be at once accosted by

darkness, made more intense after the white glare of the snow.

His eyes grow accustomed to the blackness, and he gropes his way

to a large box almost concealing the feeble glimmer of a lamp.

The lamp is the source of the light, projected on to small mirrors

attached to the magnetic needles of three variometers. A ray of

light is reflected from the mirrors for several feet on to a slit,

past which revolves sensitized photographic paper folded on a drum

moving by clockwork. The slightest movements of the suspended

needles are greatly magnified, and, when the paper is removed and

developed in a dark-room, a series of intricate curves denoting

declination, horizontal intensity and vertical force, are exquisitely

traced. Every day the magnetician attends to the lamp and changes

papers; also at prearranged times he tests his ``scale values'' or

takes a ``quick run.''

To obtain results as free as possible from the local] attraction of

the rocks in the neighbourhood, Webb resolved to take several sets of

observations on the ice-sheet. In order to make the determinations it

was necessary to excavate a cave in the glacier. This was done about

three-quarters of a mile south of the Hut in working shifts of two

men. A fine cavern was hewn out, and there full sets of magnetic

observations were taken under ideal conditions.

On sledging journeys the ``dip'' and declination were both ascertained

at many stations, around and up to within less than half a degree of

the South Magnetic Pole.

While the wind rushed by at a maddening pace and stars flashed like

jewels in a black sky, a glow of pale yellow light overspread the

north-east horizon--the aurora. A rim of dark, stratus cloud was often

visible below the light which brightened and diffused till it curved

as a low arc across the sky. It was eerie to watch the contour of the

arc break, die away into a delicate pallor and reillumine in a

travelling riband. Soon a long ray, as from a searchlight, flashed

above one end, and then a row of vertical streamers ran out from the

arc, probing upwards into the outer darkness. The streamers waxed and

waned, died away to be replaced and then faded into the starlight.

The arc lost its radiance, divided in patchy fragments, and all was

dark once more.

This would be repeated again in a few hours and irregularly throughout

the night, but with scenic changes behind the great sombre pall of the

sky. North-west, northeast, and south-east it would elusively appear

in nebulous blotches, flitting about to end finally in long bright

strands in the zenith, crossing the path of the ``milky way.''

By the observer, who wrote down his exact observations in the

meteorological log, this was called a ``quiet night.''

At times the light was nimble, flinging itself about in rich waves,

warming to dazzling yellow-green and rose. These were the nights when

``curtains'' hung festooned in the heavens, alive, rippling, dancing to

the lilt of lightning music. Up from the horizon they would mount,

forming a vortex overhead, soundless within the silence of the ether.

A ``brilliant display,'' we would say, and the observer would be kept

busy following the track of the evanescent rays.

Powerless, one was in the spell of an all-enfolding wonder. The vast,

solitary snow-land, cold-white under the sparkling star-gems;

lustrous in the radiance of the southern lights;furrowed beneath the

icy sweep of the wind. We had come to probe its mystery, we had

hoped to reduce it to terms of science, but there was always the

``indefinable'' which held aloof, yet riveted our souls.

The aurora was always with us, and almost without exception could be

seen on a dark, driftless night. The nature of the aurora polaris has

not yet been finally demonstrated, though it is generally agreed to

be a discharge of electricity occurring in the upper, more rarefied

atmosphere. The luminous phenomena are very similar to those seen

when a current of electricity is passed through a vacuum tube.

One receives a distinct impression of nearness, watching the

shimmering edges of the ``curtains''in the zenith, but all

measurements indicate that they never descend nearer than a few

miles above the land-surface.

Careful records were taken to establish a relation between magnetic

storms and aurorae, and a good deal of evidence was amassed to support

the fact that auroral exhibitions correspond with periods of great

magnetic disturbance. The displays in Adelie Land were found to be

more active than those which occur in higher latitudes in the

Ross Sea.

An occupation which helped to introduce variety in our life was the

digging of ice-shafts. For the purpose of making observations upon

its structure and temperature various excavations were made in the

sea-ice, in the ice of the glacier, and in that of the freshwater

lakes. The work was always popular. Even a whole day's labour with

a pick and shovel at the bottom of an ice-hole never seemed laborious.

It was all so novel.

A calm morning in June, the sky is clear and the north ablaze with

the colours of sunrise--or is it sunset? The air is delicious, and a

cool waft comes down the glacier. A deep ultramarine, shading up into

a soft purple hue, blends in a colour-scheme with the lilac plateau.

Two men crunch along in spiked boots over snow mounds and polished

sastrugi to the harbour-ice. The sea to the north is glazed with

freezing spicules, and over it sweep the petrels--our only living

companions of the winter. It is all an inspiration; while hewing

out chunks of ice and shovelling them away is the acute pleasure

of movement, exercise.

The men measure out an area six feet by three feet, and take a

preliminary temperature of the surface-ice by inserting a thermometer

in a drilled hole. Then the ice begins to fly, and it is not long

before they are down one foot. Nevertheless it would surprise those

acquainted only with fresh water ice to find how tough, sticky and

intractable is sea-ice. It is always well to work on a definite plan,

channelling in various directions, and then removing the intervening

lumps by a few rough sweeps of the pick. At a depth of one foot,

another temperature is taken, and some large samples of the ice laid

by for the examination of their crystalline structure. This is

repeated at two feet, and so on, until the whole thickness is pierced

to the sea-water beneath. At three feet brine may begin to trickle

into the hole, and this increases in amount until the worker is in a

puddle. The leakage takes place, if not along cracks, through

capillary channels, which are everywhere present 1n sea-ice.

It is interesting to note the temperature gradually rise during the

descent. At the surface the ice is chilled to the air-temperature,

say -10 degrees F., and it rises in a steep gradient to approximately

28 degrees F.; close to the freezing-point of sea water. The sea-ice

in the boat-harbour varied in thickness during the winter between

five and seven feet.

In contrast with sea-ice, the ice of a glacier is a marvel of

prismatic colour and glassy brilliance. This is more noticeable near

the surface when the sun is shining. Deep down in a shaft, or in an

ice-cavern, the sapphire reflection gives to the human face quite a

ghastly pallor.

During the high winds it was always easy to dispose of the fragments

of ice in the earlier stages of sinking a shaft. To be rid of them,

all that was necessary was to throw a shovelful vertically upwards

towards the lee-side of the hole, the wind then did the rest. Away

the chips would scatter, tinkling over the surface of the glacier.

Of course, when two men were at work, each took it in turns to go

below, and the one above, to keep warm, would impatiently pace up and

down. Nevertheless, so cold would he become at times that a heated

colloquy would arise between them on the subject of working overtime.

When the shaft had attained depth, both were kept busy. The man at

the pit's mouth lowered a bucket on a rope to receive the ice and,

in hauling it up, handicapped with clumsy mitts, he had to be careful

not to drop it on his companion's head.

The structural composition of ice is a study in itself. To the

cursory glance a piece of glacier-ice appears homogeneous, but when

dissected in detail it is found to be formed of many crystalline,

interlocking grains, ranging in size from a fraction of an inch to

several inches in diameter. A grain-size of a half to one inch is

perhaps commonest in Antarctic glacier-ice.

The history of Antarctic glacier-ice commences with the showers of

snow that fall upon the plateau. The snow particles may be blown for

hundreds of miles before they finally come to rest and consolidate.

The consolidated snow is called neve, the grains of which are

one-twenty-fifth to one hundredth of an inch in diameter, and, en

masse, present a dazzling white appearance on account of the air

spaces which occupy one-third to one-half of the whole. In time,

under the influence of a heavy load of accumulated layers of neve,

the grains run together and the air spaces are eliminated. The final

result is clear, transparent ice, of a more or less sapphire-blue

colour when seen in large blocks. It contains only occasional

air-bubbles, and the size of the grains is much increased.

Lake-ice, freezing from the surface downwards, is built up of long

parallel prisms, like the cells of a honey-comb on a large scale. In

a lakelet near the Hut this was beautifully demonstrated. In some

places cracks and fissures filled with snow-dust traversed the body

of the ice, and in other places long strings of beaded air-bubbles had

become entangled in the process of freezing. To lie down on the clear

surface and gaze ``through the looking-glass'' to the rocky bottom,

twenty feet below, was a glimpse into ``Wonderland.''

In the case of sea-ice, the simple prismatic structure is complicated

owing to the presence of saline matter dissolved in the sea water.

The saline tracts between the prisms produce a milky or opalescent

appearance. The prisms are of fresh water ice, for in freezing the

brine is rejected and forced to occupy the interstices of the prisms.

Water of good drinking quality can be obtained by allowing sea water

ice to thaw partially. The brine, of lower freezing-point, flows

away, leaving only fresh water ice behind. In this way blocks of

sea-ice exposed to the sun's rays are relieved of their salty

constituents, and crumble into pellucid gravel when disturbed.

A popular subject commanding general interest, apart from the devoted

attention of specialists, was zoological collecting. Seals and birds

were made the prey of every one, and dredging through the sea-ice in

winter and spring was always a possible diversion.

It was a splendid sight to watch the birds sailing in the high winds

of Adelie Land. In winds of fifty to seventy miles per hour, when

with good crampons one had to stagger warily along the ice-foot, the

snow petrels and Antarctic petrels were in their element. Wheeling,

swinging, sinking, planing and soaring, they were radiant with

life--the wild spirits of the tempest. Even in moderate drift, when

through swirling snow the vistas of sea whitened under the flail of

the wind, one suddenly caught the silver flash of wings and a snow

petrel glided past.

But most memorable of all were certain winter mornings of unexpected

calm, when ruddy clouds tessellated the northern sky and were

mirrored in the freezing sea. Then the petrels would be en fete,

flying over from the east following the line of the Barrier, winding

round the icy coves, darting across the jutting points and ever

onward in their long migration. In the summer they flew for weeks

from the west--a never-ending string of snow, silver-grey and

Antarctic petrels, and Cape pigeons. The silver-grey petrels and

Cape pigeons were only abroad during that season and were accompanied

by skua gulls, giant petrels, Wilson petrels, and penguins. The

penguins remained in Adelie Land for the longest period--almost six

months, the skua gulls and giant petrels for five months, and the rest

for a shorter period--the tolerable season of midsummer.

Birds that haunt the wide oceans all make use of the soaring principle

in flight, some much more than others. The beautiful sliding sweep of

the albatross is the most familiar example. With wings outspread, it

is a miniature aeroplane requiring no engines, for the wind itself

supplies the power. A slight movement of the tail-feathers and

wing-tips controls its balance with nice precision. Birds employing

this method of flight find their home in the zone of continuous steady

winds which blow across the broad wastes of the southern seas.

Many petrels on the wing were shot during the winter. Laseron, who

prepared the skins of our Adelie Land collection, determined, in the

case of a number of specimens, the ratio of weight to horizontal area

exposed to the wind. This subject is one which has lately exercised

the curiosity of aviators. The ratios are those evolved by nature,

and, as such, should be wellnigh perfect. Below is appended a table

of the results obtained.

WEIGHT OF CERTAIN ANTARCTIC BIRDS IN RELATION TO WING AREAS

(Stated in pounds per square foot of wing surface)

Each is the mean of several determinations by Laseron

Giant petrel . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5

Albatross . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4

Antarctic petrel . . . . . . . . . 2.1

Skua gull . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6

Snow petrel . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1

Wilson petrel . . . . . . . . . . . 0.6

Values from a book of reference quoted for comparison

Bat . . . . . . . . . . . 0.1

Sparrow . . . . . . . . . . . 0.4

Wild goose . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7

During the winter, for a long period, no seals ventured ashore, though

a few were seen swimming in the bay. The force of the wind was so

formidable that even a heavy seal, exposed in the open, broadside-on,

would be literally blown into the water. This fact was actually

observed out on the harbour-ice. A Weddell seal made twelve attempts

to land on a low projecting shelf--an easy feat under ordinary

circumstances. The wind was in the region of eighty-five miles per

hour, and every time the clumsy, ponderous creature secured its first

hold, back it would be tumbled. Once it managed to raise itself on to

the flat surface, and, after a breathing spell, commenced to shuffle

towards the shelter of some pinnacles on one side of the harbour.

Immediately its broad flank was turned to the wind it was rolled over,

hung for a few seconds on the brink, and then splashed into the sea.

On the other hand, during the spring, a few more ambitious seals

won their way ashore in high winds; but they did not remain long in

the piercing cold, moving uneasily from place to place in search of

protecting hummocks and finally taking to the water in despair.

Often a few hours of calm weather was the signal for half a dozen

animals to land. The wind sooner or later sprang up and drove them

back to their warmer element.

Under the generic name, seal, are included the true or hair seals

and the sea-bears or fur seals. Of these the fur seals are sub-polar

in distribution, inhabiting the cold temperate waters of both

hemispheres, but never living amongst the polar ice. The southern

coast of Australia and the sub-antarctic islands were their favourite

haunts, but the ruthless slaughter of the early days practically

exterminated them. From Macquarie Island, for example, several

hundred thousand skins were taken in a few years, and of late not

a single specimen has been seen.

Closely related to the fur seals are the much larger animals

popularly known as sea-lions. These still exist in great numbers in

south temperate waters. Both are distinguished from the hair seals by

one obvious characteristic: their method of propulsion on land is by

a ``lolloping'' motion, in which the front and hind flippers are used

alternately. The hair seals move by a caterpillar-like shuffle,

making little or no use of their flippers; and so, the terminal parts

of their flippers are not bent outwards as they are in the fur seals

and sea-lions.

Of the hair seals there are five varieties to be recognized in the far

South. The Weddell seals, with their mottled-grey coats, are the

commonest. They haunt the coasts of Antarctica and are seldom found

at any distance from them. Large specimens of this species reach

nine and a half feet in length.

The crab-eater seal, a smaller animal, lives mostly on the pack-ice.

Lying on a piece of floe in the sunshine it has a glistening, silver-

grey skin--another distinguishing mark being its small, handsome head

and short, thin neck. Small crustaceans form its principal food.

The Ross seal, another inhabitant of the pack-ice, is short and bulky,

varying from a pale yellowish-green on the under side to a dark

greenish-brown on the back. Its neck is ample and bloated, and when

distended in excitement reminds one of a pouter-pigeon. This rare

seal appears to subsist mainly on squid and jelly-fish.

The sea-leopard, the only predacious member of the seal family, has

an elongated agile body and a large head with massive jaws. In

general it has a mottled skin, darker towards the back. It lives on

fish, penguins and seals. Early in April, Hurley and McLean were

the first to obtain proof that the sea-leopard preyed on other seals.

Among the broken floe-ice close beneath the ice-cliffs to the west of

Winter Quarters, the wind was driving the dead body of a Weddell seal

which swept past them, a few yards distant, to the open water. Then

it was that a sea-leopard was observed tearing off and swallowing

great pieces of flesh and blubber from the carcase.

The last variety of hair seal, the sea elephant, varies considerably

from the preceding. Reference has already been made to the species

earlier in the narrative. The habitat of these monstrous animals

ranges over the cold, south-temperate seas; sea elephants are but

occasional visitors to the ice-bound regions. Although they have

been exterminated in many other places, one of their most populous

resorts at the present day is Macquarie Island.

In the case of all the hair seals a layer of blubber several inches

in thickness invests the body beneath the skin and acts as a conserver

of warmth. They are largely of value for the oil produced by

rendering down the blubber. The pelts are used for leather.

The operation of skinning seals for specimens, in low temperatures

and in the inevitable wind, was never unduly protracted. We were

satisfied merely to strip off the skin, leaving much blubber still

adhering to it. In this rough condition it was taken into the work-

room of the Hut to be cleaned. The blubber froze, and then had the

consistency of hard soap and was readily severed from the pelt.

It was found that there exuded amongst the frozen blubber a thin oil

which remained liquid when collected and exposed to low temperatures.

This oil was used to lubricate the anemometer and other instruments

exposed outside.

The main part of the biological work lay in the marine collections.

Hunter with the small hand-dredge brought up abundant samples of life

from depths ranging to fifty fathoms. In water shallower than ten

fathoms the variety of specimens was not great, including seaweeds up

to eighteen or more feet in length, a couple of forms of starfish,

various small mollusca, two or three varieties of fish, several

sea-spiders, hydroids and lace corals, and, in great profusion, worms

and small crustaceans. In deeper waters the life became much richer,

so that examples of almost every known class of marine animals were

represented.

Early in June the sea bottom in depths less than ten fathoms had

become so coated with ice that dredging in shallow water was

suspended.

Floating or swimming freely were examples of pteropods, worms,

crustaceans, ostracods, and jelly-fish. These were easily taken in

the hand-net.

In those regions where ice and water are intermingled, the temperature

of the water varies very slightly in summer and winter, remaining

approximately at freezing-point. In summer the tendency to heating

is neutralized by a solution of some of the ice, and in winter the

cold is absorbed in the production of a surface layer of ice. This

constancy of the sea's temperature is favourable to organic life. On

land there is a wide range in temperature, and only the meagre mosses

and lichens, and the forms of insect life which live among them can

exist, because they have developed the capacity of suspending

animation during the winter. The fresh-water lakelets were found to

be inhabited by low forms of life, mainly microscopic. Among these

were diatoms, algae£e, protozoa, rotifera, and bacteria.

The last-named were investigated by McLean and were found to be

manifold in distribution. Besides those from the intestines of

animals and birds, cultures were successfully made from the following

natural sources: lichen soil, moss soil, morainic mud, guano, ice and

snow. The results may open some new problems in bacteriology.

Of recent years much attention has been given to the study of

parasites--parasitology. Parasites may be external, on the skin;

internal, in the alimentary canal; or resident, in the corpuscles

of the blood. In tropical countries, where there is great promiscuity

of life, one is led to expect their almost universal presence. But

in polar regions, where infection and intimate co-habitation for long

periods are not the rule, while the climate is not favourable to

organic existence, one would be surprised to find them in any great

number. The fact remains that internal parasites were found in the

intestine of every animal and fish examined, and in all the birds

except the Wilson petrel. External parasites were present on every

species of bird and seal, though individuals were often free of them.

This was so in the case of the Adelie penguins. It is a demonstration

of the protective warmth of the feathers that Emperor penguins may

harbour insect parasites in great numbers. It is only less wonderful

than the fact that they are able to rear their young during the

Antarctic winter. A large number of blood-slides were prepared and

stained for examination for blood-parasites.

Searching for ``fleas'' amongst the feathers of birds and the hair

of seals, or examining the viscera for ``worms ''is neither of them

a pleasant occupation. To be really successful, the enthusiasm of the

specialist is necessary. Hunter allowed no opportunities to pass and

secured a fine collection of parasites.

Amongst other work, McLean carried out monthly observations on six men,

determining the colour-index and haemoglobin value of their blood over

a period of ten months. The results showed a distinct and upward rise

above the normal.

Among societies privileged to see the daily paper and to whom

diversity and change are as the breath of life, the weather is apt to

be tabooed as a subject of conversation. But even the most versatile

may suddenly find themselves stripped of ideas, ignominiously

reduced to the obvious topic. To us, instead of being a mere prelude

to more serious matters, or the last resort of a feeble intellect, it

was the all-engrossing theme. The man with the latest hare-brained

theory of the causation of the wind was accorded a full hearing. The

lightning calculator who estimated the annual tonnage of drift-snow

sweeping off Adelie Land was received as a futurist and thinker.

Discussion was always free, and the subject was never thrashed out.

Evidence on the great topic accumulated day by day and month by

month; yet there was no one without an innate hope that winter would

bring calm weather or that spring-time, at least, must be propitious.

Meanwhile the meteorologist accepted things as he found them, supplied

the daily facts of wind-mileage and direction, amount of drift,

temperature and so forth, which were immediately seized by more

vivacious minds and made the basis of daring speculations.

The daily facts were increased by the construction of a new

instrument known as the puffometer. It was entirely a home-made

contrivance, designed to measure the speed of heavy gusts of wind.

A small aluminium sphere was arranged to blow out at the end of a

light cord exerting tension on a calibrated spring. The pull was

transferred to a lever carrying a pencil, which travelled across a

disk of carbonized paper. The disk, moving by clockwork, made a

complete revolution every hour. The recording parts of the

instrument were enclosed in a snow-proof box in which there was a

small aperture on the leeward side, through which ran the cord

attachment of the sphere. This may give a rough idea of the

apparatus employed to measure the momentary velocity of the cyclonic

gusts. The idea is not an original one, having been previously

applied for use on kites.

It was not always possible to use the puffometer in the strongest

gusts because these were often transient, occurring unexpectedly or

during the night; while it took a little time to get the instrument

into running order. Even in daylight, with the landscape clear of

drift, it was a time-absorbing and difficult task to secure a record.

Two men start from the Hut with iron crampons and a full complement of

clothes and mitts. Outside they find themselves in a rushing torrent

of air, pulsating with mighty gust-waves. Lowered from the estate of

upright manhood, they humbly crawl, or make a series of crouching

sprints between the gusts. Over the scattered boulders to the east

of the Hut, across a patch of polished snow they push to the first

low ridge, and there they stop for breath. Up on the side of ``Annie

Hill,'' in the local phrase, the tide sweeps by with fiendish

strength, and among the jagged rocks the man clutching the puffometer-

box has a few desperate falls. At last both clamber slowly to an

eminence where a long steel pipe has been erected. To the top of

this the puffometer is hauled by means of a pulley and line. At the

same time the aluminium sphere is released, and out it floats in

the wind tugging at the spring.

The puffometer was left out for an hour at a time, and separate gusts

up to one hundred and fifty and one hundred and eighty miles per

hour were commonly indicated. I remember the final fate of this

invention. While helping to mount it one day, the wind picked me up

clear of the ground and dashed myself and the instrument on some rocks

several yards away. The latter was badly damaged, but thick clothing

saved me from serious injury.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

The wind velocity and wind direction charts for Midwinter's Day,

when the steady south-by-east gale was broken after noon by a

welcome lull--the wind veering the while all round the compass.

The average velocity for the day 66.9 miles per hour, and the

maximum of the average hourly velocities, ninety-six miles.

The steadiness of the temperature was a subject for debate. The

stronger the wind blew, the less variation did the thermometer show.

Over a period of several days there might be a range of only four or

five degrees. Ordinarily, this might be expected of an insular

climate, but in our case it depended upon the fact that the wind

remained steady from the interior of the vast frigid continent.

The air which flowed over the Hut had all passed through the same

temperature-cycle. The atmosphere of the interior, where the plateau

stood at an elevation of, say, eight thousand feet, might have a

temperature -45 degrees F. As the air flowed northwards over

Adelie Land to the sea, it would rise slowly in temperature owing

to the increased barometric pressure consequent on the descending

gradient of the plateau. At sea-level the temperature of the river

of air would be, approximately, - 20 degrees F.

Such a rise in temperature due to compression is a well-known

phenomenon, referred to as the Foehn effect.

The compression of the atmosphere during the gusts affected the air

temperature so considerably that, coincident with their passage, the

mercury column could often be seen rising and falling through several

degrees. The uniform conditions experienced during steady high winds

were not only expressed by the slight variation in the temperature,

but often in a remarkably even barometric curve. Thus on July 11

the wind-velocity for twenty-four hours was, throughout, seventy

miles per hour; the temperature remaining within a few degrees of

-21 degrees F., and the barometric curve did not show as much range

as one-twentieth of an inch.

In attending to the many instruments and in gathering the voluminous

meteorological data, Madigan had his hands very full. Throughout two

years he carried on the work capably and thoroughly. It was

difficult to keep the instruments free from the penetrating snow

and in good running order. The Robinson anemometer was perhaps the

greatest source of worry. Repairs and readjustments were unavoidable,

as the instrument was constantly working at high pressure. In order

that these might be carried out efficiently, the whole apparatus had

to be carried down to the Hut. Here, Bickerton and Correll were

continually in consultation with the meteorologist on the latest

breakdown. Cups were blown off several times, and one was lost and

replaced with difficulty. Most aggravating of all was a habit the

clocks developed of stopping during the colder spells. The old-

fashioned method of boiling them was found of assistance, but it was

discovered that the best treatment was to put them through successive

baths of benzene and alcohol.

The most chronic sufferer throughout the vicissitudes of temperature

was the clock belonging to Bage's tide-gauge. Every sleeper in the

Hut who was sensitive to ticking knew and reviled that clock. So

often was it subjected to warm, curative treatment in various resting-

places that it was hunted from pillar to post. A radical operation

by Correll--the insertion of an extra spring--became necessary at last.

Correll, when not engaged designing electroscopes, improving sledge-

meters and perfecting theodolites, was something of a specialist in

clocks. His advice on the subject of refractory time-pieces was freely

asked and cheerfully given. By perseverance and unlimited patience,

the tide-gauge down on the harbour-ice was induced to supply a good

series of unbroken records.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

The tide-gauge

The rise and fall of the tide is coincident with the movements of a

perpendicular wire to which the Float is attached. The Wheel is

revolved, and through wire connections (indicated above) displaces

vertically the Pen. This traces a record on paper folded on the drum

which is driven by clockwork. In all weathers, the box was enveloped

in drift-proof canvas.

Antarctica is a world of colour, brilliant and intensely pure. The

chaste whiteness of the snow and the velvet blackness of the rocks

belong to days of snowy nimbus enshrouding the horizon. When the sky

has broken into cloudlets of fleece, their edges are painted pale

orange, fading or richly glowing if the sun is low. In the high sun

they are rainbow-rimmed.

The clouds have opened into rifts and the sun is setting in the

north-west. The widening spaces in the zenith are azure, and low

in the north they are emerald. Scenic changes are swift. Above

the mounting plateau a lofty arch of clear sky has risen, flanked by

roseate clouds. Far down in the south it is tinged with indigo and

ultramarine, washed with royal purple paling onwards into cold violet

and greyish-blue.

Soon the north is unveiled. The liquid globe of sun has departed,

but his glory still remains. Down from the zenith his colours

descend through greenish-blue, yellowish-green, straw-yellow, light

terra-cotta to a diffuse brick-red; each reflected in the dull sheen

of freezing sea. Out on the infinite horizon float icebergs in a

mirage of mobile gold. The Barrier, curving to east and west, is a

wall of delicate pink overlaid with a wondrous mauve--the rising

plateau. A cold picture--yet it awakens the throb of inborn divinity.

Despite contrary predictions, there were some enjoyable days in June.

Occupation had to be strenuous, making the blood run hot, otherwise

the wind was apt to be chill. So the Transit House was founded, and

there were many volunteers to assist Bage in carrying the tons of

stones which formed its permanent base. The nearest large collection

of boulders was twenty yards away, on the edge of a moraine, but

these after a while became exhausted. Plenty of rocks actually showed

above the surface, but the majority were frozen-in, and, when of

suitable size, could only be moved by a heavy crowbar. Some of the

men, therefore, dislodged the rocks, while others carried them.

When Bage was wondering how long the supply would last, Ninnis and

Mertz came to the rescue with sledges and dog-teams. Boxes were piled

on to the sledges and away the teams went, careering across the

ice-flat towards the Magnetograph House close to which there were many

heaps of stones, wind-swept and easily displaced. Soon a regular

service was plying to the foundations, and, at the same time, the dogs

were being trained. This occupation was continued, weather

permitting, for several weeks before Midwinter's Day. Thus the

drivers gained experience, while the animals, with a wholesome dread

of the whip, became more responsive to commands. Eagerly the huskies

strained at their traces with excited yelps. The heavily laden

sledges would break out and start off with increasing speed over the

rough ice. The drivers, running at full speed, jumped on the racing

loads--Mertz in the lead shouting some quaint yodel song; Ninnis,

perhaps, just behind upbraiding a laggard dog.

Midwinter's Day! For once, the weather rose to the occasion and

calmed during the few hours of the twilight-day. It was a jovial

occasion, and we celebrated it with the uproarious delight of a

community of eighteen young men unfettered by small conventions.

The sun was returning, and we were glad of it. Already we were

dreaming of spring and sledging, summer and sledging, the ship and

home. It was the turn of the tide, and the future seemed to be

sketched in firm, sure outline. While the rest explored all the

ice-caves and the whole extent of our small rocky ``selection,''

Hannam and Bickerton shouldered the domestic responsibilities.

Their menu du diner to us was a marvel of gorgeous delicacies.

After the toasts and speeches came a musical and dramatic programme,

punctuated by choice gramophone records and rowdy student choruses.

The washing-up was completed by all hands at midnight. Outside,

the wind was not to be outdone; it surpassed itself with an unusual

burst of ninety-five miles per hour.

Menu du Diner

Escoffier potage a la Reine

Noisettes de Phoque | Claret

Haricot Verts | Tintara

Champignons en Sauce Antarctique |

Pingouin a la Terre Adelie | Burgundy

Petits Pois a la Menthe | Chauvenet

Pommes Nouvelle | 1898

Asperges au Beurre Fondu |

Plum Pudding Union Jack | Port

Pate de Groseilles | Kopke

Desserts |

Cafe

---------------0------------

During dinner the Blizzard will render the usual

accompaniment--the Tempest. For Ever and Ever etc.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

MIDWINTER'S DAY MENU AT THE MAIN BASE, ADELIE LAND, 1912

CHAPTER X THE PREPARATION OF SLEDGING EQUIPMENT

The world of fashion insists on its minute vagaries in dress not

always with an eye to utility and an explorer in the polar regions

is a very fastidious person, expending a vast amount of care on his

attire, but with the sole idea of comfort, warmth, and usefulness.

The clothes he wears are many and often cumbersome, but they have

gradually been perfected to meet the demands of the local weather

conditions. After a sojourn in the ice-lands, he returns to

civilization with a new concept of the value of dress. At last he

can stand still without being reminded that his feet are chilly;

he experiences the peculiar sensation of walking about in an airily

light suit, in glove-tight boots, without he]met or mitts. It gives

him such a delicious feeling of freedom that his energy is unbounded

and life is a very pleasant and easy thing. Then it is that he can

turn in retrospect to the time in exile, appreciate his altered

circumstances and recall the many ingenuities which were evolved to

make him master of his environment.

It is sufficient to say that we found the proposition of clothing one

of unusual interest. Any one who was not a practised needleman and

machinist was handicapped for a time, until he fell into the ways of

the through-and-through and blanket-stitch, thimbles, shuttles, spools

and many other things he had once affected to despise as belonging to

the sphere of women's work. It was not long before he was an

enthusiast in many arts attaining to a stage of independence, in

which he patented new ideas and maintained them in hot opposition to

the whole community of the Hut. On some fundamental points all were

in agreement, and one of them was that Adelie Land was the country

par excellence for the wind-proof, drift-tight burberry.

Outside all other garments the burberry gabardine was worn. The

material was light and loosely fitting, but in wind and drift it

had to be hermetically sealed, so to speak, for the snow crept

in wherever there was an aperture. The trousers were of double

thickness, as they were exposed to the greatest wear. Attached by

large buttons, toggles or lampwick braces, they reached as high as

the lower part of the chest. Below, they had lamp-wick lashings

which were securely bound round the uppers of boots or finnesko.

In walking, the trousers would often work off the leather boots,

especially if they were cut to a tailor's length, and snow would

then pour up the leg and down into the boots in a remarkably short

time. To counteract this, Ninnis initiated the very satisfactory

plan of sewing a short length of canvas on to the boots to increase

the length of the upper.

The burberry helmet and blouse were either in one piece or separate.

For use round the Hut, in thick drifts, the combination of helmet and

blouse was handy and time-saving. For sledging, when low temperatures

and strong winds might be expected all the time, it met the conditions

well; there being no necessity to worry about keeping the neck drift-

tight. Under ordinary circumstances it was very convenient to have a

blouse and helmet detached, as one so often could wear the former with

a well-padded woollen helmet and be reduced only as a last resource to

wearing the burberry helmet.

The blouse was roomy, giving great freedom of movement. Around the

neck was a draw-string, which bunched in the jacket tightly over the

lower part of the helmet. There was also a draw-string round the

waist. It was here that we had the greatest difficulty in making the

garment fit snow-tight. If simply tied, the blouse would soon slip

up from below, especially if one were working with pick and shovel,

carrying cases or blocks of ice. To obviate this, some of the men

sewed loops or tags of lamp-wick on to the sides of the trousers,

to connect with corresponding attachments on the blouse. As an

additional security, others wore an outside belt which was, even if

the blouse slipped up for some distance, a line of defence against the

drift-snow.

The burberry helmet completely enclosed the head except for the

face, which remained uncovered at the bottom of a funnel stiffened by

several rings of copper-wire. Lampwick, the universal polar ``cord,''

was sewn in short strips in front of the ears and tied at the back of

the head, firmly securing the helmet. Since the voyage of the

`Discovery' (1901-1904) lamp-wick had been used widely in sledging on

account of its width, softness, comparative warmth and because of the

fact that ordinary cord is not so easy to manipulate in cold

weather. Large buttons of leather or bone were not nearly so popular

as small, smooth lengths of stick engaging cross-wise with loops of

cord--known as toggles, which became quite a mania with some members

of the Expedition. Whetter, for instance, was known as the ``Toggle

King,'' because of the multitude of these stick-and-cord appendages

which hung from every part of his clothing.

Under the burberrys thick, but light, suits of Jaeger fleece were

worn. They combined trousers and a sleeveless coat, over which a

woollen jersey was worn. In calm weather these with underclothing

were all-sufficient, but in the average fifty-mile wind at any

temperature in the neighbourhood of zero Fahrenheit, they felt

distinctly porous.

In less windy weather the luxury of discarding burberrys, either

partly or wholly, was an indulgence which gave great satisfaction.

Finnesko were the favourite foot-gear--soft and commodious reindeer-

skin fur boots. Once these were stuffed with Lapp saennegras

or manilla fibre, and the feet covered with several pairs of socks,

cold could be despised unless one were stationary for some time or

the socks or padding became damp. Even though the padding were wet,

violent exercise kept the temperature ``balance'' in the warm

direction, especially if one were also under the stimulus of a recent

hot meal.

Of course, on smooth ice or polished snow in even moderate winds it

was useless to try and keep one's feet in finnesko, although practice

gave great agility in calmer weather. As already indicated, spiked

crampons on approved models, tested on the glacier-slopes in a

hurricane wind, were almost always worn encasing the finnesko. With

so many coverings the feet often became uncomfortably hot, and for

odd jobs about the Hut and not far abroad spiked leather boots gave

most satisfaction.

There were various coverings for the hands: felt mitts, mittens,

instrument-gloves and wolfskin mitts.

The first were used in conjunction with fingerless mittens. The wear

and tear on these was greater than on any other item of clothing. It

was a common sight to see them ragged, canvas-covered, patched,

repatched and again repatched, to be at last reluctantly thrown away.

There were two compartments in a single glove, one for the thumb and

the other for the fingers. It is much easier to keep the fingers warm

when in contact with one another than by having them in separate

stalls.

Instrument-gloves of wool were used for delicate manipulations, as

a partial protection, since they reduced the stinging chill of cold

metal at low temperatures.

Wolfskin mitts are unexcelled for use in cold windy weather. Their

shaggy external hair entangles the drift-snow, which thaws, soaks the

skin and refreezes until the mitt is stiff as buckram. This is their

main disadvantage. These mitts or rather gauntlets were made longer

in the arms than usual so as to overlap the burberry sleeves and keep

the wrists warm.

Lambskin mitts with the wool facing inwards were very useful and wore

well for occupations like hauling on ropes and lifting cases.

Like every other movable thing, mitts had to be made fast to prevent

them blowing away. So they were slung round the neck by a yoke of

lamp-wick. The mittened hand could then be removed with the assurance

that the outer mitt would not be far away when it was wanted, no

matter how hard the wind blew.

There has been much discussion as to the relative merits of fur and

woollen clothing. After all the question has resolved itself into

one of personal predilection. It has been claimed that furs are

warmer and lighter. The warmth follows from the wind-proof quality

of the hide which, unfortunately, also tends to retain moist

exhalations from the body. In Adelie Land, the only furs we used

were finnesko, wolfskin mitts and sleeping-bags of reindeer skins.

As in every part of the equipment, modifications had to be made in

the circular Willesden-drill tents. To facilitate their erection in

the perpetual winds they were sewn permanently on to the five bamboo

poles, instead of being thrown over the latter previously set in

position. Thus the tents opened like large conical umbrellas. A

rawhide loop was fixed to the middle one of the three windward legs

and, when raising a tent during a high wind, it was the usual thing

for a man to be inside gripping the loop to pin down the windward legs

and at the same time, kicking out the two leeward legs. On hard

surfaces, holes were dug to receive the ends of the poles; at other

times they were pressed home into the snow by the man inside the

tent.

When pitched, the tent was held down by blocks of snow or ice, helped

by spare food-bags, which were all piled round on a broad flounce.

Ventilators, originally supplied with the tents, had to be dispensed

with on account of the incessant drift. The door of the tent was an

oval funnel of burberry material just large enough to admit a man and

secured by a draw-string.

Strips of calico and webbing were sewn over the insides of the light

tents to strengthen them for sledging in the summer. For heavy weather

we also had japara sail-cloth tents with Willesden canvas flounces.

These gave one a feeling of greater security and were much more wind-

proof, but unfortunately twice as heavy as the first-mentioned.

A floor-cloth of light Willesden canvas covered the surface of snow

or ice in the interior of the tent; performing when sledging the

alternative office of a sail.

In order to cut snow, neve or ice to pile on the flounce, a pick and

spade had to be included in the sledging equip meet. As a rule, a

strong, pointed shovel weighing about six pounds answers very well;

but in Adelie Land, the surface was so often wind-swept ice, polished

porcelain-snow, or hard neve that a pick was necessary to make any

impression upon it. It was found that a four-pound spade, carefully

handled, and a four-pound miner's pick provided against all

emergencies.

Our sledges were similar to those of other British Antarctic

expeditions; of eleven- and twelve-foot lengths. The best were

Norwegian, made of ash and hickory. Others built in Sydney, of

Australian woods, were admirably suited for special work. Those made

of mountain-ash had the advantage of being extremely light, but the

runners wore out quickly on ice and hard neve. Sledges of powellized

spotted gum were very strong and stood plenty of rough usage, but

were heavier than those procured in Norway. A decking of bamboo slats

secured by copper-wire to the crossbars was usually employed.

A light bamboo mast and spar were fitted to each sledge. Immediately

in front of the mast came the ``cooker-box,'' containing in respective

compartments the primus and a bottle of spirit for lighting it, as

well as spare prickers, openers and fillers for the kerosene tins,

repair outfits and other odd articles. The cooker-boxes were of

Venesta board, with hinged lids secured by chocks and overlapped by

japara cloth to exclude as much drift-snow as possible. An instrument-

box was secured to the sledge near the rear and just forward of a

Venesta or aluminium tray on which the kerosene contained in one-

gallon tins was carried. In several cases the tray was widened to

receive as well a case containing a dip-circle. Rearmost of all was

a wooden crosspiece to which the shaft of the sledge-meter was

attached through a universal joint. On the middle section of the

sledge between the cooker-box and instrument-box, sleeping-bags,

food-bags, clothes-bags, tent, alpine rope, theodolite legs, and

other articles, were arranged, packed and immovably stiffened by

buckled straps passing from side to side.

Sledging harness for both men and dogs was constructed of canvas.

In the former case, a wide belt of triple thickness encircled the

body at the hips, sewn to braces of narrower strips passing over

the shoulders, while hauling-rope was attached to the belt behind.

The strength of the whole depended on the care bestowed in sewing

the parts together, and, since his life might depend upon it, no one

made anything else but a thorough job of his harness.

Ninnis and Mertz ran a tailoring business for the dogs, who were

brought one by one into the outer Hut to be measured for harness.

After many lengths had been cut with scissors the canvas bands were

put through and sewn together on the large sewing-machine and then

each dog was fitted and the final alterations were made. The huskies

looked quite smart in their ``suits,''

Upon the primus heater, alone, did we rely for cooking the meals on

sledging journeys. First used for purposes of sledging by Dr.

Nansen in his journey across Greenland, the primus is only

economically managed after some practice. To light a primus in a

draughty tent at a low temperature calls for some forbearance before

one is a thorough master of the art. A sledging cook will often make

a disagreeable faux pas by extinguishing the primus in the

preparation of hoosh. This is most readily done by lowering too

quickly the outside cover over the rest of the cooker. Fumes of

vaporizing kerosene soon fill the tent and when matches are found,

the cooker pulled to pieces, the primus relighted and the choking

vapours have cleared, one is apt to think that all is well. The

hoosh is quite as successful as usual, but the cocoa, made from water

in the annulus, has a tincture of kerosene which cannot be

concealed.

In the ``Nansen Cooker,'' which we used, a maximum result is secured

from the heat of the primus. The hot gases from the combustion of

the kerosene, before they escape into the outside air, have to

circulate along a tortuous path, passing from the hot interior to the

colder exterior compartments, losing heat all the time. Thus a hot

hoosh is preparing in the central vessel side by side with the

melting of snow for cocoa or tea in the annulus. By the combination

of ``Nansen Cooker'' and primus stove one gallon of kerosene oil

properly husbanded is made to last for twelve days in the preparation

of the ordinary ration for three men.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Section through a Nansen Sledging Cooker

mounted on the primus

The subject of food is one which requires peculiar consideration and

study. It is assumed that a polar expedition must carry all its

food-stuffs in that variety and quantity which may approximately

satisfy normal demands. Fortunately, the advance of science has been

such that necessaries like vegetables, fruit, meats and milk are now

preserved so that the chances of bacterial contamination are reduced

to a minimum. A cold climate is an additional security towards the

same end.

Speaking generally, while living for months in an Antarctic hut, it

is a splendid thing to have more than the mere necessaries of life.

Since one is cut off from the ordinary amenities of social existence,

it is particularly necessary that equipment and food should be of

the very best; in some measure to replace a lack which sooner or

later makes itself keenly felt. Explorers, after all, are only

mortal.

Luxuries, then, are good in moderation, and mainly for their

psychological effect. After a spell of routine, a celebration is

the natural sequel, and if there are delicacies which in civilization

are more palatable than usual, why not take them to where they will

receive a still fuller and heartier appreciation? There is a

corresponding rise in the ``tide of life'' and the ennui of the same

task, in the same place, in the same wind, is not so noticeable. So

we did not forget our asparagus and jugged hare.

In the matter of sledging foods, one comes down to a solid basis of

dietetics. But even dietetics as a science has to stand aside when

actual experience speaks. Dietetics deals with proteins,

carbohydrates, fats, and calories: all terms which need definition

and comprehension before the value of a sledging ration can be

fundamentally understood. When the subject was first introduced into

table conversation at the Hut, it was regarded somewhat suspiciously

as ``shop.'' But it gradually won interest simply because it was of

such vital concern.

In sledging there is undoubtedly a critical allowance which will

yield the best results. Circumstances alter cases, and the correct

ration under one set of conditions cannot be expected to coincide with

that in another situation. Thus, the journey may be conducted under

conditions of great cold or of comparative warmth, by man-hauling or

auxiliary power, at sea-level or on an altitude, through regions where

there is a reasonable hope of securing additions of meat by the way,

or across barren tracts devoid of game. In each instance particular

demands must be supplied.

In selecting the articles of diet, idiosyncrasies of individuals

should be consulted in reason, and under no consideration should

anything be taken which bears the slightest stigma of contamination.

It remains, then, to discriminate those foods which contribute the

greatest amount of nutriment for a given weight, and which, inter se,

preserve a proper dietetic balance. Variety is very desirable,

provided that there is no important sacrifice in nutrient value.

The proof of a wisely selected ration is to find at the end of a

long sledge journey that the sole craving is for an increase in

the ration. Of course, such would be the ideal result of a perfect

ration, which does not exist.

Considering that an ordinary individual in civilization may only

satisfy the choice demands of his appetite by selecting from the

multifarious bill of fare of a modern restaurant, it will be evident

that the same person, though already on the restricted diet of an

explorer, cannot be suddenly subjected to a sledging ration for any

considerable period without a certain exercise of discipline.

For example, the Eastern Coastal Party, sledging at fairly high

temperatures over the sea-ice, noted that the full ration of hoosh

produced at times a mild indigestion, they drank much liquid to

satisfy an intense thirst and on returning to the Hut found their

appetites inclined to tinned fruit and penguins' eggs. Bickerton's

and Bage's parties, though working at a much higher altitude, had a

similar experience. The former, for instance, could not at first

drink the whole allowance of thick, rich cocoa without a slight

nausea. The latter saved rations during the first two weeks of

their journey, and only when they rose to greater heights and were

in fine condition did they appreciate the ration to the full. Again,

even when one becomes used to the ration, the sensation of full

satisfaction does not last for more than an hour. The imagination

reaches forward to the next meal, perhaps partly on account of the

fact that marching is often monotonous and the scenery uninspiring.

Still, even after a good evening hoosh, the subconscious self may

assert itself in food-dreams. The reaction from even a short

sledging trip, where food has been plentiful, is to eat a good deal,

astonishing in amount to those who for the time being have lived at

the Hut.

It may appear that a serious case is being made against the polar

sledging ration. On the whole, it was found to be excellent and the

best that experience had been able to devise. Entering the polar

zones, one must not be over-fastidious, but take it as a matter of

course that there will be self-denial and deprivation of small

luxuries.

The energy exerted by man, and the requirements of tissue-building

are derived from the organic compounds known as proteins,** fats and

carbohydrates, though in a slight degree from other substances, most

important of which are minute quantities of mineral matter.

A calorie as used in dietetics is the amount of heat required to

raise the temperature of one kilogramme of water at 0 degrees C. to

1 degree C. The heat-value of food-stuffs, stated in calories, can be

quickly reckoned when chemical analyses stating their protein, fat and

carbohydrate contents are available. It has been ascertained that one

gramme of protein or carbohydrate yields 4.1 calories, whilst the same

amount of fat produces 9.3 calories. Thus the value of fat-containing

foods in a sledging ration is at once apparent.

** The proteins are complex nitrogenous compounds which are preeminent

in fulfilling the two functions of a food: to form tissue and to

produce work and heat. As examples may be quoted, myosin the chief

protein of ordinary meat or muscle, ovalbumin one of the proteins of

egg-white, casein belonging to milk and cheese, and gluten a

protein-mixture in flour.

Fats are organic non-nitrogenous substances obtained from both animal

and vegetable sources, e.g. butter and olive oil.

The carbohydrates are compounds of carbon with hydrogen and oxygen

in a certain proportion, e.g. cane-sugar and starch.

Mineral matters are inorganic, being chlorides, carbonates or

phosphates of calcium, sodium and potassium.

Theoretically, any of the three classes of foods mentioned might be

thought to supply adequate energy, if taken in sufficient amount.

Practically, however, protein and carbohydrate are essential, and it

is better to have a mixture of all three. So, in concentrating foods

for sledging, the largest possible proportion of fat, compatible with

other considerations, is included.

Ordinarily, a normal man consumes some four or five pounds weight of

solid food per diem, of which 50 per cent., it is rather surprising to

learn, is water. When sledging, one has the satisfaction of knowing

that all but the smallest quantity of the food dragged is solid

nutriment. The water is added when the meals are cooked. It is just

in this artificial addition that the sledging ration is not perfect,

though as a synthesis it satisfies the demands of dietetics. Food

containing water, as cooked meat oozing with its own gravy is a more

palatable thing than dried meat-powder to which boiling water has been

added. In the same way, a dry, hard biscuit plus liquid is a

different thing from a spongy loaf of yeast bread with its high

percentage of water. One must reckon with the psychic factor in

eating. When sledging, one does not look for food well served as long

as the food is hot, nourishing and filling. So the usage of weeks and

a wolfish appetite make hoosh a most delicious preparation; but when

the days of an enforced ration are over, the desire for appetizing

well-served food reasserts itself. The body refuses to be treated

merely as an engine.

The daily polar sledging ration for one man has been concentrated to

a figure just above two pounds in weight, For instance, in recent

Antarctic expeditions, Scott, in 1903, used 34.7 ozs., Shackleton in

1908 used 34.82 ozs. and our own amounted to 34.25 ozs. Exclusive of

tea, pepper and salt, Shackleton's ration and that adopted by Wild at

the Western Base and ourselves in Adelie Land were identical--34 ozs.

Reverting to earlier explorers, for the sake of comparisons,

McClintock in 1850 brought his minimum down to 42 ozs., Nares in 1875

to 40 ozs., Greely in 1882 to 41.75 ozs., and Abruzzi in 1900 to 43.5

ozs.

Our allowance was made up as follows, the relative amounts in the

daily sledging ration for one man being stated: plasmon biscuit, 12

ozs.; pemmican, 8 ozs.; butter, 2 ozs.; plasmon chocolate, 2 ozs.;

glaxo (dried milk), 5 ozs.; sugar, 4 ozs.; cocoa, 1 oz.; tea, .25

oz. It will be instructive to make a short note on each item.

Plasmon biscuit was made of the best flour mixed with 30 per cent.

of plasmon powder. Each biscuit weighed 2.25 ozs., and was made

specially thick and hard to resist shaking and bumping in transit as

well as the rough usage of a sledging journey. The effect of the high

percentage of plasmon, apart from its nutritive value, was to impart

additional toughness to the biscuit, which tested our teeth so

severely that we should have preferred something less like a

geological specimen and more like ordinary ``hard tack,'' The

favourite method of dealing with these biscuits was to smash them with

an ice-axe or nibble them into small pieces and treat the fragments

for a while to the solvent action of hot cocoa. Two important

proteins were present in this food: plasmon, a trade-name for casein,

the chief protein of milk, and gluten, a mixture of proteins in flour.

The pemmican we used consisted of powdered dried beef (containing the

important protein, myosin) and 50 per cent. of pure fat in the form

of lard. The large content of fat contributes to its high caloric

value, so that it is regularly included in sledging diets. Hoosh is

a stodgy, porridge-like mixture of pemmican, dried biscuit and water,

brought to the boil and served hot. Some men prefer it cooler and

more dilute, and to this end dig up snow from the floor of the tent

with their spoons, and mix it in until the hoosh is ``to taste,''

Eating hoosh is a heightened form of bliss which no sledger can ever

forget.

Glaxo is a proprietary food preparation of dried milk, manufactured

in New Zealand. It is without doubt an ideal food for any climate

where concentration is desirable and asepsis cannot be neglected. The

value of milk as an all-round food is well known. It contains protein

as casein, fat as cream and in fine globules, carbohydrate as lactose

(milk sugar) and mineral substances whose importance is becoming more

recognized. At the Western Base, Wild's party invented glaxo

biscuits; an unbaked mixture of flour and dried milk, which were in

themselves a big inducement to go sledging. At the Hut, making milk

from the dried powder required some little experience. Cold water was

added to the dried powder, a paste was made and warm or hot water

poured in until the milk was at the required strength. One of the

professional ``touches'' was to aerate the milk, after mixing, by

pouring it from jug to jug.

Butter, although it contains nearly 20 per cent. of water is a food

of high heat-value and is certainly more easily digested than fat,

such as dripping, with a higher melting-point. Ours was fresh

Victorian butter, packed in the ordinary export boxes, and carried to

the Antarctic on the open bridge of the Aurora. With a sheath-knife,

the sledging cook cut off three small chunks of two ounces each from

the frozen butter every day at lunch. To show how the appetite is

affected by extreme cold, one feels that butter is a wholesome thing

just in itself, being more inclined to eat a pound than two ounces.

Sugar--the carbohydrate, sucrose--has special qualities as a food since

it is quickly assimilated, imparting within a few minutes fresh

energy for muscular exertion. Athletes will support this; in fact,

a strong solution of sugar in water is used as a stimulant in

long-distance running and other feats of endurance. Wild, for

instance, found as a matter of experience that chocolate was

preferable to cheese as a sledging food, even though similar weights

had approximately the same food-value.

Cocoa and tea were the two sledging beverages. The cocoa was used

for two meals, the first and the last in the day, and the tea for

lunch. Both contain stimulating alkaloids, theobromine and caffeine,

and fat is a notable constituent of cocoa. Of course, their chief

nourishing value, as far as we were concerned, lay in the glaxo and

sugar added.

Lastly, plasmon chocolate is a preparation of pure chocolate (a

mixture of ground cocoa, white sugar and starch) with the addition

of 10 per cent. of plasmon.

As food for the dogs, there was nothing better than dried seal-steaks

with the addition of a little blubber. Ordinary pemmican is readily

eaten, but not appreciated by the dogs in the same way as seal meat.

To save weight, the meat was dried over the stove without heating it

sufficiently to cook it. By this measure, almost 50 per cent. in

weight was saved.

The Hut was all agog with movement and bustle on the days when rations

were being made up and packed. Starting from the earliest stage in

the process, there would be two men in the outer Hut grinding plasmon

biscuit into powder. One would turn away for dear life and the other

smash the biscuit with a hammer on a metal slab and feed continuously

into the grinder. The atmosphere would be full of the nauseous

vapours of blubber arising from dishes on the stove where seal meat

was drying for the dogs. Ninnis and Mertz superintended in this

department, in careless moments allowing the blubber to frizzle and

diffuse its aroma through the Hut.

Inside, spread along the eighteen-foot table would be the weighers,

the bag-makers or machinists, and the packers. The first made up a

compound of cocoa, glaxo and sugar--cocoa compound; mixed glaxo and

sugar and stirred together, pemmican and biscuit--pemmican compound.

These were weighed and run into calico bags, rapidly supplied by

several machinists farther along the table. In spare moments the

weighers stowed chocolate, whole biscuits, butter and tea into 190

sacks of various sizes. Lastly, the packers had strong canvas tanks,

as they were called, designed to hold food for a week and a fortnight

respectively. Into these the rations were carefully distributed,

butter in the centre, whole biscuits near the top. Then the tanks

were tightly closed, and one man operated with palm and sail-needle,

sewing them up with twine. At the same time, a side-line was run in

pemmican which was removed semi-frozen from the air-tight tins, and

shaved into small pieces with a strong sheath-knife. Butter, too,

arrived from the refrigerator-store and was subdivided into two-ounce

or pound lumps.

Meanwhile, other occupations were in full swing. An amateur cobbler,

his crampon on a last, studded its spiked surface with clouts,

hammering away in complete disregard of the night-watchman's uneasy

slumbers. The big sewing-machine raced at top-speed round the flounce

of a tent, and in odd corners among the bunks were groups mending

mitts, strengthening sleeping-bags and patching burberrys. The

cartographer at his table beneath a shaded acetylene light drew maps

and sketched, the magnetician was busy on calculations close by. The

cook and messman often made their presence felt and heard. In the

outer Hut, the lathe spun round, its whirr and click drowned in the

noisy rasp of the grinder and the blast of the big blow-lamp. The

last-named, Bickerton, ``bus-driver'' and air-tractor expert, had

converted, with the aid of a few pieces of covering tin, into a forge.

A piece of red-hot metal was lifted out and thrust into the vice;

Hannam was striker and Bickerton holder. General conversation was

conducted in shouts, Hannam's being easily predominant.

The sum total of sounds was sufficient for a while to make every one

oblivious to the clamour of the restless wind.

CHAPTER XI SPRING EXPLOITS

If the ``winter calms'' were a delusion, there were at least several

beautifully clear, moderately calm days in June. The expectation of

colder weather had been realized, and by the end of the month it was

a perceptible fact that the sun had definitely turned, describing a

longer arc when skimming the distant fleets of bergs along the

northern horizon. Thus on June 28 the refracted image of the sun rose

into visibility about eleven o'clock, heralded by a vivid green sky

and damask cloud and by one o'clock had disappeared.

On the same day every one was abroad, advancing the wireless masts

another stage and digging ice-shafts. Stillwell commenced a contoured

plane-table survey of the neighbourhood of Winter Quarters. He

continued this with many breaks during the next few months and

eventually completed an accurate and valuable map, undeterred by the

usual series of frost-bites.

There was much anticipated of July, but the wind soughed on and the

temperature decreased. Just to demonstrate its resource, the wind

maintained ninety-seven miles per hour for six hours on July 19,

while the puff-anemometer indicated several ``breaks'' of one hundred

and fifty miles per hour.

July 21 was cold, calm and clear. For the first time after many

weeks the sun was mildly warm, and all felt with a spring of optimism

that a new era had begun. The sea which had been kept open by the

wind was immediately overspread with thin, dark ice, which in a few

hours was dotted with many ice-flowers aggregates of fern-like,

sprouting fronds similar to small bouquets or rosettes. Soon the

surface had whitened and thickened and by next morning was firm

enough to hold a man out beyond the nearest island. The wind did not

allow this state of affairs to last for long, for by lunch-time it

had hurried away the wide floes and raged across a foaming sea.

We still considered the question of sledging, and I decided that if

there were the slightest prospect of accomplishing anything, several

of us would start before the end of July on a short journey. The

month, however, closed with nothing to commend it. The night-watchman

for July 29 says:

``The moon was wonderfully bright to-night, encircled by a complete

halo. It appeared to hang suspended like a silver globe in the dark

blue sky. The stars flash and sparkle and seem much nearer here than

in Australia. At midnight the wind blew at ninety miles per hour,

so that it was no easy job getting to the screen in slippery finnesko.

Away in the north there was a dense cloud of spray and sea-smoke,

and the wind screamed past the Hut. The `St. Elmoscope' was buzzing

merrily in the roof all the time.''

Ninnis and Mertz with a team of dogs managed, on the morning of the

29th, to get several loads of forty pounds over the first steep rise

of the glacier to Webb's magnetic ice-cave against a ``blow'' of

seventy miles per hour.

August 1 was marked by a hurricane, and the celebration in the

evening of Swiss Confederation Day. Mertz was the hero of the

occasion as well as cook and master of ceremonies. From a mysterious

box he produced all kinds of quaint conserves, and the menu soared to

unknown delicacies like ``Potage a la Suisse, Choucroute garnie aux

saucission de Berne, Puree de foie gras trufee, and Leckerley de

Bale.'' Hanging above the buoyant assembly were the Cross of Helvetia

and the Jack of Britannia.

It was not till August 8 that there was any indication of improvement.

The sun was bright, the barometer was steady, the wind fell to forty

miles an hour and a fine radiant of cirrus cloud spread out fan-like

from the north; the first from that direction for months.

On the afternoon of August 9, Ninnis, Madigan and I set off with a

team of dogs against a forty-mile wind in an attempt to push to the

south. Darkness was coming on when we sighted a bamboo pole, three

and a quarter miles south of the Hut, and camped. The dogs pulled

well up the steep slopes, but the feet of several were cut by the

sharp edges of the wind-worn ice.

Very heavy gusts swept by in the early morning hours of the 10th.

and when the time came to get out of our sleeping-bags it fell calm for

a short space. We had taken down the tent and had started to move

away, when back rushed the wind, strong and steady. Still we pushed

on with our willing team and by a piece of good fortune reached the

sledge which had been abandoned in the autumn, five and a half miles

from the Hut, and of whose fate in the winter's hurricanes we had made

all kind of conjectures.

On its leeward side there was a ramp of very hard snow slanting down

from the top of the sledge. To windward the low pedestal of ice on

which the runners stood was hollowed out, and the wood of the rails

and cross-bars, the leather straps, tent, floor-cloth and canvas

food-tanks were all bleached and worn. The aluminium cooker, strapped

on its box, was brightly polished on the weather side by the dry,

drifting snow impelled by the furious winds. A thermograph, left

behind in the autumn, was found to be intact and indicated a

temperature of -35 degrees F.--the lowest for the eight days during

which it had run. The remains of Madigan's plum-pudding of the autumn

were unearthed and found in splendid condition. That evening it was

thawed out over the primus and we demolished it, after a pause of over

five months since having the first cut.

At this spot the steepest grades of the ascent to the plateau were

left behind, and it appeared to be a strategic point from which to

extend our sledging efforts. The main difficulty was that of pitching

camp in the prevailing winds on a surface of ice. To obviate this,

the only expedient was to excavate a shelter beneath the ice itself;

and there was the further consideration that all sledging parties

would be able to make use of such a haven and save extra wear on

their tents.

On the morning of August 11 Madigan and Ninnis commenced to sink a

deep vertical trench, at one end of which a room was hewn out large

enough to accommodate three men. The job was finished on the

following day, and we struck the tent and moved to our new abode. The

tent was spread over the vertical shaft which served as the entrance.

It was a great relief to be in a strong room, with solid walls of ice,

in place of the cramped tent flapping violently in the wind. Inside,

the silence was profound; the blizzard was banished. Aladdin's Cave

it was dubbed--a truly magical world of glassy facets and

scintillating crystals.

Shelves were chipped out at a moment's notice for primus stove, spirit

bottle, matches, kerosene and other oddments. At one side a small

hole was cut to communicate with a narrow fissure which provided

ventilation without allowing the entrance of drift snow. Whatever

daylight there was filtered through the roof and walls without

hindrance. A small crevasse opened near at hand and was a natural

receptacle for rubbish. The purest ice for cooking could be

immediately hacked from the walls without the inconvenience of having

to don one's burberrys and go outside for it. Finally, one neatly

disposed of spare clothes by moistening the corner of each garment

and pressing it against the wall for a few seconds, where it would

remain hanging until required. The place, in fact, was simply

replete with conveniences. We thoroughly enjoyed the night's rest

in Aladdin's Cave, notwithstanding alarming cracks proceeding

occasionally from the crevasses around.

Madigan and Ninnis dug a shelter for the dogs, which spent their time

curled up so as to expose as little surface as possible to the biting

wind. Their thick coats did not adhere to a snow surface, but readily

became frozen down to ice, so that an ice-axe would have to be used to

chip them free.

On August 13, though there was a steady, strong wind blowing, we

continued our advance to the south. The dogs hated to face wind, but,

on the whole, did better than expected. In the afternoon, when only

eight miles south of Winter Quarters and at an altitude of two

thousand feet, dark and lowering clouds formed overhead, and I decided

to give up any idea of going farther out, for the time being. We had

provisions for a few days only, and there was every indication of

thick, drifting weather, during which, in the crevassed ice of that

vicinity, it would not be advisable to travel.

After depoting a pick, shovel and some pemmican, we started back,

thinking it might be possible to reach the Hut the same night.

However, driven by a strong wind over a polished, slippery surface

split into small crevasses, down a grade which steepened quickly, we

required to have all our senses vigilant. Two of the dogs remained in

harness and the rest were allowed to run loose ahead. These two

strained every effort to catch up to their companions.

We retarded the sledge as much as possible and all went well for a

few minutes. Then the wind slewed the sledge, the runners struck an

irregularity in the surface and the whole capsized. This happened

repeatedly, until there was nothing to do but loose the two remaining

dogs and drag the sledge ourselves. The dogs were soon lost to sight,

except Pavlova, who remained with us all the time. As the hours of

light were short in August, darkness had come before Aladdin's Cave

was reached, and it was with some relief that we saw the sledge,

flag-pole and the expectant dogs suddenly loom up in front. The

sleeping-bags and other gear were passed down into the Cave and the

dogs were fed.

When the doorway was opened in the morning, August 14, a blizzard

with dense drifting snow was in full progress. As it was not possible

to see any distance, and as our quarters were very comfortable, we

decided to wait for another day. Madigan and Ninnis went out and fed

the dogs, who were all snugly curled up in beds of snow.

The weather was no better on the l5th, but, as we were only five and

a half miles from the Hut, which was more comfortable and where there

was much work to be done, it seemed a shame to remain cooped up in

idleness. Madigan and Ninnis were both strongly in favour of making

a dash for the Hut, so we set off.

The sledge having been dug out, one man went in front to keep the

course and two men brought up the rear, holding back the load. With

long-spiked Swiss crampons we could hold up very well on the ice. In

dense drift it was not a simple matter to steer a correct course for

the Hut and it was essential not to deviate, as the rocky foreshores

near which it stood extended only for a mile east and west; on

either side abutting on vertical ice-cliffs. With a compelling force

like a prance at our backs, it was not a nice thing to contemplate

finding ourselves on the brink of a precipice.

The wind, however, was steady, and we knew at what angle to steer

to keep a rough course; and we were also helped by a number of small

crevasses between three and five and a half miles which ran

approximately north and south.

Half a mile had been covered before we remarked the absence of the

dogs which had been left to follow. We had taken for granted that

they would follow us, and were so fully occupied after starting that

their absence had passed unnoticed. It would be difficult to locate

them if we returned; the weather would improve in a few days; if

they felt hungry they would come down of their own accord. So we

decided to go on without them.

At two miles from the Hut the drift thinned out and the wind became

more gusty. Between the gusts the view ahead opened out for a

considerable distance, and the rocks soon showed black below the last

steep fall.

Back at the Hut it was arranged that if the dogs did not return in

a reasonable time, Bage, Mertz and Hurley should go up to Aladdin's

Cave in search of them.

They made a great effort to get away next morning. The sledge was

hauled for one thousand one hundred yards up to the magnetic ice-cave

against a bitter torrent of air rushing by at eighty-two miles an

hour. Here they retreated exhausted.

On the 17th the wind was gauged at eighty-four miles an hour, and

nothing could be done. Dense drift and ferocious wind continued until

the morning of August 21, and still none of the dogs had come home.

Bage, Hurley and Mertz took advantage of a slight lull to start off

at 6.30 A.M. As they did not return that night we presumed they

were making good headway.

The drift was thick and the wind high for four days, and it was not

until the morning of the 25th that the weather showed clearer and more

promising. At 2 P.M. Bage and his companions arrived at the Hut

bringing all the dogs except Grandmother, who had died of exhaustion.

Aladdin's Cave had been difficult to find in the driving snow, which

had thickened after the first few miles. They actually passed close

to it when Mertz, between the gusts, sighted Castor jumping about,

fully alive to the approaching relief. The other dogs were found

curled up in the snow, in a listless, apathetic state; apparently in

the same positions when left seven days before. They had made no

attempt to break into several bags of provisions lying close at hand,

preferring to starve rather than expose their faces to the pelting

drift. All were frozen down except Basilisk and Castor. Pavlova was

in the best condition, possibly because her last meal had been an

extra full one; a reward for remaining with us when the others had

bolted. Grandmother was in the worst condition, and, despite all

efforts at revival, died four hours after. As the poor brutes were

very weak after their long fast and exposure, they were taken into

the Cave and fed on warm hoosh. Everything possible was done for

them, and in return the party passed a very miserable time cramped

in such a small space with six dogs. The accommodation was slightly

increased by enlarging the Cave.

Five days of calm weather! It could scarcely be credited, yet

September came with such a spell. They gave us great opportunities,

and, for once, a vision of what perfect Antarctic days might be. The

sea speedily froze over and extended our territory to the north.

Every day we dredged among the tide-cracks, until Hunter and Laseron

had material enough to sort and bottle for weeks. Seals came up

everywhere, and the dogs gorged on much-needed meat and blubber.

Three large Weddells were shot near the ``Eastern Barrier'' on

September 1, and hauled up an ice-cliff eighty feet high to the rocks

above. Work on the wireless masts went on apace, and the geologist

was abroad with his plane-table every day. Webb and Bage, after a

protracted interval, were able to take star observations for time,

in order to check the chronometers.

Mertz, Ninnis, Whetter and Laseron, with a team of dogs sledged a big

load of food-stuffs to Aladdin's Cave on September 1. At the Cave the

dogs were let loose, but instead of running back to the Hut, lingered

about and finally had to be led down the slope. On being loosed

again, several rushed back to the Cave and were only brought along by

force. That night, Scott and Franklin, two kindred spirits, were not

present at ``roll-call''.

On September 3, McLean, Whetter and Close took more provisions to

Aladdin's Cave. They reported light drift and wind on the

highlands, while at sea-level it was clear and calm.

The sea-ice was by then thick and safe. About haIf a mile off

shore a very successful dredging was made in fifty fathoms; the

bottom at this depth simply teemed with life. At first, the dredge,

rope-coils, tub, picks and other necessary implements were dragged

about on a sledge, but the sledge was hauled only with great

difficulty and much exertion over the sticky, new sea-ice. As a

substitute a portable, steel handcart was advantageously employed,

although, owing to its weight, tide-cracks and rotten areas had to

be crossed at a run. On one occasion a flimsy surface collapsed

under it, and Hunter had a wetting before it was hauled on to firmer

ice.

On September 4 there was a cloud radiant from the northwest,

indicative of a change in the weather. Ninnis, Mertz and Murphy

transported more food-bags and kerosene to Aladdin's Cave. They

found Franklin one and a half miles south of the Hut lying on the ice

quite well, but there was no sign of Scott. Both dogs were seen on

the 1st of the month, when they were in a locality south-east of the

Hut, where crevasses were numerous. It seemed most probable that

Scott had lost his life in one of them. The party visiting the Cave

reported a considerable amount of snow drifting above a level of one

thousand feet.

There was another day of successful dredging, and, about four

o'clock, while several men were still out on the ice, whirlies with

great columns of drift came steadily down the glacier, pouring over

the seaward cliffs. In a few minutes the snow-clouds were round the

Hut and the wind was not long in working up to eighty miles per hour.

The dredging party reached the land just in time; and the sea-ice

drifted away to the north. Thus ended one of the most remarkable

periods of fine weather experienced by us in Adelie Land, only to be

excelled in the height of summer.

The possibility of such a spell being repeated fired us with the hope

that after all a reasonable amount of sledging could be accomplished

in the spring. Three parties were chosen to reconnoitre in different

directions and to test the sledging gear. As we were far from being

confident in the weather, I made it clear that no party should

penetrate farther than fifty miles from the Hut, nor remain away

longer than a fortnight.

Webb, McLean and Stillwell, the southern reconnoitring party, were the

first to set off, leaving on September 7 against a wind of fifty-six

miles per hour. Between them they had only one pair of good spiked

crampons, and it was a hard, five hours' drag up to Aladdin's Cave.

A tent which had been spread over the entrance to keep out snow was

picked up here. It had suffered punctures and small tears from

crampons, and, as the next day was one of boisterous wind, the party

spent it repairing the tent and endeavouring to take magnetic

observations. The latter had to be abandoned owing to the instrument

becoming iced up.

Next afternoon the wind fell to the forties, and the party struggled

on to the south for three miles two hundred yards and camped, as it

was necessary to make a search for a small depot of pemmican tins,

a pick and a shovel left by us in the vicinity in August. The drift

cleared at noon on the 11th, and the bamboo pole marking the depot

appeared a quarter of a mile away on the right. The pick, shovel and

flag were secured and another afternoon's march against a fifty-mile

wind with a temperature at -20 degrees F. brought the party three and

a quarter miles further, to a point eleven and three-quarter miles south

of the Hut. The wind rose to the eighties during the night, and there

were many small holes in the tent which provided more ventilation

than was agreeable. As the wind was too strong for travelling on the

12th, it was decided to make a cave in case of accident to the tent.

A tunnel was driven into the sloping surface of the ice towards a

crevasse about a foot wide. It was a good ten hours' job in tough

ice before the crevasse was reached. Into the fissure all the hewn

ice was thrown instead of being laboriously shovelled up through the

tunnel. The ``Cathedral Grotto'' was soon finished, the tent was

struck and the party made themselves comfortable inside. The cavern

was found to be a very draughty place with a crevasse along one

wall, and it was difficult to keep warm in one-man sleeping-bags.

The crevasse was accordingly closed with ice and snow. That evening

and on several subsequent occasions McLean took blood-pressure

observations.

During the next three days the wind was so strong that Webb's were

the only crampons in which any efficient marching could be done. The

time was spent in building a high break-wind of ice-blocks, a pit

being excavated on the windward side in which Webb took a full set of

magnetic observations. Within the ``Grotto'' the instrument rapidly

became coated with ice-crystals; in the open air this difficulty

did not arise, but others had to be overcome. It was exceedingly

cold work at -20 degrees F. in a sixty-mile wind, both for Webb and

his recorder Stillwell.

There seemed no hope of going forward, so the depot flag was hoisted

and a fortnight's provisions and kerosene stowed in the lee of the

break-wind. It was a furious race back to the Hut via Aladdin's Cave

with a gusty, seventy-five-mile wind in the rear. McLean and

Stillwell actually skied along on their short blunt crampons, while

Webb did his best to brake behind.

The second party comprised Ninnis, Mertz, and Murphy, who went to the

south-east, leaving on September 11. After a hard fight to Aladdin's

Cave, the wind approaching fifty miles an hour, they diverged to the

south-east. On the 12th they made steady progress up the slope of

the glacier, delayed by many small crevasses. The surface was so

rough that the nuts on the sledge-meter soon became loose and it was

necessary to stop every quarter of a mile to adjust them. The day's

march was a solid five and three quarter miles against a fifty-mile

wind.

On the 13th Ninnis's record proceeds as follows:

``The sky was still clear but the wind had increased to sixty-five

miles per hour, the temperature standing at -17 degrees F.

``We kept on the same course; the glacier's slope being steeper.

Mertz was as usual wearing leather boots and mountaineering crampons,

otherwise progress would have been practically impossible; the

finnesko crampons worn by Murphy and myself giving very little

foothold. Travelling was very slow indeed, and when we camped at

4 P.M., two and a half miles was all that had been covered.

``At 9.15 A.M. (September 14) the wind practically dropped, and we

advanced under perfect conditions,''

They had not gone far, however, before the wind suddenly increased so

that only about four and a half miles were completed in the day.

That evening, curiously enough, it fell calm for a time; then there

was a period of alternating violent winds and calm.

On Sunday, September 15, it was impossible for them to move, as a

hurricane raged outside. The tent was very much damaged by the

wind, but in that state it managed to stand up till next morning.

In the meantime all three fully dressed themselves and lay in their

three-man sleeping-bag ready to take to the road at a moment's notice.

The next morning, at a distance of eighteen miles southeast of the

Hut, there was nothing for it but to make for Aladdin's Cave, which

was safely reached by a forced march of twelve and three-quarter

miles, with a furious wind partly abeam. On the way the sledge was

blown sideways on to the lids of many wide crevasses, which,

fortunately for the party, were strong at that season of the year.

From the realistic reports of the two parties which had returned it

was evident that Madigan and his companions, Close and Whetter who

had set out on the 12th to the west were having a bad time. But it

was not till the 23rd, after a week of clear skies, low temperatures

and unceasing drift-free wind that we began to feel apprehensive about

them.

September 24 and 25 were punctuated by several intervals of calm

during which it was judged the party would have been able to travel.

On the morning of September 26 Ninnis and Mertz, with a team of dogs,

set off up the hill to Aladdin's Cave to deposit some provisions and

to scan the horizon for any sign of the sledgers. On the way they

fell in with them descending the slopes, very worn and frost-bitten.

They had a thrilling story to tell, and, when it was known that the

party had reached fifty miles to the west, everybody crowded round

to listen.

The wind average at the Hut during their fortnight of absence was

fifty-eight miles per hour, implying worse conditions on the plateau.

Madigan gave the facts:

``After leaving Aladdin's Cave on the 12th we continued due south,

lunching at 2 P.M. on the site of Webb's first camp. Our troubles

had already begun; the wind averaging sixty miles an hour all day

with a temperature at noon of -14 degrees F.

``As a few tears appeared in the tent during the night, we saw that

it would not be advisable to put it up next day for lunch, so we had

a cold meal, crouched in the lee of the sledge. This custom was found

to economize time, as we became so cold eating our fare of biscuit,

chocolate and butter that we got moving again as soon as possible.

The great disadvantage was that there was nothing to drink between

the morning and evening meals.

``We sewed up the rents in the tent during the halt, having to use

bare fingers in the open. About four stitches at a time were as much

as one man could manage, and then the other two took their turns.

``The next day was the only comparatively calm period of the two

weeks of travelling. The wind was in the vicinity of thirty miles

per hour, and, going west, we reached a spot, twenty miles `out,'

on a snow-covered surface, by nightfall.

``A steady seventy-five-mile wind blew all day on the 15th at right

angles to our course, accompanied by a thick, low drift. The surface

was partially consolidated snow, very hard and smooth. Sometimes

the sledge would grip and we could pull straight ahead. Then,

suddenly, it would slide away sideways down wind and often pull us

off our feet with a sudden vicious jerk. Most of the time we were

dragging in a south-westerly direction to make the sledge run west,

stumbling through the drift with the sledge now behind us, now sliding

away to leeward, often capsizing and requiring to be laboriously

righted and sometimes repacked.

``After many experiments, we found the best device was to have two

men on the bow-rope, about twenty feet long, and one with about ten

feet of rope attached to the rear of the sledge. The man on the tail-

rope, usually Whetter, found it very difficult to keep his feet, and,

after a score of falls in stinging drift with incidental frost-bites

on fingers and cheeks, he did not feel exactly cheerful.

``By 4 P.M. on the 15th we had reached twenty-five miles and were

exhausted. We pitched camp at an early hour, partly influenced by

the fact that it was a special occasion--Close's birthday! Some port

wine had been slipped in to provide against that ` emergency.' On

taking the precious bottle from the instrument-box, I found that the

cork was out, and, for one awful moment, thought the bottle was empty.

Then I realized that the wine had frozen solid and had pushed the cork

out by its expansion on solidification.

``At last, the tent safely pitched and hoosh and cocoa finished, the

moment came to drink to Close's health and happiness. The bottle had

stood on the top of the cooker while the meal was being prepared, but

the wine was still as solid as ever. After being shaken and held over

the primus for a good half-hour it began to issue in lumps. Once the

lumps were secured in mugs the rest of the thawing was easy. Finally,

we toasted Close and his wife (in far Australia) in what we voted to

be the finest draught it had ever been our good fortune to drink. In

the morning a cairn was made of the snow-blocks which were taken from

the tent-skirt, and it was surmounted with the bottle, being called

`Birthday Camp.'

``During September 16 my right eyelid became frostbitten. I noticed

that it was hard and refused to shut, so I rubbed vigorously to bring

it round. However, it swelled and blistered badly and the eye

remained closed for two days.

``From twenty to fifty miles `out', the surface was neve with areas

of sastrugi up to three feet in height. No crevasses were noticed.

At twenty-eight miles out, we lost sight of the sea, and at forty

miles an altitude of four thousand five hundred feet was reached.

We turned out at 6 A.M. every morning and were on the move by 9 A.M.

Lunch only took half an hour and was a most uncomfortable meal.

As we sat in the lee of the sledge, the surface-drift swirled up in

our faces like fine sand. We never camped before 6 P.M. and were

obliged to consider five miles a good day's run.

``Pitching camp took nearly an hour. Blocks of snow were cut and

arranged in a semicircle, within which the tent was laid with its peak

upwind. It sounds simple enough, but, as we had to take off crampons

so as not to tread on the tent, our difficulties were enormously

increased by having to move about wearing finnesko on a smooth

surface in a high wind. One man crawled into the tent, and, at a

given signal, the other two raised the peak while the former held on

to the upwind leg and kicked the other legs into place with his feet.

The others then quickly piled food-tanks and blocks of snow on to the

skirt, calling out as soon as there was enough to hold it down, as the

man gripping the bamboo leg inside would soon have `deadly cold'

fingers. It was always a great relief when the tent was up.

``Almost every night there was some sewing to do, and it was not long

before every one's fingers were in a bad state. They became,

especially near the tips, as hard as wood and devoid of sensation.

Manipulating toggles and buttons on one's clothing gave an immense

amount of trouble, and it always seemed an interminable time before

we got away in the morning. Our lowest temperature was -35 degrees F.,

early on September 18.

``We were fifty miles `out' on September 19 on a white, featureless

plain. Through low drift we had seen very little of our surroundings

on the march. A bamboo pole with a black flag was raised, a mound

was built, and a week's provisions for three men and two gallons of

kerosene were cached.

``In the morning there was a howling eighty-mile blizzard with dense

drift, and our hopes of an early start homeward were dispelled. We

feared for the safety of the tent, knowing that if it had gone during

that `blow' our hopes of getting back to the Hut would have been small.

``The wind continued all day and the next night, but, to our joy,

abated on the 21st to fifty miles an hour, permitting us to travel.

``Through a seventy-five-miler on the 22nd and a quieter day on the

23rd, we picked up our half-way mound at Birthday Camp on September

24. On the same night the long-suffering sledge-meter, much battered,

gave up recording.

``At 3 A.M. I was awakened by something striking me on the head. I

looked out of the sleeping-bag and found that the tent had fallen in

on us. The lashing at the apex had carried away and the poles upwind

were almost flat. The cap was gone, and one side of the tent was

split from top to bottom. I awakened the others, and Whetter and I

got out, leaving Close inside to hang on to the bag. Luckily we had

kept on our burberrys in case of accidents. For once the entrance had

not to be unfastened, as there was a ready-made exit. The poles were

roughly bound together with an alpine rope and anchored to a pick on

the windward side. It was blowing about eighty miles an hour, but

fortunately there was no drift. When daylight came the tent was

found to be hopelessly ruined, and to light the primus was

impossible, though the wind had abated to thirty-five miles an hour.

``We ate some frozen food and pushed on, hoping to find Aladdin's Cave

before dark, so that we should not have to spend a night without a

tent. After a struggle of thirteen miles over rough ice we came,

footsore and worn out, to Aladdin's Cave. Close's feet were badly

blistered, and both my big toes had become frost-bitten at the

fifty-mile camp, giving me a good deal of trouble on the way back.

``Never was the Cave a more luxurious place. The cooker was kept

busy far into the night, while we drank and smoked and felt happy,''

The successful conclusion of this journey in the face of the most

adverse weather conditions was something upon which Madigan, Whetter

and Close could well feel proud, for in its way it must be a

record in the sledging world. They were indeed badly frost-bitten;

Madigan's great toes having suffered most of all. Whetter's chief

injury was a wound under the chin occasioned by a pair of scissors

handled by Madigan to free Whetter's helmet on an occasion when it

was firmly frozen to his face.

On October 1, Mertz, Hurley and Ninnis made a gallant attempt to

rescue two dogs, Basilisk and Franklin, which had remained at

Aladdin's Cave on September 26, after accompanying them there with

a load of provisions. At the Hut there was no drift, but during the

ascent it became thicker, and the wind stronger, forcing them at last

to turn back.

Two days later another attempt was made by Ninnis and Mertz, and,

in dense drift, after wandering about for a long time they happened

on the Cave, to find that the dogs were not there, though spots were

discovered where they had evidently been sleeping in the snow.

Coming back disconsolately, they found that the dogs had reached the

Hut not long before them. Apparently the two vagrants, hearing

Ninnis and Mertz blundering about in the drift in search of the depot,

had decided that it was time to return home. We concluded that the

ways of these Greenland dogs were past finding out.

October came with a deluge of snow and transient hours of bright

sunlight, during which the seals would make a temporary landing and

retire again to the water when their endurance was exhausted. Snow

petrels flew in great numbers about the rocks in the evening, seeking

out their old nest-crevices. Seeing these signs of returning life,

every one was in great expectation of the arrival of the penguins.

On the night of the 11th, Hurley, Laseron, Hunter and Correll made an

innovation by presenting a small farce to an audience which had been

starved of dramatic entertainment for a long time, and consequently

showed tremendous appreciation.

The first penguin came waddling up the ice-foot against a seventy-mile

wind late on the afternoon of October 12. McLean brought the bird

back to the Hut and the newcomer received a great ovation. Stimulated

by their success on the previous night and the appearance of the

first penguin, the theatrical company added to their number, and,

dispensing with a rehearsal, produced an opera, ``The Washerwoman's

Secret'' (Laseron). Part of the Hut was curtained off as a combined

green-room and dressing-room; the kitchen was the stage; footlights

twinkled on the floor; the acetylene limelight beamed down from the

rafters, while the audience crowded on a form behind the dining-table,

making tactless remarks and steadily eating chocolate.

The typed programmes advertised the following:

THE WASHERWOMAN'S SECRET

(Opera in Five Acts)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

DR. STAKANHOISER (Tenor) ``Hoyle'' Hurley

CHEVALIER DE TINTAIL (Fiver) ``Johnny'' Hunter

BARON DE BRENT (Basso) ``Joe'' Laseron

COUNT HOOPENKOFF (Barrowtone) ``Little Willie'' Correll

MADAM FUCLOSE (Don't Sing) ``Also Joe'' Laseron

JEMIMA FUCLOSE (Soprano) ``Dad'' McLean

DR. STAKANHOISER'S Dog `` Monkey'' Greenland Pup

VILLAGE IDIOT ``Bick'' Bickerton

ORCHESTRA ``Stillwater Willie'' StillWell

ACT I

SCENE: Room in poorer part of Berlin: MADAM FUCLOSE in bed dying:

JEMIMA at table washing clothes

Song ``When Sparrows Build'' JEMIMA

[Knock at door. Enter Dr. STAKANHOISER.

Song: ``I vas a Doctor''

[Attends MADAM FUC10SE, who, when dying, tells him that JEMIMA is not

her daughter, but the Princess of Adeliana, whom she has rescued in

Paris during the Revolution.

Death Scene and Chorus: ``Who Killed my Mother?''

ACT II

SCENE: Beneath JEMIMA'S window

[Enter Dr. STAKANHOISER disguised as organ grinder.

Song: ``Vurds der Likum'' Dr. S.

[JEMIMA opens window and throws flour on DOCTOR.

[Enter BARON DE BRENT, kicks DOCTOR out.

Song: ``Baron of Brent''

[BARON makes love to JEMIMA, who laughs at him.

Duet: ``Wilt love me'' JEMIMA and BARON

[Enter CHEVALIER DE TINTAIL, who denounces the BARON as already

having four wives. The BARON goes off, muttering revenge.

Song: ``I'm in love with a wonderful lady'' CHEVALIER

[The CHEVALIER makes love to JEMIMA, who loves him in return.

Chorus: ``Jemima''

ACT III

SCENE: Conspirators' Chamber

[Enter DOCTOR, who hides behind a barrel.

[Enter COUNT HOOPENKOFF, who amuses himself playing a piccolo.

[Enter BARON. They discuss plot to kidnap Princess, which is

overheard by DOCTOR.

[Enter Ghost, who frightens conspirators away.

Chorus: ``Little Willie Smith''

ACT IV

SCENE: JEMIMA's room

[The CHEVALIER DE TINTAIL is waiting.

Song: ``I want you to see my Girl'' CHEVALIER

[Enter JEMIMA. Love scene.

[Enter DOCTOR, who discloses the plot he has heard and tells

JEMIMA of her high descent. The CHEVALIER and the DOCTOR hide,

and the two villains, by means of a ladder, enter the room.

The heroes spring from their hiding-place and the villains are ejected.

Chorus: ``There is a Wash-House''

ACT V

SCENE: Conspirators' Chamber

[The BARON and COUNT enter by different doors. They accuse each

other of having betrayed the plot. Duel follows in which both

are killed.

Duet: ``Mort de Botheo'' COUNT and BARON

[All the others rush in. The two lovers come together and the

DOCTOR says, ``God bless you, my children.''

Chorus: ``Auld Lang Syne'' COMPANY and AUDIENCE

And

GOD SAVE THE KING

Played by the Society for the Prevention of the Blues.

Saturday, October 12, 1912.

ADELIE HALL

Admission Free. Children Half Price.

October 13 was known as Black Sunday. We were all seated at dinner

and the Hut was quivering in the tornado-like gusts which followed a

heavy ``blow'' reaching a maximum hourly average of ninety-one

miles. One mighty blast was followed by a crack and the sound of a

heavy falling body. For a moment it was thought that something had

happened to the Hut. Then the messman ran out to the trap-door and

saw that the northern wireless mast had disappeared.

The weather showed but meagre signs of improvement, but the penguins

came up in great numbers. They were in groups all along the ice-foot

in the lee of rocks and icy pinnacles. They climbed up to their old

resorts, and in a few days commenced to build nests of small pebbles.

Skua gulls mysteriously appeared, snow petrels hovered along the

rocky ridges and odd seals landed on the wind-raked harbour ice.

Silver-grey and Antarctic petrels flew along the shore with

occasional Cape pigeons. If the weather were indifferent to the fact,

the birds did not forget that spring had come.

A Weddell seal calved on the bay-ice on October 18. For a week the

pup had a miserable time in winds ranging mostly about the seventies,

with the temperature below zero Fahrenheit. At last it became so weak

that it thawed a hole in the soft, sludgy ice and could not extricate

itself. Both it and the mother were killed and skinned for the

biological collection.

On all but the worst days a gang of men worked with picks and shovels

digging out the Hangar, so that Bickerton could test the air-tractor

sledge. The attack was concentrated upon a solid bank of snow and ice

into which heaps of tins and rubbish had been compactly frozen. In

soft snow enormous headway can be made in a short space of time, but

in that species of conglomerate, progress is slow. Eventually, a

cutting was made by which the machine could pass out. The rampart of

snow was broken through at the northern end of the Hangar, and the

sledge with its long curved runners was hauled forth triumphantly on

the 25th. From that time onwards Bickerton continued to experiment

and to improve the contrivance.

On October 21 there was a marked thaw inside the Hut. The frost

along all the cracks dissolved into water and ran down the walls

over pictures, on to book-shelves and bunks. The thick caking of

ice on the windows dripped continually, coming away in layers at

lunch-time and scattering among the diners at both ends of the table.

Every available bucket and tub was in use, and small tin-gutters

hooked under each window had to be emptied at frequent intervals.

Stillwell came in during the afternoon bearing an albino penguin

with a prettily mottled head; a curious freak of which the biologists

immediately took possession. The penguins now swarmed along the

foreshores, those not settling down in the rookeries wandering about

in small crowds, occasionally visiting the Hut and exploring among

the rocks or up the slippery glacier. Murphy was heard, at this

time, to advance a theory accounting for the fact that Adelie

penguins never made their nests on a scale more elaborate than a

collection of stones. He submitted that anything else would be blown

away. To support the contention, he stated that as soon as the female

lays her egg, she places a stone on top to weight it down. The

biologists kept a dignified silence during the discussion.

On the 21st an Emperor penguin landed on the harbour ice, and, early

in November, two more were captured. These imperial birds are very

rare on the coasts of Adelie Land, owing to the fact that their winter

breeding-grounds in Antarctica are selected in spots where climatic

conditions are comparatively good.

October closed with an average wind velocity of 56.9 miles per hour.

Yet the possibility of summer sledging was no longer remote. The

sun was high, spells of calm were longer and more frequent, and, with

the certain knowledge that we should be on the plateau in November,

the sledging parties were chosen, schemes of exploration were

discussed, and the last details for an extensive campaign completed.

CHAPTER XII ACROSS KING GEORGE V LAND

We yearned beyond the skyline.--Kipling

October had passed without offering any opportunities for sledging,

and we resolved that in defiance of all but the worst weather a start

would be made in November. The `Aurora' was due to arrive early in

January 1913 and the time at our disposal for exploration was

slipping away rapidly.

The investigation by sledging journeys of the coastline to the

eastward was regarded as of prime importance, for our experience in

the `Aurora' when in those longitudes during the previous year was such

as to give little promise of its ever being accomplished from the sea.

Westward, the coast was accessible from the sea; at least for some

distance in that direction. Madigan's journey in the springtime had

demonstrated that, if anything, the land to the west was steeper,

and consequently more windy conditions might be expected there.

Further, it was judged that information concerning this region would

be forthcoming from the ship, which had cruised westward after leaving

Adelie Land in January 1912. The field in that direction was

therefore not so promising as that to the east.

On this account the air-tractor sledge, of somewhat doubtful utility,

was detailed for use to the westward of Winter Quarters, and, as it

was obvious that the engine could only be operated in moderately

good weather, its final departure was postponed until December.

The following is a list of the parties which had been arranged and

which, now fully equipped, were on the tiptoe of expectation to

depart.

(1) A Southern Party composed of Bage (leader), Webb and Hurley. The

special feature of their work was to be magnetic observations in the

vicinity of the South Magnetic Pole.

(2) A Southern Supporting Party, including Murphy (leader), Hunter

and Laseron, who were to accompany the Southern Party as far as

possible, returning to Winter Quarters by the end of November.

(3) A Western Party of three men--Bickerton (leader), Hodgeman and

Whetter--who were to traverse the coastal highlands west of the Hut.

Their intention was to make use of the air-tractor sledge and the

departure of the party was fixed for early December.

(4) Stillwell, in charge of a Near Eastern Party, was to map the

coastline between Cape Denison and the Mertz Glacier-Tongue, dividing

the work into two stages. In the first instance, Close and Hodgeman

were to assist him; all three acting partly as supports to the other

eastern parties working further afield. After returning to the Hut at

the end of November for a further supply of stores, he was to set out

again with Close and Laseron in order to complete the work.

(5) An Eastern Coastal Party composed of Madigan (leader), McLean and

Correll was to start in early November with the object of investigating

the coastline beyond the Mertz Glacier.

(6) Finally, a Far-Eastern Party, assisted by the dogs, was to push

out rapidly overland to the southward of Madigan's party, mapping

more distant sections of the coastline, beyond the limit to which

the latter party would be likely to reach.

As the plans for the execution of such a journey had of necessity to

be more provisional than in the case of the others, I determined to

undertake it, accompanied by Ninnis and Mertz, both of whom had so

ably acquitted themselves throughout the Expedition and, moreover,

had always been in charge of the dogs.

November opened with more moderate weather, auguring still better

conditions for midsummer. Accordingly November 6 was fixed as the

date of final departure for several of the parties. The evening of

November 5 was made a special occasion: a farewell dinner, into which

everybody entered very heartily.

On the morning of the 6th, however, we found a strong blizzard raging

and the landscape blotted out by drift-snow, which did not clear

until the afternoon of the following day.

At the first opportunity, Murphy, Hunter and Laseron (supporting the

Southern Party) got away, but found the wind so strong at a level of

one thousand feet on the glacier that they anchored their sledge and

returned to the Hut for the night.

The next morning saw them off finally and, later in the day, the

Near-Eastern Party (Stillwell, Close and Hodgeman) and the Eastern

Coastal Party (Madigan, McLean and Correll) got under way, though

there was still considerable wind.

My own party was to leave on the 9th for, assisted by the dogs, we

could easily catch up to the other eastern parties, and it was our

intention not to part company with them until all were some distance

out on the road together.

The wind increased on the 9th and the air became charged with drift,

so we felt sure that those who preceded us would still be camped at

Aladdin's Cave, and that the best course was to wait.

At this date the penguin rookeries were full of new-laid eggs, and

the popular taste inclined towards omelettes, in the production of

which Mertz was a past master. I can recall the clamouring throng

who pressed round for the final omelette as Mertz officiated at the

stove just before we left on the 10th.

It was a beautiful calm afternoon as the sledge mounted up the long

icy slopes. The Southern Party (Bage, Webb and Hurley) were a short

distance in advance, but by the help of the dogs we were soon abreast

of them. Then Bickerton, who had given Bage's party a pull as far as

the three-mile post, bade us good-bye and returned to the Hut where he

was to remain in charge with Whetter and Hannam until the return of

Murphy's party.

At Aladdin's Cave, while some prepared supper, others selected tanks

of food from the depot and packed the sledges. After the meal, the

Southern Party bade us farewell and set off at a rapid rate,

intending to overhaul their supporting party on the same evening at

the Cathedral Grotto, eleven and three-quarter miles from the Hut.

Many finishing touches had to be put to our three sledges and two

teams of dogs, so that the departure was delayed till next morning.

We were up betimes and a good start was made before anything came of

the overcast sky which had formed during the night. The rendezvous

appointed for meeting the others, in case we had not previously

caught them up, was eighteen miles south-east of Aladdin's Cave. But,

with a view to avoiding crevasses as much as possible, a southerly

course was followed for several miles, after which it was directed

well to the east. In the meantime the wind had arisen and snow

commenced to fall soon after noon. In such weather it was impossible

to locate the other parties, so a halt was made and the tent pitched

after eight miles.

Five days of wind and drift followed, and for the next two days we

remained in camp. Then, on the afternoon of the 13th, the drift

became less dense, enabling us to move forward on an approximate

course to what was judged to be the vicinity of the rendezvous,

where we camped again for three days.

Comfortably ensconced in the sleeping-bags, we ate only a small

ration of food; the savings being carefully put away for a future

``rainy day.'' Outside, the dogs had at first an unpleasant time

until they were buried in snow which sheltered them from the

stinging wind. Ninnis and Mertz took turns day by day attending

to their needs.

The monotony and disappointment of delay were just becoming acute

when the wind fell off, and the afternoon of November 16 turned out

gloriously fine.

Several excursions were immediately made in the neighbourhood to

seek for the whereabouts of the other parties, but all were

unsuccessful. At length it occurred to us that something serious

might have happened, so we left our loads and started back at a

gallop for Aladdin's Cave with two empty sledges, Mertz careering

ahead on skis over the sastrugi field.

Shortly afterwards two black specks were seen away in the north; a

glance with the binoculars leaving no doubt as to the identity of the

parties. We returned to the loads, and, having picked them up, made

a course to the east to intercept the other men.

It was a happy camp that evening!with the three tents pitched

together, while we compared our experiences of the previous six days

and made plans for the outward journey.

Our sledge-meter had already suffered through bumping over rough ice

and sastrugi, and an exchange was made with the stronger one on

Stillwell's sledge. A quantity of food was also taken over from him

and the loads were finally adjusted.

The details and weights of the equipment on the three sledges

belonging to my party are sufficiently interesting to be set out

at length below. Most of the items were included in the impedimenta

of all our parties, but slight variations were necessary to meet

particular stances or to satisfy the whim of an individual.

TOTAL LOAD

The Principal Sledge, 11ft. long, 45 lb.

Fittings for Same: Instrument-box 7 lb. 5 oz.; cooker- box, 7 lb.

6 oz.; kerosene-tray, 3 lb.; mast-attachment, 2 lb. 8 oz.; mast, 1 lb.

16 oz.; spar, 1 lb. 8 oz.; decking (canvas and bamboo), 3 lb. 5 oz.;

rigging, 7.5 oz.; 5 leather straps, 5 lb. . . . . 77 lb. 6.5 oz.

Drill Tent, strengthened and attached to poles, also floor- cloth,

33 lb. Spare drill cover, 11 lb. 8 oz. . . . . . . . 44 lb. 8 oz.

Sleeping-bags, 3 one-man bags . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 lb. 0 oz.

Cooking gear: Nansen cooker, 11 lb. 3 oz.; 3 mugs, 1 lb. 8 oz., 2 tins,

10 oz.; scales, 0.5 oz.; 3 spoons, 1.5 oz.; matches, 13.5 oz., and

damp-proof tin to hold same, 3.7 oz.; ``Primus'' heater, full, 3 lb.

10 oz.; ``Primus'' prickers, 2.5 oz.; ``Primus'' repair outfit, 2 oz.;

kerosene tin openers and pourers, 4.5 oz.; spirit for ``Primus'' in

tin, 5 lb. 14 oz., also a ready bottle, full, 1 lb. 5 oz.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 lb. 14.2 oz.

Repair Outfit: Spare copper wire, rivets, needles, thread, etc.,

1 lb. 14.5 oz.; set of 12 tools, 15.5 oz.; requirements for repairing

dog-harness and medically treating the dogs, 3 lb. 8 oz

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 lb. 6 oz.

Medical Outfit: 6 ``Burroughs & Wellcome'' first field dressings;

absorbent cotton wool; boric wool; pleated lint; pleated bandages,

roll bandages; adhesive tape; liquid collodion; ``tabloid'' ophthalmic

drugs for treating snow-blindness; an assortment of ``tabloid'' drugs

for general treatment; canvas case containing scissors, forceps,

artery-forceps, scalpel, surgical needles and silk, etc.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 lb. 12.3 oz.

Photographic outfit: A 1/4-plate, long, extension-camera in a case,

with special stiffening board and 36 cut films, 4 lb. 4.5 oz.;

adaptor to accommodate camera to theodolite legs, 2 oz.; a water-tight

tin with 14 packets, each containing 12 cut films, 3 lb.10 oz.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 lb. 0.5 oz.

Surveying Requirements: A 3'' transit theodolite in case, 5 lb. 14 oz.;

legs for the same, 3 lb. 6 oz.; sledge-meter, 8 lb.; Tables from

Nautical Almanack and book of Logarithmic Tables, 1 lb. 3 oz.;

2 note books, 1 lb. 6 oz.; angle-books, 5 oz.; map-tube, 10 oz.;

maps, 6.5 oz.; pencils, 1.5 oz.; dividers and rubber, 1.5 oz.;

protractor and set-square, 0.5 oz.; prismatic compass and clinometer,

8.5 oz.; sun-compass (Bage's), 1.5 oz. . . . . . . . . 22 lb. 0 oz.

Other Instruments: Zeiss prismatic binoculars X.12, 1 lb. 13.5 oz.;

hypsometer, 2 lb. 1 oz.; 2 ordinary and 2 small minimum thermometers,

10 oz.; specimen labels, l oz. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 lb. 9.5 oz.

Rifle, 22-bore with cover and cleaner, 3 lb. 3.7 oz.; ammunition,

1 lb. 6 oz.; sheath knife, 5.5 oz.; sharpening stone, 1.5 oz.;

fishing line and hooks, 3.5 oz. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 lb. 14.7 oz.

Waterproof Clothe-bag, 4 lb. 8 oz., containing 9 pairs of finnesko

stuffed with saennegrass, 21 lb.; extra saennegrass, 3 lb.; 3 private

kit-bags containing spare clothing, etc., 39 lb.; 4 extra rolls of

lampwick for lashings, 1 lb. 3.5 oz. . . . . . . . . . 64 lb. 3.5 oz.

Odd gear: Pick, 4 lb. 5 oz.; 2 spades, 8 lb. 4 oz.; ice-axe, 2 lb.

4 oz.; alpine rope (20 metros) 3 lb.; skis (1 pair), 11 lb.;

ski-stick, 1 lb. 1 oz.; ski-boots (2 pairs), 6 lb.; attachable

crampons for the same, 4 lb.; finnesko-crampons (3 pairs), 9 lb.;

3 man-harnesses, 6 lb. 8 oz.; man-hauling tow-rope, 1 lb. 1 oz.;

flags, 9.5 oz.; a water-proof bag to hold oddments, 4 lb. 8 oz.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 lb. 8.5 oz.

Beacons: A depot-flag and bamboo pole, 5 lb.; a special metal

depot-beacon, mast, flag and stays, 16 lb.; 2 damp-proof tins for

depositing records at depots, 7.5 oz. . . . . . . . . . 21 lb. 7.5 oz.

Other Sledges: A second sledge decked with Venesta boarding and

fitted with straps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 lb. 0 oz.

A third sledge, 12 ft. long and strong rope lashings (spare spars

mentioned elsewhere acting as decking) . . . . . . . . 60 lb. 0 oz.

Fuel: Kerosene, 6 gallons in one-gallon tins . . . . . 60 lb. 0 oz.

Food: Man Food: 9 weeks' supplies for 3 men on the ration scale;

also 25 lb. weight of special foods--`perks' . . . . . 475 lb. 0 oz.

Dog Food: Dried seal meat, blubber and pemmican; also the weight of

the tin and bag-containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700 lb. 0 oz.

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1723 lb. 11.3 oz.

Madigan's and Stillwell's parties broke trail to the east on the

morning of the 17th while we were still attending to the sledges and

dogs preparatory to departure. It was decided that Gadget, a rather

miserable animal, who had shown herself useless as a puller thus far,

should be killed. The following dogs then remained:--Basilisk,

Shackleton, Ginger Bitch, Franklin, John Bull, Mary, Haldane, Pavlova,

Fusilier, Jappy, Ginger, George, Johnson, Castor, Betli and Blizzard.

We went in pursuit of the other six men over a surface of rough

sastrugi. The dogs, who were in fine fettle, rushed the sledges

along, making frantic efforts to catch up to the parties ahead,

who showed as black specks across the white undulating plain.

At noon all lunched together, after which we separated, shaking hands

warmly all round and interchanging the sledgers' ``Good luck!'' Our

dogs drew away rapidly to the east, travelling on a slight down

grade; the other two parties with their man-hauled sledges following

in the same direction. The surface was splendid, the weather

conditions were ideal, the pace, if anything, too rapid, for capsizes

were apt to occur in racing over high sastrugi. Any doubts as to

the capability of the dogs to pull the loads were dispelled; in fact,

on this and on many subsequent occasions, two of us were able to sit,

each one on a sledge, while the third broke trail ahead.

In sledging over wide, monotonous wastes with dogs as the motive

power, it is necessary to have a forerunner, that is, somebody to go

ahead and point the way, otherwise the dogs will run aimlessly about.

Returning over old tracks, they will pull along steadily and keep a

course. In Adelie Land we had no opportunity of verifying this, as

the continuous winds soon obliterated the impression of the runners.

If the weather is reasonably good and food is ample, sledging dogs

enjoy their work. Their desire to pull is doubtless inborn,

implanted in a long line of ancestors who have faithfully served the

Esquimaux. We found that the dogs were glad to get their harnesses on

and to be led away to the sledge. Really, it was often a case of the

dog leading the man, for, as soon as its harness was in place, the

impatient animal strained to drag whatever might be attached to the

other end of the rope. Before attaching a team of dogs to a sledge,

it was necessary to anchor the latter firmly, otherwise in their

ardour they would make off with it before everything was ready.

There can be no question as to the value of dogs as a means of

traction in the Polar regions, except when travelling continuously

over very rugged country, over heavily crevassed areas, or during

unusually bad weather. It is in such special stances that

the superiority of man-hauling has been proved. Further, in an

enterprise where human life is always at stake, it is only fair to

put forward the consideration that the dogs represent a reserve of

food in case of extreme emergency.

We continued due eastwards until five o'clock on the afternoon of

the 17th at an altitude of two thousand six hundred feet. On the

crest of a ridge, which bore away in distinct outline, on our left,

a fine panorama of coastal scenery was visible. Far off on the

eastern horizon the Mertz Glacier Tongue discovered itself in a long

wall touched in luminous bands by the south-western sun. A wide

valley fell away in front, and beyond it was a deep indentation of

the coastline, which would make it necessary for us to follow a more

southerly course in order to round its head.

I determined to convey to the other parties my intentions, which

had become more defined on seeing this view; and, in the meantime, we

halted and treated ourselves to afternoon tea. This innovation in the

ordinary routine was extended to a custom by saving a portion of the

lunch ration for a ``snack'' at 5 P.M. on all days when the weather

was moderately good. As latitude sights were required at midday and

longitude shots at 5 P.M., the arrangement was very convenient, for,

while one of us made tea, the other two took the observations.

About 6 P.M. the two man-hauled sledges came up with us, our plans

for the future were reviewed and the final instructions were given.

We bade our comrades adieu and, turning to the south-east, descended

quickly down a long slope leading into the valley. The sky was

overcast and it was almost impossible to see the irregularities of the

surface. Only a dull-white glare met the eyes, and the first

indication of a hillock was to stub one's toes against it, or of a

depression to fall into it. We pulled up the dogs at 7.30 P.M. after

covering thirteen and a quarter miles in the day.

At 9.45 A.M. on November 18 everything was ready for a fresh start.

The other parties could be seen rapidly bearing down on us under full

sail, but our willing teams had soon dragged the three sledges over an

eminence and out of their sight.

It was a lovely day; almost like a dream after the lengthy months of

harassing blizzards. A venturesome skua gull appeared at lunch time,

just as an observation for latitude was being taken. By the time

Ninnis had unpacked the rifle the bird had flown away.

The direction of the sastrugi was found to vary from that which

obtained farther west, owing to a slight swing in the direction of

the prevailing wind. The irregularities in the coastline account

for this; the wind tending to flow down to sea-level by the nearest

route.

To the north-west, behind us, a projecting ridge of rock--Madigan

Nunatak--came into sight. From the camp of the previous evening it

had evidently been hidden from view by an undulation in the surface.

During the afternoon it was noted that the surface had become very

deeply eroded by the wind, troughs three feet in depth being common,

into which the sledges frequently capsized. Each of us took it in

turn to run ahead, jumping from one sastruga to another. As these

were firm and polished by the constant wind, one often slipped with

a sudden shock to the ground. Our bodies were well padded with

clothing and we were beginning to get into good form, so that these

habitual tumbles were taken with the best grace we could muster. I

surprised myself during the afternoon, when my turn came as

forerunner, by covering two and a half miles at a jog-trot without a

break. The grade was slightly downhill and the sledges moved along

of their own accord, accelerated by jerks from the dogs, gliding at

right angles to the knife-edge crests of the snow-waves.

The roughness of the surface was not without its effect on the

sledge-meter, which had to be repaired temporarily. It was a matter

of some inconvenience that after this date its records were erroneous

and approximate distances were only obtained by checking the readings

against absolute observations made for latitude and longitude.

At 5.30 P.M. a dark object stood in salient relief above the white

contour of the snowy sky-line on the right. Suppressing our

excitement, we pressed on eagerly, changing course so as to approach

it. At nine o'clock it resolved itself into the summit of an

imposing mountain rising up from a mysterious valley. Aurora Peak,

as it was named, was to be a prominent landmark for several days to

come.

All were ready to be on the move at 8.45 A.M. on November 19.

While Mertz and Ninnis built a cairn of snow, I wrote a note to be

left on it in a tin, containing instructions to Stillwell in case he

should happen on the locality.

The weather was good and the temperatures were high, ranging at this

time (one month from midsummer) between zero and 18 degrees F. When

we camped for lunch the air was quite calm and the sun's rays were

extremely warm.

The surface became softer and smoother as the afternoon lengthened

until Mertz was tempted to put on his skis. He then became forerunner

for the remainder of the day.

Mertz, who was skilled in the use of skis, found them of great

service on this and on many future occasions. At such times he would

relieve Ninnis and myself in the van. On the other hand, over deeply

furrowed sastrugi or blue ice, or during a strong wind, unless it

were at our backs, skiing was impossible.

Owing to a steeper down grade, the sledges were now commencing to run

more freely and improvised brakes were tried, all of which were

ineffectual in restraining the dogs. The pace became so hot that a

small obstacle would capsize the sledge, causing it to roll over and

over down the slope. The dogs, frantically pulling in various

directions to keep ahead of the load, became hopelessly entangled in

their traces and were dragged along unresistingly until the sledge

stopped of its own accord or was arrested by one of us. At length,

most of the dogs were allowed to run loose, and, with a man holding on

behind and a couple of dogs pulling ahead, the loads were piloted down

a steep slope for several miles.

The evening camp was situated at the crest of the last but steepest

fall into a wide glacial valley which was clearly seen to sweep

northwards past the eastern side of Aurora Peak. Looking back we

could define our track winding down in the bed of a long shallow

valley, while, uprising on either hand near the rim of the plateau

were crevassed bluffs where the ice of the tableland streamed

abruptly over the underlying crags.

Ninnis had a touch of snow-blindness which rapidly improved under

treatment. The stock cure for this very irritating and painful

affection is to place first of all tiny ``tabloids'' of zinc sulphate

and cocaine hydrochloride under the eyelids where they quickly

dissolve in the tears, alleviating the smarting, ``gritty'' sensation

which is usually described by the sufferer. He then bandages the

eyes and escapes, if he is lucky, into the darkness of his

sleeping-bag.

In certain lights one is sure to be attacked more or less severely,

and coloured glasses should be worn continually. Unfortunately,

goggles are sometimes impracticable on account of the moisture from

the breath covering the glasses with an icy film or driving snow

clogging them and obscuring the view. For such contingencies narrow

slots of various shapes are cut in plates or discs of wood or bone in

the Esquimaux fashion. The amount of light reaching the eye can thus

be reduced to the limit of moderately clear vision.

The morning of the 20th broke with wind and drift which persisted

until after noon. Already everything had been packed up, but, as

there was a steep fall in front and crevasses were not far distant,

we decided not to start until the air was clear of snow.

When at last a move was possible, it became evident that the dogs

could not be trusted to pull the sledges down to the edge of the

glacier. So they were tethered to ice-axes while we lowered the

sledges one by one, all three checking their speed, assisted by rope

brakes round the runners. Finally, the impatient dogs were brought

down and harnessed in their accustomed places.

Rapid travelling now commenced over a perfectly smooth surface,

sloping gently to the bed of the glacier. Mertz shot ahead on skis,

and our column of dogs and sledges followed quickly in his trail.

From this day forward our ``order of procession'' was as follows:--

Behind the forerunner came a team of dogs dragging two sledges joined

together by a short length of alpine rope. Bringing up the rear were

the rest of the dogs dragging the third sledge. Each team pulled

approximately equal weights; the front load being divided between two

sledges. Except when taking my turn ahead, I looked after the leading

team, Ninnis or Mertz, as the case might be, driving the one behind.

We skirted Aurora Peak on its south-eastern side. The mountain rose

to a height of about seventeen hundred feet on our left, its steep

sides being almost completely snow-clad.

The wide depression of the Mertz Glacier lay ahead, and on its far

side the dim outline of uprising icy slopes was visible, though at

the time we could not be certain as to their precise nature.

As the sledges passed Aurora Peak, Blizzard and Ginger Bitch ran

alongside. The former had hurt one of her forefeet on the previous

day during the ``rough-and-tumble'' descending into the valley.

Ginger Bitch was allowed to go free because she was daily expected to

give birth to pups. As she was such a good sledge-dog we could not

have afforded to leave her behind at the Hut, and later events proved

that the work seemed actually to benefit her, for she was at all

times the best puller and the strongest of the pack. However, in

permitting both dogs to run loose that afternoon, there was an element

of danger which we had not sufficiently appreciated.

Suddenly, without any warning, half of my dogs dropped out of sight,

swinging on their harness ropes in a crevasse. Next moment I realized

that the sledges were in the centre of a bridge covering a crevasse,

twenty-five feet wide, along the edge of which part of the team had

broken through.

We spent many anxious moments before they were all hauled to the

daylight and the sledge rested on solid ground. There were other

crevasses about and almost immediately afterwards Ginger Bitch and

Blizzard had broken through into a fissure and were frantically

struggling to maintain their hold on the edge. They were speedily

rescued; following which Ginger Bitch gave birth to the first of a

large litter of pups. After this second accident we decided to camp.

During the morning of November 21 there was a good deal of wind and

drift which made travelling rather miserable. Occasionally open

crevasses would break the surface of the snow.

When the light at last improved, a nunatak was observed some fifteen

miles or more to the south rising out of the glacier--Correll Nunatak.

Ahead of us was a glittering line of broken ice, stretching at right

angles to our path. Studded about on the icy plain were immense

cauldrons, like small craters in appearance. Then an area dotted over

with ice mounds approached and crevasses became correspondingly more

numerous. The dogs frequently broke through them but were easily

extricated in every instance.

Camp was pitched for lunch in the vicinity of many gaping holes

leading down into darkness, places where the bridges over large

crevasses had fallen in. Mertz prepared the lunch and Ninnis and I

went to photograph an open crevasse near by. Returning, we diverged

on reaching the back of the tent, he passing round on one side and I

on the other. The next instant I heard a bang on the ice and,

swinging round, could see nothing of my companion but his head and

arms. He had broken through the lid of a crevasse fifteen feet wide

and was hanging on to its edge close to where the camera lay damaged

on the ice. He was soon dragged into safety. Looking down into the

black depths we realized how narrowly he had escaped. As the tent

was found to encroach partly on the same crevasse, it may be imagined

that we did not dally long over the meal.

In the afternoon the weather became clear and fine, but, as if to

offset this, the broken surface became impassable. The region was one

of serac where the glacier was puckered up, folded and crushed. After

several repulses in what seemed to be promising directions, we were

finally forced to camp, having ten miles to our credit.

Whilst Mertz fed the dogs and prepared hoosh, Ninnis and I roped up

and went off to search for a passage.

All around, the glacier was pressed up into great folds, two hundred

feet in height and between one quarter and a third of a mile from

crest to crest. The ridges of the folds were either domes or open

rifts partly choked with snow. Precipitous ice-falls and deep

cauldrons were encountered everywhere. To the north the glacier

flattened out; to the south it was more rugged.

In this chaos we wandered for some miles until a favourable line of

advance had been discovered for the march on the following day.

The first three miles, on the 22nd, were over a piece of very

dangerous country, after which our prospects improved and we came

to the border of a level plain.

There Mertz slipped on his skis, went ahead and set a good pace.

Although the sky had become overcast and snow fell fitfully, our

progress was rapid towards the rising slopes of the land on the

eastern side of the glacier. Over the last three miles of the day's

journey the surface was raised in large, pimply masses surrounded

by wide fissures. Into one of the fissures, bridged by snow,

Ninnis's sledge fell, but fortunately jammed itself just below the

surface. As it was, we had a long job getting it up again, having

to unpack the sledge in the crevasse until it was light enough to

be easily manipulated. Despite the delay, our day's run was sixteen

and a half miles.

At 8 A.M. on the 23rd everything was in readiness for a fresh start.

Moderate drift and wind descended from the hills and there were yet

three miles of hidden perils to be passed. With the object of making

our advance less dangerous, various devices were employed.

First of all the towing rope of the rear sledge was secured to the

back of the preceding sledge. This arrangement had to be abandoned

because the dogs of Ninnis's team persisted in entangling themselves

and working independently of the dogs in front. Next, all the

sledges were joined together with all the dogs pulling in front. The

procession was then so long that it was quite unmanageable on account

of the tortuous nature of our track through the labyrinth. In the

long run, it was decided that our original method was the best,

provided that special precautions were taken over the more hazardous

crossings.

The usual procedure was, that the forerunner selected the best

crossing of a crevasse, testing it with a ski-stick. The dog teams

were then brought up to the spot and the forerunner went over the

snow-bridge and stood on the other side, sufficiently far away to

allow the first team to cross to him and to clear the crevasse.

Then the second team was piloted to safety before the forerunner had

resumed his position in front. This precaution was very necessary,

for otherwise the dogs in the rear would make a course direct for

wherever the front dogs happened to be, cutting across corners and

most probably dragging their sledge sideways into a crevasse; the

likeliest way to lose it altogether.

Often enough the dogs broke through the snow-bridges on the morning

of the 23rd, but only once were matters serious, when Ninnis's sledge,

doubtless on account of its extra weight, again broke through a lid

of snow and was securely jammed in a crevasse just below the surface.

On this occasion we were in a serious predicament, for the sledge was

in such a position that an unskilful movement would have sent it

hurling into the chasm below. So the unpacking of the load was a

tedious and delicate operation. The freight consisted chiefly of

large, soldered tins, packed tightly with dried seal meat. Each of

these weighed about ninety pounds and all were most securely roped

to the sledge. The sledge was got up and reloaded without the loss

of a single tin, and once more we breathed freely.

A valley almost free of crevasses was chosen as the upward track to

the plateau. We threw in our weight hauling with the dogs, and had

a long, steep drag over furrowed neve, pitching the tent after a

day's journey of twelve miles.

On waking up on November 24 I found that my watch had stopped. I had

been so tired on the previous evening that I had fallen asleep without

remembering to wind it. The penalty of this accident was paid in my

being forced to take an extra set of observations in order to start

the watch again at correct time relative to the Hut.

Besides the observations for position, necessary for navigation, sets

of angles were taken from time to time to fix the positions of objects

of interest appearing within the field of view, while the magnetic

variation was obtained at intervals. In this work Ninnis always

assisted me. Mertz boiled the hypsometer when necessary to ascertain

our elevation above sea-level. The meteorological conditions were

carefully noted several times each day for future comparison with

those of other parties and of Winter Quarters.

The day's work on November 24 brought us high up on the slopes. Away

to the north-west Aurora Peak was still visible, standing up like a

mighty beacon pointing the way back to the Hut. Below lay the

Mertz Glacier extending out to sea as a floating tongue beyond the

horizon. Inland, some twenty miles to the south, it mounted up in

seamed and riven ``cataracts'' to a smooth, broad and shallow groove

which wound into the ice-cap. Ahead, on our south-east course, the

ground still rose, but to the north-east the ice-sheet fell away in

long wide valleys, at the extremity of some of which icebergs were

visible frozen into distant sea-ice.

The tent was raised at 10 P.M. in a forty-mile wind with light drift;

temperature 10 degrees F. The altitude of this camp was two thousand

three hundred and fifty feet.

One of the worst features of drift overnight is that sledges and dogs

become buried in snow and have to be dug out in the morning. Thus on

the 25th it was 10 A.M. before we got away in a strong wind, with

flying snow, across fields of sastrugi.

The dogs detested the wind and, as their heads were so near the

ground, they must have found the incessant stream of thick drift

very tantalizing. The snow became caked over their eyes so that

every few minutes they had to scrape it away with their paws or rub

their faces on the ground.

We stopped at 6 P.M. after a miserable day, covering sixteen miles in

all.

November 26 broke overcast, the light being bad for travelling and the

wind still strong. Nevertheless we set out at 10 A.M. through

falling snow.

As the day progressed the wind subsided and Mertz was able to put on

his skis over a surface which sloped gradually away to the east.

The light was diffused uniformly over the irregularities of snow and

ice so that depressions only a few feet away were invisible. Black

objects, on the other hand, stood out with startling distinctness,

and our attention was soon arrested by a hazy, dark patch which

appeared in front and to the left. At first there was much doubt as

to its nature, but it was soon clear that it must be a group of rocks,

apparently situated at a considerable distance. They were

subsequently found to be sixty miles away (Organ Pipe Cliffs, near

Cape Blake).

Presently our course ended abruptly at the edge of a precipitous

fall. We skirted round this for a while, but were ultimately forced

to camp owing to the uncertainty of the light and the proximity of

several large crevasses.

At 11 P.M. the sky cleared and a better idea could be gained of what

lay ahead. In a line between our elevated position and the distant

rocky outcrops the ice fell in a steep descent to a broad, glacial

valley, undulating and in places traversed by torn masses of serac-

ice. We examined the country to the east very carefully with a view

to selecting a track for the journey next day and finally resolved

to pass to the south of a large ice-capped island--Dixson Island,

which was only about ten miles to the north-east, set within

Ninnis Glacier near its western border

On the 27th Mertz and I roped up, reconnoitred for a while and

returned to the sledges. We then spent several hours in advancing

a mile over badly broken ground, arriving at a slope covered with

sastrugi and descending steeply for one thousand feet into the bed

of the glacier.

In order the more safely to negotiate this, the dogs were all let

loose excepting two in each sledge. Even then the sledges were often

uncontrollable, rolling over and over many times before the bottom

was reached.

When the dogs were re-harnessed it was found that Betli was missing

and was not to be seen when we scanned the slopes in our rear with

binoculars. It was expected that unless she had fallen into a

crevasse she would turn up at the camp that night. However, she did

not reappear, and we saw no more of her. Two other dogs, Jappy and

Fusilier, had been previously killed, as neither was of any use as a

puller. Blizzard, who had been always a great favourite with us, had

to be shot next day.

When it had reached the edge of the glacier, our path led over a solid

ocean rising and faring in billows, two hundred and fifty feet in

height; no doubt caused by the glacier in its northward movement

being compressed against the southern side of Dixson Island. Still,

the ``caravan'' made considerable progress, ending with a day's

journey of sixteen miles.

During the small hours of November 28 the wind rose to a velocity of

sixty miles per hour, but gradually diminished to a twenty-knot breeze

as the day advanced. Light snow fell from a sky which was densely

clouded.

We still pursued a devious track amid rolling waves of ice,

encountering beds of soft snow through which the sledges moved slowly.

By 6 P.M. pinnacles and hummocks stood around on every side, and

the light was such that one could not distinguish crevasses until he

was on top of them. We had to camp and be satisfied with seven miles

``to the good.'' By this time the dogs were in good training and

grew noticeably ravenous. In the evening, before they were properly

tethered, Shackleton seized a one-week provision bag, ripped it open

and ate a block of butter weighing more than two and a half pounds.

This was a loss to us, as butter was regarded as a particular

delicacy.

The sun was shining brightly next day and it was at once evident

that we were in a zone of tumbled and disrupted ice.

For many hours a way was won through a mighty turmoil of serac and

over innumerable crevasses with varied fortune. Just before lunch my

two sledges were nearly lost through the dogs swinging sharply to

one side before the second sledge had cleared a rather rotten

snow-bridge. I was up with the dogs at the time, and the first

intimation I received of an accident was on seeing the dogs and front

sledge being dragged backwards; the rear sledge was hanging

vertically in a crevasse. Exerting all my strength I held back the

front sledge, and in a few moments was joined by Ninnis and Mertz,

who soon drove a pick and ice-axe down between the runners and ran out

an anchoring rope.

It was a ticklish business recovering the sledge which hung suspended

in the crevasse. It could not be lifted vertically as its bow was

caught in a V-shaped cornice formed by an overhanging mass of snow.

To add to our troubles the ground all about the place was precarious

and unsafe.

Mertz and Ninnis therefore lowered me down and I attached a rope to

the tail-end of the sledge. The bow-rope and tail-rope were then

manipulated alternately until the bow of the sledge was manoeuvred

slowly through the gaping hole in the snow-lid and was finally

hauled up on to level ground. No more remarkable test of the

efficiency of the sledge straps and the compactness of the load

could have been made.

After lunch Mertz ascended a high point and was able to trace out

a route which conducted us in a few hours to a better surface.

We were now at an elevation of from four hundred to five hundred feet

above sea-level, running across a beam-wind on our right which

increased during the afternoon. A rising blizzard made it necessary

to camp after a day's run of ten and one-third miles.

The wind blew up to seventy miles an hour during the night, but eased

in strength early on November 30. At 1O A.M. we tried to make a

start, but the dogs refused to face the drift. On the wind becoming

gusty in the afternoon, it was once more possible to travel, and we

set out.

Dense drift was still to be seen pouring over the highlands to the

south-east. Above the glacier ahead whirlies, out-lined in high

revolving columns of snow, ``stalked about'' in their wayward courses.

The sledges ran through a sea of crevassed, blue ice, over ridges and

past open chasms. Seven miles brought us to the ``foot-hills'' on the

eastern border of the Ninnis Glacier, where we pitched camp.

The first day of December was still and hot, with brilliant sunshine.

The shade temperature reached 34 degrees F. and the snow became so

sticky that it was as much as we and the dogs could do to move the

sledges up the slopes. As the evening lengthened and the sun sank

lower the surface froze hard and our toil was lightened. At midnight

we reached an altitude of nine hundred feet.

December 2 was another warm, bright day. The surface was atrociously

bad; hard, sharp sastrugi, never less than two feet high and in many

instances three feet six inches from crest to trough. The dogs were

not able to exert a united pull for there were never more than half

of them in action at a time.

Once more we were at a comparatively high altitude and a fine view

presented itself to the north. One could look back to the mainland

slopes descending on the western side of the Ninnis Glacier. Then the

glacier, tumultuous and broken, was seen to extend far out into the

frozen sea and, sweeping round to the north-east, the eye ranged over

a great expanse of floe-ice dotted with bergs. To the east there was

a precipitous coastline of dark rock which for a while we thought of

visiting. But then it seemed likely that Madigan's party would reach

as far east, so we set our faces once more to the rising plateau

in the south-east.

At midnight the sun was peering over the southern sky-line, and we

halted at an elevation of one thousand five hundred and fifty feet,

having covered eight and a half miles in the day. The temperature was

5 degrees F.

``December 3.--We were not long on the way before the sky became

overcast and light snow fell. The surface was becoming flatter.

Camp was pitched at 11 P.M. after eleven and two-thirds miles.

``December 4.--Another day of bad light but the surface improved and

good headway was made on an easterly course at an elevation of

between two thousand and two thousand eight hundred feet. The

crevasses were practically past. The day's march was fifteen miles.

``December 5.--A bad day; overcast, snowing and a gale of wind from

the east-south-east. However, we plugged on blindly into it until

7.30 P.M. and then camped, having done eleven and a half miles.

``December 6, 7 and 8.--During these days a dense blizzard raged, the

wind reaching seventy miles per hour. There was nothing to do but

lie in our bags and think out plans for the future. Each morning

Ninnis and Mertz took it in turns to go out and feed their charges,

who were snugly buried in the deep snow.

`` One day in the sleeping-bag does not come amiss after long marches,

but three days on end is enough to bore any one thoroughly.

``Ninnis was not so badly off with a volume of Thackeray, but Mertz

had come to the end of a small edition of `Sherlock Holmes' when

blizzard-bound near Aladdin's Cave, and his only diversion on these

days was to recite passages from memory for our mutual benefit.''

I was troubled with an inflammation in the face just at this time,

while Ninnis suffered pain owing to a ``whitlow'' on one of his

fingers.

As usual the food ration was reduced. This caused us to have more

than ordinarily vivid dreams. I happened to be awake one night when

Ninnis was sledging in imagination, vociferously shouting, ``Hike,

hike,'' to the dogs; our equivalent of the usual ``Mush, mush.''

Despite considerable wind and drift we got away at 8 A.M. on

December 9. The sky was overcast and there was nothing to be seen

except a soft carpet of newly fallen snow into which we sank half-way

to the knees. The sledges ran deeply and heavily so that the dogs

had to be assisted. Ahead Mertz glided along triumphant, for it was

on such occasions that skis were of the greatest assistance to him.

During the day a snow petrel circled above us for a while and then

returned to the north.

The course was due east at an elevation of two thousand three hundred

feet and the total distance we threw behind during the day was

sixteen and a half miles.

On the 10th light wind and low drift were the order of things. Our

spirits rose when the sky cleared and a slight down grade commenced.

During the morning Ninnis drew our attention to what appeared to be

small ice-capped islets fringing the coast, but the distance was too

great for us to be sure of their exact nature. Out near the verge of

the horizon a tract of frozen sea with scattered bergs could be seen.

Next day more features were distinguishable. The coast was seen to

run in a north-easterly direction as a long peninsula ending in a

sharp cape--Cape Freshfield. The north appeared to be filled with

frozen sea though we could not be certain that it was not dense pack-

ice. Little did we know that Madigan's party, about a week later,

would be marching over the frozen sea towards Cape Freshfield in the

north-east.

At 10 P.M. on the 11th, at an altitude of one thousand eight hundred

feet, the highland we were traversing fell away rapidly and sea-ice

opened up directly in front of us. The coastal downfalls to the

south-east fell in rugged masses to a vertical barrier, off the

seaward face of which large, tabular bergs were grouped within

environing floe.

Throughout December 12 a somewhat irregular course was made to the

south-east and south to avoid the broken area ahead. We had had

enough of crevasses and wished to be clear of serac-ice in the future.

For some days Ninnis had been enduring the throbbing pain of a whitlow

and had not been having sufficient sleep. He always did his share

of the work and had undoubtedly borne a great deal of pain without

showing it. On several nights I noticed that he sat up in his

sleeping-bag for hours puffing away at a pipe or reading. At last

the pain became so acute that he asked me to lance his finger. This

was successfully accomplished after breakfast on the 13th and during

the day he had much relief.

While Ninnis rested before we made a start, Mertz and I re-arranged

the sledges and their loads. A third sledge was no longer necessary,

so the one usually driven by Ninnis, which had been damaged, was

discarded and all the gear was divided between the other two sledges

in nearly equal amounts. When the work was completed, the rear

sledge carried an extra weight of fifty pounds. As, however, both

food for men and dogs were to come from it, we reckoned that this

superadded load would soon diminish.

On we went, during the afternoon, up a steep ascent. Crevasses were

so numerous that we took measures to vent them. Some were as

much as a hundred feet in width, filled with snow; others were great

open holes or like huge cauldrons. Close to the windward edge of some

of the latter high ramps of neve with bluff faces on the windward side

stood up like monoliths reaching twenty-five feet in maximum height.

In the evening a field of neve was reached and we felt more placid

after the anxiety of the preceding hours.

During the passage of a snow-filled valley a dull, booming sound

like the noise of far-distant cannon was heard. It was evidently

connected with the subsidence of large areas of the surface crust.

Apparently large cavities had formed beneath the snow and the weight

of ourselves and the sledges caused the crust to sink and the air to

be expelled.

The sun appeared late in the day and, as it was almost calm, the last

few hours of marching were very pleasant. At midnight we camped at an

altitude of one thousand nine hundred feet.

A light east-south-east wind was blowing as the sledges started away

eastward on the morning of December 14. The weather was sunny and

the temperature registered 21 degrees F.

Mertz and I were happy to know that Ninnis had slept well and was

feeling much better.

Our march was interrupted at noon by a latitude observation, after

which Mertz went ahead on skis singing his student songs. The dogs

rose to the occasion and pulled eagerly and well. Everything was for

once in harmony and the time was at hand when we should turn our

faces homewards.

Mertz was well in advance of us when I noticed him hold up his ski-

stick and then go on. This was a signal for something unusual so,

as I approached the vicinity, I looked out for crevasses or some other

explanation of his action. As a matter of fact crevasses were not

expected, since we were on a smooth surface of neve well to the

southward of the broken coastal slopes. On reaching the spot where

Mertz had signalled and seeing no sign of any irregularity, I jumped

on to the sledge, got out the book of tables and commenced to figure

out the latitude observation taken on that day. Glancing at the

ground a moment after, I noticed the faint indication of a crevasse.

It was but one of many hundred similar ones we had crossed and had

no specially dangerous appearance, but still I turned quickly round,

called out a warning word to Ninnis and then dismissed it from my

thoughts.

Ninnis, who was walking along by the side of his sledge, close behind

my own, heard the warning, for in my backward glance I noticed that

he immediately swung the leading dogs so as to cross the crevasse

squarely instead of diagonally as I had done. I then went on with

my work.

There was no sound from behind except a faint, plaintive whine from

one of the dogs which I imagined was in reply to a touch from

Ninnis's whip. I remember addressing myself to George, the laziest

dog in my own team, saying, ``You will be getting a little of that,

too, George, if you are not careful.''

When I next looked back, it was in response to the anxious gaze

of Mertz who had turned round and halted in his tracks. Behind me,

nothing met the eye but my own sledge tracks running back in the

distance. Where were Ninnis and his sledge?

I hastened back along the trail thinking that a rise in the ground

obscured the view. There was no such good fortune, however, for I

came to a gaping hole in the surface about eleven feet wide. The

lid of a crevasse had broken in; two sledge tracks led up to it on

the far side but only one continued on the other side.

Frantically waving to Mertz to bring up my sledge, upon which there

was some alpine rope, I leaned over and shouted into the dark depths

below. No sound came back but the moaning of a dog, caught on a shelf

just visible one hundred and fifty feet below. The poor creature

appeared to have broken its back, for it was attempting to sit up with

the front part of its body while the hinder portion lay limp. Another

dog lay motionless by its side. Close by was what appeared in the

gloom to be the remains of the tent and a canvas tank containing food

for three men for a fortnight.

We broke back the edge of the neve lid and took turns leaning over

secured by a rope, calling into the darkness in the hope that our

companion might be still alive. For three hours we called unceasingly

but no answering sound came back. The dog had ceased to moan and lay

without a movement. A chill draught was blowing out of the abyss.

We felt that there was little hope.

Why had the first sledge escaped the crevasse? It seemed that I had

been fortunate, because my sledge had crossed diagonally, with a

greater chance of breaking the snow-lid. The sledges were within

thirty pounds of the same weight. The explanation appeared to be

that Ninnis had walked by the side of his sledge, whereas I had

crossed it sitting on the sledge. The whole weight of a man's body

bearing on his foot is a formidable load and no doubt was sufficient

to smash the arch of the roof.

By means of a fishing line we ascertained that it was one hundred and

fifty feet sheer to the ledge on which the remains were seen; on

either side the crevasse descended into blackness. It seemed so very

far down there and the dogs looked so small that we got out the field

glasses, but could make out nothing more by their aid.

All our available rope was tied together but the total length was

insufficient to reach the ledge and any idea of going below to

investigate and to secure some of the food had to be abandoned.

Stunned by the unexpectedness of it all and having exhausted the few

appliances we carried for such a contingency, we felt helpless. In

such moments action is the only tolerable thing, and if there had

been any expedient however hazardous which might have been tried, we

should have taken all and more than the risk. Stricken dumb with

the pity of it and heavy at heart, we turned our minds mechanically

to what lay nearest at hand.

There were rations on the other sledge, and we found that there was

a bare one and a half weeks' food for ourselves and nothing at all

for the dogs. Part of the provisions consisted of raisins and almonds

which had been taken as extras or ``perks,'' as they were usually

called.

Among other losses there were both spade and ice-axe, but fortunately

a spare tent-cover was saved. Mertz's burberry trousers had gone

down with the sledge and the best substitute he could get was a pair

of thick Jaeger woollen under-trousers from the spare clothing we

possessed.

Later in the afternoon Mertz and I went ahead to a higher point in

order to obtain a better view of our surroundings. At a point two

thousand four hundred feet above sea-level and three hundred and

fifteen and three-quarter miles eastward from the Hut, a complete

observation for position and magnetic azimuth was taken.

The coastal slopes were fearfully broken and scaured in their descent

to the sea, which was frozen out to the horizon. No islands were

observed or anything which could correspond with the land marked by

Wilkes as existing so much farther to the north. Patches of ``water

sky'' were visible in two places in the far distance. As we stood

looking north a Wilson petrel suddenly appeared and after flitting

about for a short time departed.

We returned to the crevasse and packed the remaining sledge,

discarding everything unnecessary so as to reduce the weight of

the load. A thin soup was made by boiling up all the old food-bags

which could be found. The dogs were given some worn-out fur mitts,

finnesko and several spare raw hide straps, all of which they devoured.

We still continued to call down into the crevasse at regular intervals

in case our companion might not have been killed outright and, in the

meantime, have become conscious. There was no reply.

A weight was lowered on the fishing line as far as the dog which had

earlier shown some signs of life, but there was no response. All were

dead, swallowed up in an instant.

When comrades tramp the road to anywhere through a lonely blizzard-

ridden land in hunger, want and weariness the interests, ties and

fates of each are interwoven in a wondrous fabric of friendship and

affection. The shock of Ninnis's death struck home and deeply

stirred us.

He was a fine fellow and a born soldier--and the end:--

Life--give me life until the end,

That at the very top of being,

The battle spirit shouting in my blood,

Out of very reddest hell of the fight

I may be snatched and flung

Into the everlasting lull,

The Immortal, Incommunicable Dream.

At 9 P.M. we stood by the side of the crevasse and I read the burial

service. Then Mertz shook me by the hand with a short ``Thank you!''

and we turned away to harness up the dogs.

CHAPTER XIII TOIL AND TRIBULATION

The homeward track! A few days ago--only few hours ago-our hearts

had beat hopefully at the prospect and there was no hint of this,

the overwhelming tragedy. Our fellow, comrade, chum, in a woeful

instant, buried in the bowels of the awful glacier. We could not

think of it; we strove to forget it in the necessity of work, but

we knew that the truth would assuredly enter our souls in the lonely

days to come. It was to be a fight with Death and the great

Providence would decide the issue.

On the outward journey we had left no depots of provisions en route,

for it was our bad fortune to meet such impossible country that we

had decided to make a circuit on our return to Winter Quarters

sufficiently far inland to avoid the coastal irregularities. As a

matter of fact, on the very day of the calamity, preparations had

been made to cache most of the food within twenty-four hours, as

during the last few days of the journey we were to make a dash to our

``farthest east'' point. Such were the plans, and now we were ranged

against unexpected odds.

With regard to the dogs, there were six very miserable animals

left. The best of them had been drafted into the rear team, as it

was expected that if an accident happened through the collapse of

a snow-bridge the first sledge would most probably suffer. For the

same reason most of the food and other indispensable articles had been

carried on the rear sledge.

All the dogs which had perished were big and powerful; Basilisk,

Ginger Bitch, Shackleton, Castor, Franklin and John Bull.

We had fully anticipated that those at least would come back alive,

at the expense of the six dogs in my sledge.

A silent farewell!--and we started back, aiming to reach our

camping-ground on December 12 before a snowstorm intervened, as

several things had been left there which would be of use to us in our

straitened stances. The weather still held good and there were

no signs of approaching snow or wind. So Mertz went ahead on skis,

while we plodded slowly up the hills and dashed recklessly down

them. During the descents I sat on the sledge and we slid over long

crevassed slopes in a wild fashion, almost with a languid feeling that

the next one would probably swallow us up. But we did not much care

then, as it was too soon after losing our friend.

At 2.30 A.M. on December 15 the discarded sledge and broken spade

came into sight. On reaching them, Mertz cut a runner of the broken

sledge into two pieces which were used in conjunction with his skis

as a framework on which to pitch the spare tent-cover; our only tent

and poles having been lost. Each time the makeshift shelter was

erected, these props had to be carefully lashed together at the apex,

which stood four feet from the ground. Inside, there was just room

for two one-man sleeping-bags on the floor. However, only one man at

a time could move about and neither of us could ever rise above a

sitting posture. Still, it was a shelter which protected us from the

bad weather, and, with plenty of snow blocks piled around it, was

wonderfully resistant to the wind.

When we retired to rest, it was not to sleep but to think out the best

plan for the return journey.

It was obvious that a descent to the frozen sea would be dangerous on

account of the heavily crevassed nature of the falling glacier, delay

would undoubtedly be caused and our distance from the Hut would be

increased. To decide definitely for the sea-ice would be to take

other risks as well, since, from the altitude at which we were placed,

we could not be sure that the floe-ice which covered the sea would

provide a good travelling surface. In any case it was likely to be

on the point of breaking up, for the season was nearing midsummer.

On the other hand, there was on the sea-ice a chance of obtaining

seals for food.

After due consideration we resolved to follow the shorter route,

returning inland over the plateau, for it was reckoned that if the

weather were reasonable we might win through to Winter Quarters with

one and a half weeks' rations and the six dogs which still remained,

provided we ate the dogs to eke out our provisions. Fortunately

neither the cooker nor the kerosene had been lost.

George, the poorest of the dogs, was killed and partly fed to the

others, partly kept for ourselves. The meat was roughly fried on

the lid of the aluminium cooker, an operation which resulted in little

more than scorching the surface. On the whole it was voted good

though it had a strong, musty taste and was so stringy that it could

not be properly chewed.

As both mugs and spoons had been lost, I made two pannikins out of

tins in which cartridges and matches had been packed, and Mertz

carved wooden spoons out of a portion of the broken sledge. At this

camp he also spliced the handle of the broken shovel which had been

picked up, so as to make it temporarily serviceable.

It was midsummer, and therefore we found it easier to drag the sledge

over the snow at night when the surface was frozen hard. Camp was not

finally broken until 6 P.M., when the long and painful return journey

commenced.

For fourteen miles the way led up rising snow slopes to the

north-west until an elevation of two thousand five hundred feet had

been reached. After that, variable grades and flat country were met.

Though the sledge was light, the dogs required helping and progress

was slow. The midnight sun shone low in the south, and we tramped

on through the morning hours, anxious to reduce the miles which lay

ahead.

Early on December 16 the sky became rapidly overcast. The snowy

land and the snowy sky merged to form an enclosed trap, as it seemed

to us, while showers of snow fell. There were no shadows to create

contrast; it was impossible to distinguish even the detail of the

ground underfoot. We stumbled over unseen ridges of the hard neve,

our gaze straining forward. The air was so still that advantage was

taken of the calm to light the primus and melt some snow in the lee

of the sledge. The water, to which were added a few drops of primus

alcohol, helped to assuage our thirst.

The erection of the makeshift tent was a long and tedious operation,

and so, on our return marches, we never again took any refreshment

during the day's work excepting on this occasion.

At 6 A.M., having done twenty miles and ascended to an elevation of

about two thousand five hundred feet, we pitched camp.

There was very little sleep for me that day for I had an unusually

bad attack of snow-blindness. During the time that we rested in the

bags Mertz treated one of my eyes three times, the other twice with

zinc sulphate and cocaine.

On account of the smallness of the tent a great deal of time was

absorbed in preparations for ``turning in'' and for getting away from

each camp. Thus, although we rose before 6 P.M. on December 16, the

start was not made until 8.30 P.M., notwithstanding the fact that the

meal was of the ``sketchiest'' character.

On that night ours was a mournful procession; the sky thickly

clouded, snow falling, I with one eye bandaged and the dog Johnson

broken down and strapped on top of the load on the sledge. There was

scarcely a sound; only the rustle of the thick, soft snow as we

pushed on, weary but full of hope. The dogs dumbly pressed forward

in their harness, forlorn but eager to follow. Their weight now told

little upon the sledge, the work mainly falling upon ourselves. Mertz

was tempted to try hauling on skis, but came to the conclusion that it

did not pay and thenceforth never again used them.

Close to the Magnetic Pole as we were, the compass was of little use,

and to steer a straight course to the west without ever seeing

anything of the surroundings was a difficult task. The only check

upon the correctness of the bearing was the direction in which trended

the old hard winter sastrugi, channelled out along a line running

almost north and south. The newly fallen snow obliterated these, and

frequent halts had to be called in order to investigate the buried

surface.

At 2 A.M. on the 17th we had only covered eleven miles when we

stopped to camp. Then Mertz shot and cut up Johnson while I prepared

the supper.

Johnson had always been a very faithful, hard-working and willing

beast, with rather droll ways of his own, and we were sorry that his

end should come so soon. He could never be accused of being a

handsome dog, in fact he was generally disreputable and dirty.

All the dogs were miserable and thin when they reached the stage of

extreme exhaustion. Their meat was tough, stringy and without a

vestige of fat. For a change we sometimes chopped it up finely, mixed

it with a little pemmican, and brought all to the boil in a large

pot of water. We were exceedingly hungry, but there was nothing to

satisfy our appetites. Only a few ounces were used of the stock of

ordinary food, to which was added a portion of dog's meat, never

large, for each animal yielded so very little, and the major part was

fed to the surviving dogs. They crunched the bones and ate the skin,

until nothing remained.

A fresh start was made at 7.30 P.M. and a wretched, trying night was

spent, when we marched without a break for twelve and a half hours.

Overhead there was a dense pall of nimbus from which snow fell at

intervals. None of the dogs except Ginger gave any help with the

load, and Mary was so worn out that she had to be carried on the

sledge. Poor Mary had been a splendid dog, but we had to kill her

at the camp in the morning.

After a run of eighteen and a half miles we halted at 8 A.M. on

December 18.

At 5.30 P.M. a light south-easter blew and snow fell from an overcast

sky. Soon after a start was made, it became apparent that a descent

was commencing. In this locality the country had been swept by

wind, for none of the recent snow settled on the surface. The

sastrugi were high and hard, and over them we bumped, slipping and

falling in the uncertain light. We could not endure this kind of

travelling for long and resolved to camp shortly after midnight,

intending to go on when the day had advanced further and the light

was stronger.

``December 19.--Up at noon and tried a few more miles in the snow-glare.

Later in the afternoon the sky began to break and we picked our way

with less difficulty. Camped at 5 P.M., having done only twelve

miles one thousand and fifty yards since the morning of December 18.

``Up at 8 P.M. again, almost calm and sun shining. Still continuing

a westerly course we dropped several hundred feet, marching over

rough, slippery fields of sastrugi.''

In the early morning hours of the 20th the surface changed to ice and

occasional crevasses appeared. It was clear that we had arrived at

the head of the Ninnis Glacier above the zone of serac we had

traversed on the outward journey. It was very satisfactory to know

this; to be certain that some landmark had been seen and recognized.

Soon after this discovery we came near losing Haldane, the big grey

wolf, in a crevasse. Miserably thin from starvation the wretched

dogs no longer filled their harness. As we pulled up Haldane, after

he had broken into a deep, sheer-walled crevasse, his harness slipped

off just as he reached the top. It was just possible to seize hold

of his hair at that moment and to land him safely, otherwise we should

have lost many days' rations.

He took to the harness once more but soon became uncertain in his

footsteps, staggered along and then tottered and fell. Poor brutes!

that was the way they all gave in--pulling till they dropped.

We camped at 4 A.M., thinking that a rest would revive Haldane.

Inside the tent some snow was thawed, and we drank the water with

an addition of a little primus spirit. A temperature reading showed

-1 degree F.

Outside, the hungry huskies moaned unceasingly until we could bear

to hear them no longer. The tent was struck and we set off once more.

Haldane was strapped on the sledge as he could not walk. He had not

eaten the food we had given him, because his jaws seemed too weak to

bite. He had just nursed it between his paws and licked it.

Before the dogs became as weak as this, great care had to be taken in

tethering them at each camp so as to prevent them from gnawing the

wood of the sledge, the straps or, in fact, anything at all. Every

time we were ready for a fresh start they seemed to regain their old

strength, for they struggled and fought to seize any scraps, however

useless, left on the ground.

The day's march was completed at 10.30 A.M. and fourteen and a half

miles lay behind.

``We were up again at 11.20 P.M. Sky clear; fifteen-mile breeze

from the south-south-east and the temperature 3 degrees F.

By midnight there was a thirty-mile wind and low, flying drift.

``December 21.--The night-march was a miserable one. The only thing

which helped to relieve it was that for a moment Dixson Island was

miraged up in the north, and we felt that we had met an old friend,

which means a lot in this icy desolation. The surface was furrowed

by hard, sharp sastrugi.

``We camped at 9 A.M. after only eleven miles. Haldane was finished

off before we retired.

``We were up again at 9 P.M., and when a start was made at 11 P.M.

there was a strong south-south-east wind blowing, with low drift;

temperature, zero Fahr.

``December 22.--The surface of hard, polished sastrugi caused many

falls. The track was undulating, rising in one case several hundred

feet and finally falling in a long slope.

``Pavlova gave in late in the march and was taken on the sledge.

``Camped at 6.40 A.M. in a forty-mile wind with low drift. Distance

marched was twelve miles one thousand four hundred yards.

``Before turning in, we effected sundry repairs. Mertz re-spliced the

handle of the shovel which had broken apart and I riveted the broken

spindle of the sledge-meter. The mechanism of the latter had frozen

during the previous day's halt, and, on being started, its spindle had

broken off short. It was a long and tedious job tapping at the steed

with a toy hammer, but the rivet held miraculously for the rest of

the journey.

``Up at 11.30 P.M., a moderate breeze blowing, overcast sky, light

snow falling.''

On December 28 an uphill march commenced which was rendered very

heavy by the depth of the soft snow. Pavlova had to be carried on

the sledge.

Suddenly, gaping crevasses appeared dimly through the falling snow

which surrounded us like a blanket. There was nothing to do but camp,

though it was only 4.30 A.M., and we had covered but five miles one

thousand two hundred and thirty yards.

Pavlova was killed and we made a very acceptable soup from her bones.

In view of the dark outlook, our ration of food had to be still

further cut down. We had no proper sleep, hunger gnawing at us all

the time, and the question of food was for ever in our thoughts.

Dozing in the fur bags, we dreamed of gorgeous ``spreads'' and

dinner-parties at home. Tramping along through the snow, we racked

our brains thinking of how to make the most of the meagre quantity of

dogs' meat at hand.

The supply of kerosene for the primus stove promised to be ample, for

none of it had been lost in the accident. We found that it was worth

while spending some time in boiling the dogs' meat thoroughly. Thus

a tasty soup was prepared as well as a supply of edible meat in

which the muscular tissue and the gristle were reduced to the

consistency of a jelly. The paws took longest of all to cook, but,

treated to lengthy stewing, they became quite digestible.

On December 24 we were up at 8 A.M. just as the sun commenced to

gleam through clouds. The light was rather bad, and snow fell as the

track zigzagged about among many crevasses; but suddenly the sun

broke forth. The sledge was crossing a surface of deep snow which

soon became so sticky that the load would scarcely move. At last a

halt was made after four miles, and we waited for the evening, when

the surface was expected to harden.

A small prion visited us but went off in a moment. It is very

remarkable how far some Antarctic sea-birds may wander inland,

apparently at such a great distance from anything which should

interest them. We were then more than one hundred miles south of the

open sea. As the bird flew away, we watched it until it disappeared

in the north, wishing that we too had wings to cross the interminable

plateau ahead.

Lying in the sleeping-bag that day I dreamt that I visited a

confectioner's shop. All the wares that were displayed measured feet

in diameter. I purchased an enormous delicacy just as one would buy

a bun under ordinary stances. I remember paying the money

over the counter, but something happened before I received what I had

chosen. When I realized the omission I was out in the street, and,

being greatly disappointed, went back to the shop, but found the door

shut and ``early closing'' written on it.

Though a good daily average had been maintained on the march whenever

conditions were at all favourable, the continuance of bad weather and

the undoubtedly weaker state in which we found ourselves made it

imperative to dispense with all but the barest necessities. Thus the

theodolite was the only instrument retained, and the camera,

photographic films (exposed and unexposed), hypsometer, thermometers,

rifle, ammunition and other sundries were all thrown away. The frame

of the tent was made lighter by constructing two poles, each four feet

high, from the telescopic theodolite legs, the heavier pieces of sledge-

runner being discarded.

We were up at 11 P.M. on December 24, but so much time was absorbed

in making a dog-stew for Christmas that it was not till 2.80 A.M.

that we got under way. We wished each other happier Christmases in

the future, and divided two scraps of biscuit which I found in my

spare kit-bag; relics of better days.

The surface was a moderately good one of undulating, hard sastrugi,

and, as the course had been altered to north-west, the southerly

wind helped us along. The sun shone brightly, and only for the wind

and the low drift we might have felt tolerably comfortable. On our

right, down within the shallow depression of the Ninnis Glacier, the

low outline of Dixson Island, forty miles to the north, could be seen

miraged up on the horizon.

The tent was raised at 9.30 A.M. after a run of eleven miles one

hundred and seventy-six yards. An ounce each of butter was served

out from our small stock to give a festive touch to the dog-stew.

At noon I took an observation for latitude, and, after taking a

bearing on to Dixson Island, computed that the distance in an air-line

to Winter Quarters was one hundred and sixty miles.

``December 26.--Got away at 2 A.M.; the surface undulating and

hummocky with occasional beds of soft snow. Sun shining, wind

ranged between thirty and forty miles per hour with much low drift;

cold; camped about noon having done ten miles five hundred and twenty-

eight yards.

``We have reached the western side of the Ninnis Glacier. Ahead are

rising slopes, but we look forward to assistance from the wind in the

ascent.

``I was again troubled with a touch of snow-blindness, but it responded

to the usual treatment.

``At 11 P.M.we were at it again,but what with preparing dog-stew,

packing up within the limited area of the tent and experimenting with

a sail, it was five hours before the march commenced.

``The sail was the tent-cover, attached to the top of one ski lashed

vertically as a mast and secured below to the other ski, lashed

across the sledge as a boom.''

A start was made at 4 A.M. on the 27th in a thirty-mile wind

accompanied by low drift. The surface was smooth but grew

unexpectedly soft at intervals, while the ascent soon began to tell

on us. Though the work was laborious, notwithstanding some aid from

the sail, the bright sunlight kept up our spirits, and, whenever a

halt was called for a few minutes' spell, the conversation invariably

turned upon the subject of food and what we should do on arrival on

board the `Aurora'.

At noon the sledge-meter showed nine miles one thousand four hundred

yards, and we agreed to halt and pitch camp.

The wind had fallen off considerably, and in the brilliant sunshine it

was comparatively warm in the tent. The addition of the heat from

the primus stove, kept burning for an unusually long time during the

preparation of the meat, caused a thaw of drift-snow which became

lodged on the lee side of the tent. Thus we had frequently to put up

with an unwelcome drip. Moisture came from the floor also, as there

was no floor-cloth, and the sleeping-bags were soon very wet and

soggy. As soon as the cooking was finished, the tent cooled off and

the wet walls froze and became stiff with icy cakes.

At this time we were eating largely of the dogs' meat, to which was

added one or two ounces of chocolate or raisins, three or four ounces

of pemmican and biscuit mixed together, and, as a beverage, very

dilute cocoa. The total weight of solid food consumed by each man

per day was approximately fourteen ounces. Our small supply of

butter and glaxo was saved for emergency, while a few tea-bags which

remained were boiled over and over again.

The march commenced on December 28 at 3 A.M. in a thirty-mile wind

accompanied by light drift. Overhead there was a wild sky which

augured badly for the next few days. It was cold work raising the

sail, and we were glad to be marching.

Our faithful retainer Ginger could walk no longer and was strapped on

the sledge. She was the last of the dogs and had been some sort of a

help until a few days before. We were sad when it came to finishing

her off.

On account of the steep up grade and the weight of Ginger on the

sledge, we camped at 7.15 A.M. after only four miles one thousand

two hundred and thirty yards.

We had breakfast off Ginger's skull and brain. I can never forget the

occasion. As there was nothing available to divide it, the skull was

boiled whole. Then the right and left halves were drawn for by the

old and well-established sledging practice of ``shut-eye,'' after

which we took it in turns eating to the middle line, passing the skull

from one to the other. The brain was afterwards scooped out with a

wooden spoon.

On sledging journeys it is usual to apportion all food-stuffs in as

nearly even halves as possible. Then one man turns away and

another, pointing to a heap, asks ``Whose?'' The reply from the one

not looking is ``Yours'' or ``Mine'' as the case may be. Thus an

impartial and satisfactory division of the rations is made.

After the meal I went on cooking more meat so as to have a supply in

readiness for eating. It was not till 2 P.M. that the second lot was

finished. The task was very trying, for I had to sit up on the floor

of the tent for hours in a cramped position, continually attending to

the cooker, while Mertz in his Sleeping-bag was just accommodated

within the limited space which remained. The tent was too small

either to lie down during the operation or to sit up comfortably

on a sleeping-bag.

At 9.30 P.M. Mertz rose to take a turn at the cooking, and at 11 P.M.

I joined him at ``breakfast.''

At this time a kind of daily cycle was noted in the weather. It was

always calmest between 4 P.M. and 6 P.M. During the evening hours

the wind increased until it reached a maximum between four and six

o'clock next morning, after which it fell off gradually.

We were away at 2.30 A.M. on the 29th in a thirty-mile wind which

raised a light drift. The sail was found to be of great assistance

over a surface which rose in terraces of fifty to one hundred feet

in height, occurring every one to one and a half miles. This march

lasted for six hours, during which we covered seven miles five hundred

and twenty-eight yards.

On December 30 the ascent continued and the wind was still in the

``thirties.'' After several hours we overtopped the last terrace and

stood on flat ground--the crest of a ridge.

Tramping over the plateau, where reigns the desolation of the outer

worlds, in solitude at once ominous and weird, one is free to roam in

imagination through the wide realm of human experience to the bounds

of the great Beyond. One is in the midst of infinities--the infinity

of the dazzling white plateau, the infinity of the dome above, the

infinity of the time past since these things had birth, and the

infinity of the time to come before they shall have fulfilled the

Purpose for which they were created. We, in the midst of the

illimitable, could feel with Marcus Aurelius that ``Of life, the

time is a point.''

By 9 A.M. we had accomplished a splendid march of fifteen miles

three hundred and fifty yards, but the satisfaction we should have

felt at making such an inroad on the huge task before us was damped

by the fact that I suddenly became aware that Mertz was not as

cheerful as usual. I was at a loss to know the reason, for he was

always such a bright and companionable fellow.

At 10.15 P.M. the sky had become overcast, snow was falling and a

strong wind was blowing. We decided to wait for better conditions.

On New Year's Eve at 5.30 A.M. the wind was not so strong, so we got

up and prepared for the start.

Mertz said that he felt the dogs' meat was not doing him much good

and suggested that we should give it up for a time and eat a small

ration of the ordinary sledging food, of which we had still some

days' supply carefully husbanded. I agreed to do this and we made

our first experiment on that day. The ration tasted very sweet

compared with dogs' meat and was so scanty in amount that it left

one painfully empty.

The light was so atrocious for marching that, after stumbling along

for two and a half miles, we were obliged to give up the attempt and

camp, spending the day in sleeping-bags.

In the evening at 9.30 P.M. the sun appeared for a brief moment and

the wind subsided. Another stage was therefore attempted but at

considerable cost, for we staggered along in the bewildering light,

continually falling over unseen sastrugi. The surface was undulating

with a tendency to down grades. Two sets of sastrugi were found

crossing one another, and, in the absence of the sun, we could not be

sure of the course, so the camp was pitched niter five miles.

``January 1, 1913.--Outside, an overcast sky and falling snow. Mertz

was not up to his usual form and we decided not to attempt blundering

along in the bad light, believing that the rest would be advantageous

to him.

``He did not complain at all except of the dampness of his sleeping-

bag, though when I questioned him particularly he admitted that he had

pains in the abdomen. As I had a continuous gnawing sensation in the

stomach, I took it that he had the same, possibly more acute.

``After New Year's Day he expressed a dislike to biscuit, which

seemed rather strange. Then he suddenly had a desire for glaxo and

our small store was made over to him, I taking a considerable ration

of the dogs' meat in exchange.

``It was no use, however, for when we tried to cover a few more miles

the exertion told very heavily on him, and it was plain that he was

in a more serious condition than myself.

``January 2.--The same abominable weather. We eat only a few ounces

of chocolate each day.

``January 3.--In the evening the sky broke and the sun looked through

the clouds. We were not long in packing up and getting on the way.

The night was chilly and Mertz got frost-bitten fingers, so camp was

pitched after four miles one thousand two hundred and thirty yards.

``January 4.--The sun was shining and we had intended rising at 10

A.M., but Mertz was not well and thought that the rest would be good

for him. I spent the time improving some of the gear, mending Mertz's

clothing and cooking a quantity of the meat.

``January 5.--The sky was overcast, snow was falling, and there was

a strong wind. Mertz suggested that as the conditions were so bad we

should delay another day.

``Lying in the damp bags was wretched and was not doing either of us

any good, but what was to be done? Outside, the conditions were

abominable. My companion was evidently weaker than I, and it was

apparently quite true that he was not making much of the dogs' meat.

``January 6.--A better day but the sky remained overcast. Mertz

agreed to try another stage.''

The grade was slightly downhill and the wind well behind.

Unfortunately the surface was slippery and irregular and falls

were frequent. These told very much upon my companion until, after

consistently demurring, he at last consented to ride on the sledge.

With the wind blowing behind us, it required no great exertion to

bring the load along, though it would often pull up suddenly against

sastrugi. After we had covered two and a half miles, Mertz became

so cold through inaction in the wind that there was nothing to do

but pitch the tent.

Mertz appeared to be depressed and, after the short meal, sank back

into his bag without saying much. Occasionally, during the day, I

would ask him how he felt, or we would return to the old subject of

food. It was agreed that on our arrival on board the `Aurora' Mertz

was to make penguin omelettes, for we had never forgotten the

excellence of those we had eaten just before leaving the Hut.

Reviewing the situation, I found that we were one hundred miles

south-east of Winter Quarters where food and plenty awaited us. At

the time we had still ordinary rations for several days. How short

a distance it would seem to the vigorous, but what a lengthy journey

for the weak and famished!

The skin was peeling off our bodies and a very poor substitute

remained which burst readily and rubbed raw in many places. One

day, I remember, Mertz ejaculated, ``Just a moment,'' and, reaching

over, lifted from my ear a perfect skin-cast. I was able to do the

same for him. As we never took off our clothes, the peelings of hair

and skin from our bodies worked down into our under-trousers and

socks, and regular clearances were made.

During the evening of the 6th I made the following note in my diary:

``A long and wearisome night. If only I could get on; but I must

stop with Xavier. He does not appear to be improving and both our

chances are going now.''

``January 7.--Up at 8 A.M., it having been arranged last night that we

would go on to-day at all costs, sledge-sailing, with Xavier in his

bag on the sledge.'' It was a sad blow to me to find that Mertz was

in a weak state and required helping in and out of his bag. He needed

rest for a few hours at least before he could think of travelling.

``I have to turn in again to kill time and also to keep warm, for I

feel the cold very much now.''

``At 10 A.M. I get up to dress Xavier and prepare food, but find him

in a kind of fit.'' Coming round a few minutes later, he exchanged

a few words and did not seem to realize that anything had happened.

``... Obviously we can't go on to-day. It is a good day though the

light is bad, the sun just gleaming through the clouds. This is

terrible; I don't mind for myself but for others. I pray to God

to help us.''

``I cook some thick cocoa for Xavier and give him beef-tea; he is

better after noon, but very low--I have to lift him up to drink.''

During the afternoon he had several more fits, then became delirious

and talked incoherently until midnight, when he appeared to fall off

into a peaceful slumber. So I toggled up the sleeping-bag and retired

worn out into my own. After a couple of hours, having felt no

movement from my companion, I stretched out an arm and found that he

was stiff.

My comrade had been accepted into ``the peace that passeth all

understanding.'' It was my fervent hope that he had been received

where sterling qualities and a high mind reap their due reward. In

his life we loved him; he was a man of character, generous and of

noble parts.

For hours I lay in the bag, rolling over in my mind all that lay

behind and the chance of the future. I seemed to stand alone on

the wide shores of the world--and what a short step to enter the

unknown future!

My physical condition was such that I felt I might collapse in a

moment. The gnawing in the stomach had developed there a permanent

weakness, so that it was not possible to hold myself up in certain

positions. Several of my toes commenced to blacken and fester near

the tips and the nails worked loose.

Outside, the bowl of chaos was brimming with drift-snow and I

wondered how I would manage to break and pitch camp single-handed.

There appeared to be little hope of reaching the Hut. It was easy

to sleep on in the bag, and the weather was cruel outside. But

inaction is hard to brook, and I thought of Service's lines:

Buck up, do your damndest and fight,

It's the plugging away that will win you the day.

If I failed to reach the Hut it would be something done to reach some

prominent point likely to catch the eye of a search party, where a

cairn might be erected and our diaries cached. And so I commenced to

modify the sledge and camping gear to meet fresh requirements.

The sky remained clouded, but the wind fell off to a calm which

lasted for several hours. I took the opportunity to set to work on

the sledge, sawing it in halves with a pocket tool. A mast was made

out of one of the rails of the discarded half of the sledge and a

spar was cut from the other rail. The sledge-meter, very much

battered, was still serviceable. Lastly, the load was cut down to

a minimum by the elimination of all but the barest necessities.

Late on the evening of the 8th I took the body of Mertz, wrapped up

in his sleeping-bag, outside the tent, piled snow blocks around it and

raised a rough cross made of the two half-runners of the sledge.

On January 9 the weather was overcast and fairly thick drift was

flying in a wind reaching about fifty miles an hour. As certain

matters still required attention and my chances of re-erecting the

tent were rather doubtful, if I had decided to move on, the start

was delayed.

``I read the Burial Service over Xavier this afternoon. As there

is little chance of my reaching human aid alive. I greatly regret

inability at the moment to set out the detail of coastline met with

for three hundred miles travelled and observations of glacier and

ice-formations, etc.; the most of which latter are, of course,

committed to my head.

``The approximate location of the camp is latitude 68 degrees 2'

S., longitude 145 degrees 9' E. This is dead reckoning, as the

theodolite legs have been out of action for some time, splinted

together to form tent-props. I believe the truth lies nearer

latitude 67 degrees 57' S., longitude 145 degrees 20' E., as the

wind must have drifted us to the north.''

During the afternoon I cut up Mertz's burberry jacket and roughly

sewed it to a large canvas clothes-bag, making a sail which could

be readily set or furled, so as to save delay in starting out or

in camping.

January 10 was an impossible day for travelling on account of thick

drift and high wind. I spent part of the time in reckoning up the

amount of food remaining and in cooking the rest of the dogs' meat;

the last device enabling me to leave behind some of the kerosene, of

which there was still a good supply. Late in the afternoon the wind

fell and the sun peered amongst the clouds just as I was in the middle

of a long job riveting and lashing the broken shovel.

It was on January 11--a beautiful, calm day of sunshine--that I set

out over a good surface with a slight down grade. From the start my

feet felt lumpy and sore. They had become so painful after a mile

of walking that I decided to make an examination of them on the spot,

sitting in the sun on the sledge. The sight of my feet gave me quite

a shock, for the thickened skin of the soles had separated in each

case as a complete layer, and abundant watery fluid had escaped into

the socks. The new skin underneath was very much abraded and raw.

I did what appeared to be the best thing under the stances:

smeared the new skin with lanoline, of which there was a good store,

and with bandages bound the skin soles back in place, as they were

comfortable and soft in contact with the raw surfaces. Outside the

bandages I wore six pairs of thick woollen socks, fur boots and a

crampon over-shoe of soft leather. Then I removed most of my

clothing and bathed in the glorious heat of the sun. A tingling

sensation seemed to spread throughout my whole body, and I felt

stronger and better.

When the day commenced with ideal weather I thought I would cover

a long distance, but at 5.30 P.M., after six and a quarter miles,

I felt nerve-worn and had to camp, ``so worn that had it not been

a delightful evening, I should not have found strength to erect

the tent.''

Though the medical outfit was limited, there were a fair number of

bandages and on camping I devoted much time to tending raw patches all

over the body, festering fingers and inflamed nostrils.

High wind and much drift put travelling out of the question on January

12, and in any case my feet needed a rest.

``January 13.--The wind subsided and the snow cleared off at noon.

The afternoon was beautifully fine. Descended hard ice-slopes over

many crevasses--almost all descent--but surface cut my feet up; at

8 P.M. camped, having done five and three-quarter miles--painful

feet--on camping find feet worse than ever; things look bad but shall

persevere. It is now 11 P.M. and the glacier is firing off like

artillery--appears to send up great jets of imprisoned air.''

During the march Aurora Peak showed up to the west, about twenty

miles away, across the Mertz Glacier. I felt happy at thus fixing my

position, and at the sight of the far plateau which led onwards to

Winter Quarters.

The glacier was the next obstacle to advance. To the south-west it

descended from the plateau in immense broken folds. Pressing

northward it was torn into the jumbled crush of serac-ice, sparkling

beneath an unclouded sun. The idea of diverging to the west and

rounding the ice-falls occurred to me, but the detours involved other

difficulties, so I strove to pick out the best track across the

valley.

A high wind which blew on the morning of the 14th diminished in

strength by noon and allowed me to get away. The sun was so warm

that the puckered ice underfoot was covered with a film of water and

in some places small trickles ran away to disappear into crevasses.

Though the course was downhill to the Mertz Glacier, the sledge

required a good deal of pulling owing to the wet runners. At 9 P.M.,

after travelling five miles, I pitched camp in the bed of the glacier.

Between 9.30 P.M. and 11 P.M. the ``cannonading'' heard on the

previous night recommenced. The sounds, resembling the explosions

of heavy guns, usually started higher up the glacier and ended down

towards the sea. When I first heard them, I put my head outside the

tent to see what was going on. The reports came at random from every

direction, but there was no visible evidence as to how they were

produced. Without a doubt they had something to do with the re-

freezing and splitting of the ice owing to the evening chill; but

the sounds seemed far too loud to be explained by this cause alone.

January 15--the date on which all the summer sledging parties were due

at the Hut! It was overcast and snowing early in the day, and in a

few hours the sun broke out and shone warmly. The travelling was so

heavy over a soft snowy surface, partly melting, that I gave up,

after one mile, and camped.

At 7 P.M. the surface had not improved, the sky was thickly obscured

and snow fell. At 10 P.M. the snow was coming down heavily, and,

since there were many crevasses in the vicinity, I resolved to

wait.

On the 16th at 2 A.M. the snow was as thick as ever, but at 5 A.M.

the atmosphere lightened and the sun appeared.

Without delay I broke camp. A favourable breeze sprang up, and with

sail set I managed to proceed through the snowy ``deluge'' in short

stages. The snow clung in lumps to the runners, which had to be

scraped frequently. I passed some broken ridges and sank into several

holes leading down to crevasses out of which it was possible to

scramble easily.

After laboriously toiling up one long slope, I was just catching my

breath at the top and the sledge was running easily when I noticed

that the surface beneath my feet fell away steeply in front. I

suddenly realized that I was on the brink of a great blue hole like

a quarry. The sledge was following of its own accord and was rapidly

gaining speed, so I turned and, exerting every effort, was just able

to hold it back by means of the hauling-line from the edge of the abyss.

I should think that there must have been an interval of quite a minute

during which I held my ground without being able to make it budge.

Then it slowly came my way, and the imminent danger was past.

The day's march was an extremely hard five miles. Before turning in

I had an extra supper of jelly soup, made by boiling down some of

the dogs' sinews, strengthened with a little pemmican. The acute

enjoyment of eating under these circumstances compensates in a slight

measure for the suffering of starvation.

January 17 was another day of overcast weather and falling snow.

Delay meant a reduction in the ration which was low enough already,

so there was nothing to do but go on.

When I got away at 8 A.M. I found that the pulling was easier than

it had been on the previous day. Nevertheless I covered only two

miles and had to consider myself fortunate in not winding up the whole

story then and there. This is what happened, following the account

in my diary.

``Going up a long, fairly steep slope, deeply covered with soft

snow, broke through lid of crevasse but caught myself at thighs, got

out, turned fifty yards to the north, then attempted to cross trend

of crevasse, there being no indication of it; a few moments later

found myself dangling fourteen feet below on end of rope in crevasse

--sledge creeping to mouth--had time to say to myself, `so this is the

end,' expecting the sledge every moment to crash on my head and all

to go to the unseen bottom--then thought of the food uneaten on the

sledge; but as the sledge pulled up without letting me down, thought

of Providence giving me another chance.'' The chance was very small

considering my weak condition. The width of the crevasse was about

six feet, so I hung freely in space, turning slowly round.

A great effort brought a knot in the rope within my grasp, and, after

a moment's rest, I was able to draw myself up and reach another, and,

at length, hauled myself on to the overhanging snow-lid into which

the rope had cut. Then, when I was carefully climbing out on to the

surface, a further section of the lid gave way, precipitating me once

more to the full length of the rope.

Exhausted, weak and chilled (for my hands were bare and pounds of

snow had got inside my clothing) I hung with the firm conviction that

all was over except the passing. Below was a black chasm; it would

be but the work of a moment to slip from the harness, then all the

pain and toil would be over. It was a rare situation, a rare

temptation--a chance to quit small things for great--to pass from the

petty exploration of a planet to the contemplation of vaster worlds

beyond. But there was all eternity for the last and, at its longest,

the present would be but short. I felt better for the thought.

My strength was fast ebbing; in a few minutes it would be too late.

It was the occasion for a supreme attempt. New power seemed to come

as I addressed myself to one last tremendous effort. The struggle

occupied some time, but by a miracle I rose slowly to the surface.

This time I emerged feet first, still holding on to the rope, and

pushed myself out, extended at full length, on the snow--on solid

ground. Then came the reaction, and I could do nothing for quite

an hour.

The tent was erected in slow stages and I then had a little food.

Later on I lay in the sleeping-bag, thinking things over. It was

a time when the mood of the Persian philosopher appealed to me:

Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday,

Why fret about them if To-day be sweet?

I was confronted with this problem: whether it was better to enjoy

life for a few days, sleeping and eating my fill until the provisions

gave out, or to ``plug on'' again in hunger with the prospect of

plunging at any moment into eternity without the great luxury and

pleasure of food. And then an idea presented itself which greatly

improved my prospects. It was to construct a ladder from alpine rope;

one end of which was to be secured to the bow of the sledge and the

other to be carried over my left shoulder and loosely attached to the

sledge harness. Thus, if I fell into a crevasse again, it would be

easy for me, even though weakened by starvation, to scramble out again

by the ladder, provided the sledge was not also engulphed.

Notwithstanding the possibilities of the rope ladder, I could not

sleep properly at all; my nerves had been so overtaxed. All night

considerable wind and drift continued.

On the 19th it was overcast and light snow was falling. I resolved

``to go ahead and leave the rest to Providence.''

As they wallowed through the deep snow my feet and legs kept breaking

through into space. Then I went right under, but the sledge was held

back and the ladder ``proved trumps.'' A few minutes later I was down

again, but I emerged again without much exertion, half-smothered with

snow. Faintness overcame me and I stopped to camp, though only a short

distance had been covered.

All around me was a leaden glare, the snow clouds ``corralling'' me in.

The sun had not shown up for some days and I was eager to see it once

more, not only that it might show up the landscape, but for its

cheerful influence and life-giving energy. A few days previously my

condition had been improving, but now it was going back.

During the night of the 18th loud booming noises, sharp cracks and

muffled growls issued form the neighbouring crevasses and kept waking

me up. At times one could feel a vibration accompanying the growling

sounds, and I concluded that the ice was in rapid motion.

The sun at last appeared on the 19th, and I was off by 8.30 A.M.

The whole surface was a network of crevasses, some very wide. Along

one after another of these I dragged the sledge until a spot was

reached where the snow-bridge looked to be firm. Here I plunged

across, risking the consequences.

After three hours' marching nothing serious had happened and I

found myself on safer ground with a ``pimply'' surface visible ahead,

close under the slopes of the highlands. Once on this I became

over-reliant, and in consequence sank several times into narrow

fissures.

At 1 P.M. the Mertz Glacier was at last crossed and I had reached the

rising hills on its western side. Overlooking the camp, five hundred

feet above the glacier, were beetling, crevassed crags, but I could

trace out a good road, free from pitfalls, leading to the plateau,

at an elevation of three thousand feet.

To lighten my load for the climb I threw away alpine rope, finnesko

crampons, sundry pairs of worn crampons and socks, while I rubbed a

composition on the sledge-runners which prevented them from sticking

to wet snow.

January 20 was a wretched day; overcast, with wind and light drift.

In desperation I got away at 2 P.M. in a wind which proved to be of

considerable assistance. I could see nothing of my surroundings;

one thing was certain, and that was that the ascent had commenced and

every foot took me upward. The day's work amounted to about two and

a half miles.

On the 21st the sun shone brightly and there was a good following

wind. Through deep snow I zigzagged up for three miles before

deciding to camp.

Wind and drift prevailed early on the 22nd but fell away towards

noon, and I was then favoured with a glorious sunny day. Away to

the north was a splendid view of the open sea; it looked so beautiful

and friendly that I longed to be down near it. Six miles had been

covered during the day, but I felt very weak towards the end on

account of the heavy pulling.

During the early hours of the 23rd the sun was visible, but about

8 A.M. the clouds sagged low, the wind rose and everything became

blotted out in a swirl of driving snow.

I wandered on through it for several hours, the sledge capsizing at

times owing to the strength of the wind. It was not possible to keep

an accurate course, for even the wind changed direction as the day

wore on. Underfoot there was soft snow which I found comfortable for

my sore feet, but which made the sledge drag heavily at times.

When camp was pitched at 4 P.M. I reckoned that the distance covered

in a straight line had been three and a half miles.

Erecting the tent single-handed in the high wind was a task which

required much patience and some skill. The poles were erected first

and then the tent was gathered up in the proper form and taken to the

windward side of the legs where it was weighted down. The flounce on

the windward side was got into position and piled up with snow blocks.

Other blocks of snow had previously been placed in a ring round the

legs in readiness to be tumbled on to the rest of the flounce when the

tent was quickly slipped over the apex of the poles. In very windy

weather it was often as much as two hours after halting before I would

be cosy within the shelter of the tent.

High wind and dense driving snow persisted throughout the 24th and

I made five and a half miles, sitting on the sledge most of the time

with the sail up.

The blizzard continued on the 25th, but after the trying experience of

the previous two days, I did not feel well enough to go on. Outside,

the snow fell in ``torrents,'' piled up round the tent and pressed in

until it was no bigger than a coffin, of which it reminded me.

I passed most of the day doctoring myself, attending to raw and

inflamed places. Tufts of my beard and hair came out, and the snowy

floor of the tent was strewn with it at every camp.

``January 26.--I went on again in dense, driving snow. There was no

need of the sail. The wind, which was behind, caught the sledge and

bundled it along so that, though over a soft surface of snow, the

travelling was rapid. The snow was in large, rounded grains, and

beat on the tent like hail. Altogether nine miles were covered.

``January 27.--Blizzard-bound again. The previous day's exertions

were too much for me to undertake the same again without a long rest.

``January 28,--In the morning the wind had moderated very much but

the sky remained overcast and snow continued to fall. It was a

long job digging the tent out. Soon after the start the sun gleamed

and the weather improved. The three-thousand-foot crest of the

plateau had been crossed and I was bearing down rapidly on

Commonwealth Bay, the vicinity of which showed up as a darker patch

on the clouds of the north-west horizon.

``The evening was fine and I really began to feel that Winter

Quarters were approaching. To increase my excitement Madigan

Nunatak came into view for a time in the clear, evening light.

Distance covered, over eight miles.''

The calm of the previous evening was broken again, and I started on

the morning of January 29 in considerable drift and a fairly strong

wind. After going five miles I had miraculous good fortune.

I was travelling along on an even down grade and was wondering how

long the two pounds of food which remained would last, when something

dark loomed through the drift a short distance away to the right.

All sorts of possibilities fled through my mind as I headed the

sledge for it. The unexpected happened--it was a cairn of snow

erected by McLean, Hodgeman and Hurley, who had been out searching

for us. On the top of the mound was a bag of food, left on the

chance that it might be picked up, while in a tin was a note stating

the bearing and distance of the mound from Aladdin's Cave (E. 30

degrees S., distance twenty-three miles), that the Ship had arrived

at the Hut and was waiting, that Amundsen had reached the Pole, and

that Scott was remaining another year in Antarctica.

It was rather a singular fact that the search party only left this

mound at eight o'clock on the morning of that very day (January 29).

It was about 2 P.M. when I found it. Thus, during the night of the

28th, our camps had been only about five miles apart.

With plenty of food, I speedily felt stimulated and revived, and

anticipated reaching the Hut in a day or two, for there was then not

more than twenty-three miles to cover. Alas, however, there was to be

another delay. I was without crampons--they had been thrown away on

the western side of Mertz Glacier--and in the strong wind was not able

to stand up on the slippery ice of the coastal slopes. The result

was that I sat on the sledge and ran along with the wind, nibbling at

the food as I went. The sledge made so much leeway that near the end

of the day, after fourteen miles, I reckoned that I had been carried

to the east of Aladdin's Cave. The course was therefore changed to

the west, but the wind came down almost broadside-on to the sledge,

and it was swept away. The only thing to do was to camp.

On the 30th I cut up the box of the theodolite and into two pieces

of wood stuck as many screws and tacks as I could procure from the

sledge-meter. In the repair-bag there were still a few ice-nails

which at this time were of great use. Late in the day the wind fell

off, and I started westward over the ice-slopes with the pieces of

nail-studded wood lashed to my feet.

After six miles these improvised crampons broke up, and the increasing

wind got me into difficulties. Finally, the sledge slipped sideways

into a narrow crevasse and was caught by the boom (which crossed from

side to side at the lower part of the mast). I was not strong enough

for the job of extricating it straight away, and by the time I had

got it safely on the ice, the wind had increased still more. So I

pitched camp.

The blizzard was in full career on January 31 and I spent all day

and until late at night trying to make the crampons serviceable,

but without success.

On February 1 the wind and drift subsided late in the afternoon,

and I clearly saw to the west the beacon which marked Aladdin's Cave.

At 7 P.M. I reached this haven within the ice, and never again was I

to have the ordeal of pitching the tent. Inside the cave were three

oranges and a pineapple which had been brought from the Ship. It was

wonderful once more to be in the land of such things!

I waited to mend one of the crampons and then started off for the Hut;

but a blizzard had commenced. To descend the five miles of steep icy

slopes with my miserable crampons, in the weak state in which I found

myself, would only have been as a last resort. So I camped in the

comfortable cave and hoped for better weather next day.

The high wind, rising to a hurricane at times, continued for a whole

week with dense drift until the 8th. I spent the long hours making

crampons of a new pattern, eating and sleeping. Eventually I became

so anxious that I used to sit outside the cave for long spells,

watching for a lull in the wind.

At length I resolved to go down in the blizzard, sitting on the

sledge as long as possible, blown along by the wind. I was making

preparations for a start when the wind suddenly decreased and my

opportunity had come.

In a couple of hours I was within one mile and a half of the Hut.

There was no sign of the Ship lying in the offing, but I comforted

myself with the thought that she might be still at the anchorage and

have swung inshore so as to be hidden by the ice-cliffs, or on the

other hand that Captain Davis might have been along the coast to the

east searching there.

But even as I gazed about seeking for a clue, a speck on the north-

west horizon caught my eye and my hopes went down. It looked like

a distant ship; it might well have been the `Aurora'. Well, what

matter! the long journey was at an end-a terrible chapter of my

life was finished!

Then the rocks around Winter Quarters began to come into view, part

of the basin of the boat harbour appeared, and lo! there were human

figures! They almost seemed unreal--I was in a dream--but after a

brief moment one of them saw me and waved an arm, I replied, there was

a commotion and they all ran towards the Hut. Then they were lost,

for the crest of the first steep slope hid them. It almost seemed to

me that they had run away to hide.

Minutes passed, and I slowly went along with the sledge. Then a head

rose over the brow of the hill and there was Bickerton, breathless

after a long run. I expect he considered for a while which one of

us it was. Soon we had shaken hands and he knew all in a few brief

words, and I learned that the Ship had left earlier in the day.

Madigan, McLean, Bage and Hodgeman arrived, and then a new-comer-

Jeffryes. Five men had remained behind to make a search for our

party, and Jeffryes was a new wireless operator brought down by

Captain Davis.

We were soon at the Hut where I found that full preparations had

been made for wintering a second year. The weather was calm and the

Ship was no distance away so I decided to recall her by wireless.

The masts at the Hut had been re-erected during the summer, and on

board the `Aurora' Hannam was provided with a wireless receiving set.

Jeffryes had arranged with Hannam to call up at 8, 9 and 10 P.M. for

several evenings while the `Aurora' was ``within range'' in case there

were any news of my party. A message recalling the Ship was

therefore sent off and repeated at frequent intervals till past

midnight.

Next morning there was a forty-mile wind when we went outside, but

away across Commonwealth Bay to the west the `Aurora' could be seen

close to the face of the ice-cliffs. She had returned in response

to the call and was steaming up and down, waiting for the wind to

moderate.

We immediately set to work getting all the records, instruments

and personal gear ready to be taken down to the boat harbour in

anticipation of calm weather during the day.

The wind chose to continue and towards evening was in the sixties,

while the barometer fell. During the afternoon Hodgeman went across

to the western ridge and saw that the Ship was still in the Bay. The

sea was so heavy that the motor-boat could never have lived through

it.

That night Jeffryes sent another message, which we learned afterwards

was not received, in which Captain Davis was given the option of

remaining until calm weather supervened or of leaving at once for the

Western Base. I felt that the decision should be left to him, as he

could appreciate exactly the situation of the Western Base and what

the Ship could be expected to do amid the ice at that season of the

year. The time was already past when, according to my written

instructions left for him on arrival at Commonwealth Bay, the `Aurora'

should sail west to relieve Wild and his party.

On the morning of the 10th there was no sign of the Ship and evidently

Captain Davis had decided to wait no longer, knowing that further

delay would endanger the chances of picking up the eight men who had

elected to winter on the shelf-ice one thousand five hundred miles to

the west. At such a critical moment determination, fearless and

swift, was necessary, and, in coming to his momentous decision,

Captain Davis acted well and for the best interests of the Expedition.

A long voyage lay before the `Aurora' through many miles of ice-strewn

sea, swept by intermittent blizzards and shrouded now in midnight

darkness. We still fostered the hope that the vessel's coal-supply

would be sufficient for her to return to Adelie Land and make an

attempt to pick us up. But it was not to be.

The long Antarctic winter was fast approaching and we turned to meet

it with resolution, knowing that if the `Aurora' failed us in early

March, that the early summer of the same year would bring relief.

CHAPTER XIV THE QUEST OF THE SOUTH MAGNETIC POLE

Dr. R. BAGE

Send me your strongest, those who never fail.

I'm the Blizzard, King of the Southern Trail!

Sledging song.

On the afternoon of November 10, at Aladdin's Cave, after a convivial

hoosh, Webb, Hurley and I said good-bye to Dr. Mawson's party and

made off south for the eleven and three-quarter mile cave where our

Supporting Party, Murphy, Hunter and Laseron, were waiting for us.

At 7 P.M. we started almost at a run over the smooth ice, to the

accompaniment of hearty cheers from Dr. Mawson, Ninnis, and Mertz;

two of whom we were never to see again.

Half a mile of this easy going, and we were on snow for the first

time with a loaded sledge. Uphill snow, too, and the wind rising,

so it was no small relief when we finally made the Cathedral Grotto

at 11.30 P.M., and found Murphy's tent pitched alongside it. The wind

by this time was about forty-five miles per hour and, it being nearly

dusk, the crevasses--a five-mile belt--had been fairly difficult to

negotiate.

We soon had the cave clear of snow, had a good meal and then slept

the sleep of the just, feeling well content with the first day's work

--eleven and a half miles from home at an altitude of one thousand

nine hundred feet. We were off at last on a search for the Magnetic

Pole.

On the morrow some time was spent in rearranging the loads. Finally,

both parties moved off south into heavy wind and fairly thick drift.

What with the ground rising steadily, the pressure of the wind and

our lack of condition, two and a quarter hours of solid work realized

only two and a quarter miles; so we decided to camp.

All the night it blew hard, between seventy and eighty miles per

hour, and next day it was still blowing and drifting heavily. Our

tent was a good deal smaller than Murphy's, and, as Webb and Hurley

are both six-footers, we always had to put all gear outside when the

sleeping-bags were down. This is really a good thing when the

weather is bad, as one is not tempted to stay in the bag all the

time.

Early in the afternoon as we were all feeling hungry and had been

in bags long enough to feel cold, although the weather was quite warm

(10 degrees F.), we rolled bags, and, when our frozen burberrys were

once fairly on, quite enjoyed ourselves. After a boil-up and a few

minutes' ``run'' round in the drift and wind, we did some stitching

on our light drill tent, which was making very heavy weather of it,

although pitched close under the lee of Murphy's strong japara tent.

A little reading, some shouted unintelligible conversation with the

other tent, another boil-up, and, last but not least, a smoke, found

us quite ready for another sleep.

Next day (November 13), the wind having dropped to thirty-five miles

per hour, we set out about 11 A.M. in light drift. The sky was still

overcast, so the light was very trying. In the worst fogs at home

one can at any rate see something of the ground on which one is

treading; in Adelie Land, even when the air was clear of snow, it was

easy to bump against a four-foot sastruga without seeing it. It

always reminded me most of a fog at sea: a ship creeping ``o'er the

hueless, viewless deep.''

When 6 P.M. arrived we had only covered five and a half miles,

but were all thoroughly exhausted and glad to camp. Lunch had been

rather barbarously served in the lee of the sledge. First came

plasmon biscuit, broken with the ice-axe into pieces small enough to

go into the mouth through the funnel of a burberry helmet; then

followed two ounces of chocolate, frozen rather too hard to have a

definite taste; and finally a luscious morsel--two ounces of butter,

lovingly thawed-out in the mouth to get the full flavour. Lunches

like these in wind and drift are uncomfortable enough for every one

to be eager to start again as soon as possible.

By nine o'clock that night the wind had increased to a full gale. We

were in camp all the 14th and the 15th, the wind rising to eighty-five

miles per hour with very heavy drift during the small hours of the

15th. This was its maximum, and by the afternoon it was down to

about seventy miles per hour with a clear sky and light drift. We

donned our burberrys (I should like to give Hurley's ``Ode to a Frozen

Burberry'') and dug out our sledges, both of which were completely

buried in a ramp forty yards long; the shovel projecting nine inches

above the surface.

While we were engaged on this work, I overheard the following

conversation being shouted in the Supporting Party's tent:

FIRST VOICE. I'm hungry. Who will go out and get the food-bag?

SLEEPY VOICE. The food-weights ** are in the cooker.

FIRST VOICE. No they're not.

SLEEPY VOICE. Saw them there yesterday, must be somewhere in the

tent.

FIRST VOICE. No they're not... I ate them last night.

** Until amounts were known by experience, rations were weighed by a

small balance whose various weights were small calico bags filled with

chocolate.

The exercise, a good hoosh and above all the clear sky made us take

a less morbid view of the fact that we were six days out from the Hut

and only nineteen and a half miles away.

Early on the 16th we could hear above the roar of the wind the drift

still hissing against the tent, but it had diminished by nine o'clock

breakfast.

By common consent it was agreed that our loads were too heavy for

the conditions under which we were working. I accordingly decided

to drop one hundred-pound bag. We had already saved nearly one week's

food for three men and had not yet worked up our full sledging

appetites. The bag was raised to the top of a six-foot snow mound,

a thermograph being placed alongside. As we now seemed to be on plateau

snow, I thought it wise to leave behind my heavy boots and Swiss

crampons.

By 4 P.M. the wind had decreased to a light breeze. Work was very

slow on a steeper up grade, and at six o'clock clouds came up quickly

from the south-east and snow began to fall, so we camped at 7.30 P.M.

thoroughly tired out. At twenty-four and a half miles the altitude

was three thousand two hundred feet.

The snow was a false alarm. It ceased at 9 P.M. and the wind

subsided to a dead calm!!

Good headway was being made against a strong breeze next day, when

it was noticed that two gallons of kerosene were missing off the

supporters' sledge. While Murphy and Laseron went back two miles

to recover them, Webb secured a magnetic declination and I took sun

observations for time and azimuth.

We were off early on the 18th and for the first time were able to

appreciate the ``scenery.'' Glorious sunshine overhead and all around

brilliant snow, dappled by livid shadows; very different from the

smooth, soft, white mantle usually attributed to the surface of

Antarctica by those in the homeland. Here and there, indeed, were

smooth patches which we called bowling-greens, but hard and slippery

as polished marble, with much the same translucent appearance.

Practically all the country, however, was a jumbled mass of small,

hard sastrugi, averaging perhaps a foot in height, with an occasional

gnarled old veteran twice as high. To either side the snow rolled

away for miles. In front, we made our first acquaintance with the

accursed next ridge, which is always ahead of you on the plateau.

Generally we passed from one ridge to another so gradually that we

could never say for certain just when we had topped one; still the

next ridge was always there.

The weather had lately been colder with the increased altitude. The

temperature in daily range varied from -10 degrees F. to 9 degrees F.

It was so hot in the sun, on the 18th, that lunching inside the tent

was unbearable. We preferred its shadow outside in the breeze.

Wearing a minimum of clothes, we marched along gaily during the

afternoon. The country changed in a wonderful manner, the sastrugi

gradually becoming smaller and finally disappearing. The surface

was so soft that a bamboo would easily penetrate it for a foot.

Evidently it was fairly old and laid down in calm weather, for

excavations showed that it became more compact without any hard

wind-swept layers marking successive snowfalls.

It was proved that we were commencing a descent of one thousand five

hundred feet down the north side of a valley feeding the Mertz

Glacier. In order to explain the surface, smooth and unruffled by

any wind, the question arose as to whether it is possible that there

is a cushion of dead air more or less permanently over the north side

of this depression.

On the soft surface we were able to dispense with crampons. Hitherto,

it had been impossible to haul over a slippery surface in finnesko.

Now we felt as light as air and were vastly cheered when some one

calculated that the six of us were saving I don't know how many

thousand foot-pounds of work every mile. With a run of twelve miles

we were forty-two miles from Winter Quarters.

Another splendid day on the 19th. We had lunch in a curious cup-

shaped hollow, estimated to be two miles wide and one hundred and

fifty feet deep. Webb obtained here an approximate dip of 88 degrees

44',** a very promising increase from the Hut (87 degrees 27').

** At the South Magnetic Pole the dip is 90 degrees.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Map showing track of the southern sledging party from the Main Base

Snow-blindness had now begun to make itself felt for the first time.

I for one had my first experience of it that afternoon. During the

halt at lunch I put on yellow goggles in place of the smoked ones I

had been wearing, and in a quarter of an hour the change of colour

had `settled' my eyes for the time being.

The afternoon was very hot. The thermometer stood at 10 degrees F.

at 4 P.M., but the still air made it almost insupportable. By the

time the load was hauled up out of the basin, we were streaming with

perspiration.

Before halting, we sighted a dark, distant ridge, thirty miles away,

and the course was corrected by its bearing. Our extravagant hopes

of finding a permanently calm region had been dwindling for the last

few miles, as a hard bottom, a few inches under the surface, had

become evident. They were finally dispelled by a south-west wind

springing up during the night.

As every one was beginning to feel the hard work after another

oppressive afternoon on the 20th, we decided to have an easy march

next day and to build our first depot. Of course we had hoped to

have been farther out before sending back the supporting party, but

the weather had settled the question.

On the 21st, taking things as easily as a thirty-five mile wind would

permit, we pulled on, up and down small undulations till 4 P.M. when

we encountered a small rise, with the next ridge a considerable

distance ahead. The depot was to be built here.

Webb at once proceeded to take full magnetic declination, time and

azimuth observations, Laseron recording for him. Murphy put in a

miserable hour over the primus melting snow. He was rather snow-blind

and his eyes must have contributed a good deal of water to the pot.

The water was poured into food-bags filled with snow, which were

buried, encircled by wire slings, in holes. Here they froze, making

excellent holdfasts for the depot flag. Depot flags had been

exercising our ingenuity for months before the start, ordinary forms

being destroyed by the wind in a few hours. Webb had finally built

the perfect flag of the wind-vane type: a V of pieces of blackened

Venesta board with light struts at the back and a piece of aeroplane

tubing at the apex which slipped over the bamboo pole. The pole, of

two bamboos, stood sixteen feet from the ground and was provided with

two sets of flexible steel stays. Close by, Hurley and Hunter had

built a snow mound ten feet in diameter and ten feet in height,

finished off with a capping of snow blocks wrapped in black bunting.

Next day it was blowing a little harder and the sky was overcast,

snow falling all day. What bad light means can be gathered from the

fact that Laseron on crawling out of the tent in the morning raised

an alarm that our tent had been blown away in the night. It turned

out that our tent was hidden by a mound which he could not see, though

only about ten yards from it.

I had been given the option of relieving the supporting party of any

of their gear I coveted and I used it freely. The sledgemeter was

the first thing commandeered, ours, made by Correll, having developed

some slight complaint in its interior. Their cooker, being in good

condition, was also taken. We all cast longing eyes at the roomy

wind-proof tent but finally decided that it was too heavy--forty

pounds as against our own of twenty-six pounds, including tent and

poles.

At 7 P.M. we said good-bye to our supporters, Hurley exposed the

last plate of his big reflex camera, which they carried back to the

Hut, and a few minutes later Webb, Hurley, and I were standing alone

watching three black specks disappearing in the drift; a stiff wind

helping them along in great style. We were left to our own resources

now, for better or for worse. ``Weird'' is how I described my

feelings in the diary.

The same night it blew a hurricane and only dropped to sixty miles

per hour during the 23rd, compelling us to remain in camp. Not an

ideal birthday for Webb, but we made the most of it. I quote from

my diary: ``Turned out and rolled bags at 3 P.M. for lunch, for which

we opened a wee tin of bacon ration brought for the occasion. Had

some extra lumps of sugar (collared from the eleven-mile cave) in

our tea. After the wine had been round (i.e. after a special second

cup of tea), I gave Eric a pair of stockings from Murphy, and then

`Hoyle' and I smoked a cigar each which Webb produced. Dinner at 7

was also a special affair as we had the remains of the bacon ration

in the hoosh, with great effect. Also an extra strong brew of cocoa

boiled quite smooth. Burberrys on and a stroll outside in the wind

for a yard or two to get up a circulation; then into bag where I am

smoking a plebeian pipe which is very tame after the glories of the

day, especially as I suspect my tobacco of being a bit damp.''

Such was the first of the two ``auspicious occasions'' we had on the

journey.

After going carefully through the gear, we discarded a pickaxe, one

pair of big spiked boots and some odd clothing. We also decided, as

the probability of leisure was not great, to leave our reading matter

behind. It was with regret that I added my little `Virginibus

Puerisque' to the small pile of ``rejects.'' The load now amounted

to seven hundred and forty-eight pounds in all. Not many days after,

the floor-cloth (eight pounds) was left behind, as the japara sail

afforded ample protection from damp in the low temperatures of the

plateau.

The dip-circle, which was to yield the most important result of our

journey, was housed after much thought on a conveniently shaped

kerosene tray between the tins of oil. Four light leather straps,

buckled tightly, made a solid mass of tray, oil tins, and dip-circle;

very safe, and easy to undo.

My orders were to proceed inland, due south, taking magnetic,

geographical, meteorological, and such other observations as were

possible, returning to the Hut not later than January 15. Dr.

Mawson had left it to my discretion, in the event of any great

change occurring in the declination, to go either true or magnetic

south.

At the Hut and up to about sixty miles south of it, the declination

had proved fairly constant, but now at the Southern Cross Depot, as

we had christened the sixty-seven-mile camp, the compass, from pointing

a little to the east of south, had travelled to 40 degrees east of

south, so that it became obvious that there was considerable magnetic

disturbance in the country over which we were travelling. Whether we

went south or south-east seemed unlikely to affect the value of

geographical and other information we might gather, while Webb was of

the opinion that the best magnetic results would be obtained by

marching directly towards the Magnetic Pole, particularly if there

were disturbances over the intervening area. For these reasons the

course was maintained magnetic south.

At 11 A.M. on Sunday, November 24, we moved off to the south-east in

a wind of fifty miles an hour. The light was bad, and steering had

to be done by sastrugi and wind. However, momentary glimpses of the

sun served to check the course. The lunch camp was five miles from

the depot, and a good mound with a top of black bunting was left

there. At almost every halt, thus far on our journey, the snow cut

for pitching the tent had been gathered up into a mound which, in

addition to forming a landmark, could often be used as a back-mark

for checking the course. Our depot thus had a mound four miles on the

southern and five miles on the northern side of it. It was not marked

as well as I had hoped, but under the circumstances we could not do

better. Moreover, at intervals during the day, some very distinctive

snow ramps had appeared in the valley, some five miles to the north-

east, and their position was fixed relative to the course.

Our hopes for a good afternoon were disappointed, as the wind and

drift came up again as strong as ever. The surface, too, grew worse;

nothing but sastrugi eighteen inches to thirty inches high and very

close together. We were marching a little to the east of the wind,

and the sledge was continually blown sideways, making considerable

leeway. By 8.30 P.M. it was blowing sixty miles per hour, so we

halted, thoroughly tired out, having hauled our one-third of a ton

eight and three-quarter miles.

When it is blowing hard, the end of the day's march is not the end of

the day's work. As soon as a camping spot has been chosen, the sledge

is pulled round head to wind. The straps round the load are loosened

carefully, the shovel and tent removed and the straps retightened.

One man starts breaking out chunks of snow, experimenting until he

finds a place where large pieces come away readily. Lumps of forty

pounds are the handiest and quickest, but often only smaller ones can

be obtained. These are arranged in a circle round the tent-site,

while the man with the tent places it on the ground pointing upwind,

the bottom of the poles being just where the middle windward leg will

be, and makes a hole for that leg.

When everything is ready, all three catch hold of the tent, one man

crawling half into it, gripping hard the leather loop on the windward

leg. The others sort out and grip their two side legs. ``All ready?

Up!'' It almost takes one's breath away, the roar and the flap!

The side legs are quickly separated as the tent rises, and before it

can blow over, the leeward legs are more or less in position, taking

the strain. The centre man is throwing all his weight on to the

leather loop, while the other two outside each holds down his windward

pole with one hand and with the other pulls blocks of snow on to the

skirt to windward. Once this is done, the rest is simple: cutting

holes in just the right positions for the other legs, pulling out the

skirt and making it snug all round. Then in goes the floor-cloth,

and, by the time that is spread out properly, the primus and cooker

are passed in. The cooker is dissected and the two water vessels

passed out to be filled with snow. The cook will have hard work to

get the primus started if he does not shield the spirit flame from the

wind, which blows through the tent, by putting the whole lamp inside

the big cooker lid.

In come the pots filled with lumps of snow. The food tank is placed

just outside the entrance, and the proper food-bags for the meal are

passed in to the cook, the tank being retied to keep out drift.

The cooker will now be going at full pressure, and the cook is ready

to receive the gear. Sleeping-bags, ``computation bag,'' hypsometer,

``meat block'' (a three-inch-square paper pad on which meteorological

notes were taken); clothes-bag opened, three ditty-bags passed in and

bag retied; a final temperature taken and aneroid read; sledge

anchored securely by tow-rope to the ice-axe, and a final look round

to see all gear is safely strapped down and snow-tight.

In calm weather, camping is a very different thing. On a fine day,

half an hour after the halt would usually find us carefully scraping

the last of the hoosh out of our pannikins, ready for the cocoa.

At the seventy-six-mile camp we tried the experiment of a break-wind.

The tent was so small and light that it was necessary to protect it

in the heavy winds. Hurley and I took about three-quarters of an

hour to build the first one, but later we improved, getting into the

knack of hewing snow with a sharp-pointed shovel.

That night in bag I wrote: ``The result of the breakwind is that for

once we have the wind bluffed. It is blowing seventy-five miles per

hour--a full hurricane--but all the viciousness is taken out of the

flapping and there will be no damage done to the tent by morning.''

The wind was too strong for travelling early in the day (November

25). While outside we suddenly observed two snow petrels. It was

hard to realize that they had actually flown seventy-six miles

inland to a height of two thousand four hundred and fifty feet. I

dashed inside for the fishingline; Hurley got out the camera. They

were a beautiful sight, hovering with outspread wings just above the

snow, tipping it with their feet now and then, to poise without a

flutter in a sixty-five-mile gale. Hurley secured a couple of

``snaps'' at the expense of badly frost-bitten hands. Just as I

arrived with the line hooked and baited, the birds flew away to the

north-east; our visions of fresh meat went with them. The line was

always ready after this.

Towards evening the wind dropped suddenly to twenty miles per hour.

Our camp was stationed on the southern side of the large valley we

had entered on the 18th, and we could identify the ridge crossed on

that date, blue and dim, forty miles away to the north. To the

north-east could be seen a distinct dip in the skyline, indicating

the bed of the valley, on whose northern side the dip met the higher

skyline in a steep bluff, twenty-five miles off. This bluff under

the glasses was of heavily crevassed, blue ice.

The wind did not rise again much until 10 P.M., when we had moved on

seven and a half miles, rising about three hundred feet over several

ridges and practically losing our view to the north.

A steady breeze on the 26th, and, on the whole, good light, allowed

us to make twelve miles.

Each day, now, Webb took an approximate magnetic dip and declination

in the lee of the break-wind. This was necessary in order to get

some idea of local disturbances. Also, it gave us some vague idea as

to the direction in which lay the South Magnetic Pole. For instance,

at the eighty-three-and-three-quarter-mile camp, the needle showed the

Pole to be 18 degrees east of true south, while at our lunch camp that

day, six miles farther on, it was given as 50 degrees east of south.

The dip was so great that our prismatic compass would not set closer

than about 15 degrees, but the long compass needle of the dip-circle,

though of course sluggish, continued to give excellent results.

Under these conditions it is obvious that the magnetic needle is quite

useless for steering purposes. The sun compass proved itself a more

than efficient substitute. On a snowfield there is usually a total

absence of landmarks of any kind, so the direction of wind, sastrugi,

or perhaps a low cloud is found with the sun-compass, frequently

checked, and the course kept accordingly. On camping we would

generally carefully note the direction in which the sledge was left,

in case the next day proved overcast. Thus we would march in the

morning by the wind's direction till the sun, gleaming through the

clouds for a few moments, enabled us to use the compass again.

Sastrugi, only six inches high, seen on the 26th, showed the effects

of wind-erosion exquisitely. In an individual case the windward end

of a sastruga might be completely undercut for six or nine inches,

leaving a hard crust, sometimes only one-eighth of an inch in

thickness and a couple of inches wide. This would sag downwards under

its own weight in a fine curve till the tip rested on the snow

beneath. It is marvellous how such a delicate structure can withstand

the heavy wind.

November 27 proved a very hard day. The wind kept up sixty miles

per hour all the time, so that, after taking four hours to do four and

three-quarter miles, we were all thoroughly exhausted. It was not a

great run, but the century was hoisted--one hundred and three-quarter

miles by sledge-meter; altitude two thousand nine hundred feet.

There was a mild celebration that night over a square of butter-scotch

and half an ounce of chocolate, besides the regular hoosh and cocoa.

Next day the light was very bad and the wind fifty miles per hour.

Observations were therefore made inside the tent. Webb, Hurley and

the instrument occupied all available space, while I spent three hours

digging a shaft eight feet deep in the snow, taking temperatures every

foot. It appeared that the mean annual temperature of the snow was

approximately -16 degrees F.

The dip was 88 degrees 54'; certainly rather too large a rise from

88 degrees 20' of twenty miles back. The declination had actually

changed about 80 degrees in the last ten miles. This one-hundred-mile

station was badly disturbed. From the evidence, it is possible that

a subsidiary ``pole'' or area of almost vertical dip may exist close

by this spot to the west or south-west.

Going straight up wind into a ``blow'' which varied from forty to

fifty miles per hour, we were able to make eight miles after the

previous day's rest. At lunch a hole was dug five feet square and

two feet deep. It served three purposes. First, it gave a good

shelter for a longitude observation; secondly, with the mast, yard

and floor-cloth we converted it into a shelter snug enough to

house the primus and to lunch comfortably; and thirdly, a mound was

left as a back-mark which was picked up on the return journey.

By experience we found that a warm lunch and a rest enabled one to

``peg'' along a good deal farther than would otherwise be possible.

The ``scenery'' in the afternoon became if possible more desolate--

very few new sastrugi, the surface appearing generally old and pitted.

In some places it was rotten and blown away, disclosing coarse

granulated substrata. At the top of one ridge the snow merged into

neve split into small crevasses, nine inches wide and four or five

yards apart. The camp was pitched, here, at 11 P.M. The latitude

was 68 degrees 32' S., and we saw the midnight sun for the first

time that summer, about one-quarter of its rim remaining above the

horizon.

A full hurricane came up and kept between fifty and sixty miles per

hour all day on the 30th. Before moving off, Webb found that the

magnetic needle had ``waltzed'' back 60 degrees since the one-hundred-

mile camp, now pointing 80 degrees east of south. Still, to allow the

needle to makeup its mind, we steered into the wind at 2 P.M., losing

the neve and meeting very rough country. By 6 P.M., with four miles

to our credit, we were nearly played out. It was being discussed

whether we should go on when the discovery was made that the

theodolite legs were missing; probably having slipped out in one of

the numerous capsizes of the sledge.

The solemn rites of ``shut-eye'' determined that Webb was to stay

and make camp while Hurley and I retraced our steps. It was no easy

matter to follow the trail, for on hard snow the sledge runners leave

no mark, and we had to watch for the holes of the crampon-spikes.

About two and a half miles back, the legs were found, and there only

remained a hard ``plug'' against the wind to camp and hoosh.

While we were lying half-toggled into the sleeping-bags, writing our

diaries, Hurley spent some time alternately imprecating the wind and

invoking it for a calm next day. As he said, once behind a break-wind

one could safely defy it, but on the march one is much more humble.

Whether it was in honour of Queen Alexandra's birthday, or whether

Hurley's pious efforts of the evening before had taken effect,

December 1 turned out a good day. By noon, the wind had dropped

sufficiently for us to hoist the Jack and Commonwealth Ensign for

the occasion.

After four miles of battling, there came into sight a distinct ridge,

ten miles to the west and south--quite the most definitely rising

ground observed since leaving the coast. In one place was a patch of

immense crevasses, easily visible to the naked eye; in another, due

south, were black shadows, and towards these the course was pointed.

At a point more than one hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea,

a skua gull paid an afternoon call, alighting a few yards from the

track. I immediately commenced to stalk it with a fishing-line,

this time all ready and baited with pemmican. However, it was quite

contemptuous, flying off to the south-south-east as far as we could

follow it. Was it taking a short cut to the Ross Sea?

December 2 saw us through ``Dead-Beat Gully'' to a rise, in sight of

the shadows towards which we had been steering. Two miles away they

appeared like the edge of the moon seen through a large telescope.

The shadows were due to large mounds of snow on the south side of a

steep escarpment. Three main prominences were cross-connected with

regular lines of hillocks, giving the impression of a subdivided

town-site. The low evening sun threw everything up in the most

wonderful relief.

On the morning of the 3rd we were in a valley running west-north-west

and east-south-east. The southern side rose steeply and from it

projected three large mounds, about two hundred feet from the bottom

of the valley, into which they fell just like tailings-heaps from a

mine. They were christened ``The Nodules.''

Going due south uphill over neve we found ourselves in a regular

network of crevasses. They were about ten feet wide and well

bridged. Most noticeable were ``hedges'' of ice up to six feet in

height on either side of the crevasses which ran southward. It was

now nearly calm and in every crack and chink in the snow-bridges

beautiful fern-like ice-crystals were seen. These must have been

just forming, as a very light puff of wind was seen to destroy many

of them.

We spent three hours exploring the locality. On nearing the top of

the ridge, roped together, we found that the crevasses were becoming

much wider, while the ``hedges'' were disappearing. The centre

``nodule'' was found to be immediately north or to the leeward of the

intersection of two crevasses, each about forty feet wide. The

bridge of one crevasse had dropped some thirty feet for a length of

eighty yards. Doubtless, an eddy from this hole accounts for the

deposit of snow and, by accretions, for the erection of the nodule.

Webb went down at the end of the alpine rope and found the bridge

below quite solid.

For about half a mile the summit of the slope was practically level,

three hundred feet above the bed of the valley. The surface was still

of neve, intersected by canals forty, sixty and eighty feet wide,

in which the snow-bridge was generally four or five feet from the

brink.

On the south-west horizon, perhaps twenty miles away, was a salient

crest streaked by three dark vertical bars; evidently another

crevassed area.

Returning to the sledge, we toggled-on and worked it up over the top

of the ridge, much regretting that time would not allow us to examine

the other two large ``nodules.'' Hurley was in the lead, lengthening

his line by thirty feet of alpine rope, but even then all three of us

and the sledge were often on the lid of a crevasse. Luckily, the lids

were fairly sound, and none of us went in beyond the waist. Finally,

the trail emerged on to ordinary sastrugi once more, where a halt was

made for lunch. We were all glad to have seen the place, but I think

none of us has any wish to see another like it.

That night, after following the magnetic needle towards the

south-east, we were fairly on the plateau at one hundred and forty

miles, with an altitude of four thousand four hundred feet. The dip,

however, had steadily decreased, standing now at 88 degrees 30'.

There was some consolation in the hope that a big, sudden rise was

stored up for us somewhere along the way ahead.

December 4 and 5 were fine days, giving only twenty-two miles, as we

met with a rough surface; a large quantity of very hard, razor-backed

sastrugi, generally about two feet high, like groined vaulting

inverted, on a small scale. Sledge and sledge-meter both had a very

rough passage. The sledge, for instance, balances itself on the top

of a sastruga for a moment, with an ominous bend in the runners,

crashes down the slope and jams its bow into the next one, from which

it has to be lifted clear.

During this run the needle again misbehaved itself, changing its

direction some 85 degrees in ten miles, but by the night of the 5th

we were getting past the disturbed locality and the dip had increased

considerably.

For the first time on the trip the wind veered round to the south-east.

Snow had fallen overnight (December 5) and had drifted in long ramps

diagonally across the sastrugi. In two and a half hours we covered two

and a quarter miles, blindly blundering in an uncertain light among

crests and troughs and through piles of soft, new snow. Then we

stopped; Webb filling in the afternoon with a full set of dip

observations.

That night the break-wind played its one possible trick. Waking on

the 8th, we found that the heavy snowfall, with only a moderate wind,

had drifted us up. Of course Hurley and I, who slept on the `outsides,'

had known it most of the night. Before we could extricate ourselves

from the bags Webb had to turn out from the middle to dig away the

drift which was weighing down the walls of the tent on top of us.

It was hopeless weather for travelling. In the afternoon a snow cave

was dug, seven feet deep and enlarged to seven feet square at the

bottom. The whole was covered with mast, yard and sail. It was very

snug from the outward aspect, but we soon found that there were two

objections to the ``Sarcophagus,'' as it was named. There was very

little light except a ghastly blue half-tone filtering through the

snow, and the place was not over warm, surrounded by walls at a much

lower temperature than that of the surface.

Webb commenced a declination ``quick-run,'' consisting of half-hourly

observations of the direction in which the compass was pointing. In

ordinary latitudes, during the day, the compass needle moves over a

few minutes of arc, but here, being so close to the Magnetic Pole, its

movement is greatly magnified, the range being about 5 degrees on this

occasion. Webb carried on readings till midnight, and at 4 A.M.,

December 9, I turned out, being relieved at 8 A.M. by Hurley, who

carried on until the twenty-four hours were completed. This

observation should be especially valuable when it is compared with

continuous magnetic records obtained at the same time at Winter

Quarters and by the Scott expedition at McMurdo Sound.

It was not till 1.30 P.M. on December 10 that the sixty-mile wind had

subsided sufficiently for us to get away. Every yard of our quota

of seven miles was hard going. A fine example of a typical old

sastruga was passed on the way. In order to secure a photograph of

it, Hurley had to waste eighteen films before he could persuade one

to pull into place correctly. The film-packs had been carefully kept

in an airtight tin, but the cold was too much for them. The tags

which should pull each film round from the back to the front of the

pack usually tore away with a small piece of film. In fact, out of

one hundred and twenty films only forty-five exposures were made.

On the 11th a good deal of ``piecrust'' cut down the day's march to

eight and a half miles. Sledge runners are usually supported by

this surface, but one's feet break through in a most annoying and

tiring manner. The drift eased off for a few hours and we managed to

dry some of our gear. At the Sarcophagus, things which had all been

wet enough before became saturated with drift which turned to ice.

Felt mitts are perhaps the worst in this respect, and it is no

exaggeration to say that you could easily brain a man with one after

it had been worn in drift for a couple of days.

That night I decided that one more day must see us at our depot.

Allowing three days' grace for contingencies, there were thirty-one

days for us to attain our farthest southerly point and back to the

Hut.

On the 12th we planned to reach a spot for the depot, two hundred

miles out, and by 11.30 P.M. came on a fine site at one hundred and

ninety-nine and three-quarter miles; altitude four thousand eight

hundred and fifty feet, latitude 69 degrees 83.1' south; longitude

140 degrees 20' east. Everything possible was left behind, the

sledge-decking being even cut away, until only three light bamboo

slats remained. A pile, including ten days' food and one gallon of

kerosene, was placed on a small mound to prevent it being drifted

over. A few yards distant rose a solid nine-foot cairn surmounted

by a black canvas-and-wire flag, six feet higher, well stayed with

steel wire.

I took on food for seventeen days, three days more than I intended to

be out, partly so that we could keep on longer if we found we could

make very fast time, and also as a safeguard against thick weather

when returning to the depot.

Late in the evening we set off against a stiff breeze. The sledge ran

lightly for three and a half miles, and we camped. The depot showed

up well in the north-west as a bright golden spot in the low midnight

sun.

Next day the piecrust was so bad that, despite the lessened load, we

only covered twelve miles. The surface was smoothly polished, and we

either crashed through it from four inches to a foot or else slipped

and came down heavily on knees, elbow, or head. New finnesko were

largely responsible for such an accident.

At 11 P.M. a remarkable ramp, five chains long, was passed. On its

windward side was a tangled cluster of large sastrugi. They made one

imagine that the wind, infuriated at finding a block of snow impeding

its progress, had run amok with a giant gouge, endeavouring to pare it

down. Every now and then, the gouge, missing its aim, had taken great

lateral scoops from the surface, leaving trenches two and three feet

deep.

In bags that night we had a talk (not the first by any means) over

our prospects. Up to the one hundred-and-seventy-four-mile camp, four

hundred miles seemed dimly possible, but now we saw we would be lucky

to reach three hundred miles. Moreover, the dip at this spot was 89

degrees 11', practically what it had been ever since one hundred and

fifty miles. Sixty-five miles for nothing! How far for the other

forty-nine minutes which were needed for a vertical dip and the South

Magnetic Pole? This problem was insoluble, so each toggled himself

into his bag in a rather depressed state of mind.

December 16 was a glorious day; only a fifteen-mile wind, and for

ten miles an improved surface. There was no drift, consequently

opportunity was taken to turn the sleeping bags inside out. They

needed it, too. The upper parts were not so bad as they had been

propped open occasionally, but the lower halves were coated with solid

ice. For the first time for weeks we did not wear burberrys, as the

weather was so warm. Fourteen miles was the total work, the previous

day's being twelve.

All three of us were having trouble with snow-blindness; the ``zinc

and cocaine'' tabloids being in great demand.

Latitude 70 degrees south was passed on the 17th and we were another

fourteen miles to the good. The dip was on the increase 89 degrees 25'

and the declination swung to 40 degrees east of the magnetic meridian.

At two hundred and fifty-six miles the altitude was five thousand five

hundred feet.

The temperature was getting lower; the minimum being -21 degrees F.

on the night of the 17th, rising to a maximum of 3 degrees F. on the

following day.

There was dead calm and a regular heat wave on December 19. As the

sun rose higher and higher, the tent became absolutely oppressive.

The rime coating the walls inside thawed and water actually trickled

into our finnesko. Usually we awoke to find them frozen hard, just

as we had shaped them on the previous night, but on this particular

morning they were pathetically limp and wet. The temperature inside

the tent was 66 degrees F., heated, of course, by the sun's rays which

raised our black bulb thermometer to 105 degrees F. We were not used

to this sort of thing and struggled out hurriedly for a breath of

fresh air.

Once into harness, we began to feel the effects of exertion. By

degrees we got rid of our clothing, but unfortunately soon came to

bedrock in that respect, as the underclothing was sewn on and

immovable. At lunch time, with the thermometer at -2 degrees F. in

the shade, we reluctantly dressed knowing how soon we would cool off.

About 9 P.M. clouds moved over rapidly from the south-east and the

landscape faded into the blank, shadowless nothing of an overcast day.

The camp was pitched at two hundred and eighty-three miles amidst a

jumble of ramps and sastrugi. The dip had seen fit to rise to 89

degrees 35'.

In the morning the wind was doing thirty miles per hour, which

certainly seemed to be the normal thing. It fell to a nice sailing

breeze, but, at the time, we were not very appreciative of anything

as the course was uphill. Again, it was to be the last day's run, so

we were ``all out'' when the halt came after a good fifteen miles--the

longest day's march on the outward journey. Nevertheless, Webb

unpacked the theodolite after hoosh and took an altitude of the sun at

midnight.

On December 21 the load on the sledge was stripped down to tent,

dip-circle, theodolite, cooker and a little food. For two and a half

miles we went south-east over rising ground until the sledge-meter

showed three hundred and one miles.

While Hurley and I pitched the tent, Webb built a breakwind for his

instrument fifty yards away. Then followed a long set of magnetic

observations. About 5 P.M. the magnetic work was interrupted; the

theodolite replacing the dip-circle on the legs, while I took a

longitude shot. I was seeing double, being slightly snow-blind, and

had some difficulty in choosing the correct combination from the

assortment of suns and cross-wires visible in the telescope. Setting

the vertical and horizontal wires simultaneously on the sun was

beyond me; Webb taking the observations for the true meridian, which

also checked my longitude shot.

Magnetic work under these conditions is an extremely uncomfortable

operation. Even a light wind will eddy round the break-wind, and it

is wind which makes low temperatures formidable. Nearly all the work

has to be done with bare fingers or thin instrument-gloves, and the

time taken is far greater than in temperate climates, owing to the

fingers constantly ``going'' and because of the necessity of

continually freeing the instrument from the condensed moisture of the

breath. Considering that the temperature was -12 degrees F. when he

had finished his four hours' work, it may be imagined that Webb was

ready for his hot tea. The dip proved to be 89 degrees 43.5', that

is, sixteen and a half minutes from the vertical. The altitude was

just over five thousand nine hundred feet, in latitude 70 degrees 36.5'

south and longitude 148 degrees 10' east.

After lunch the Union Jack and the Commonwealth Ensign were hoisted

and three cheers given for the King--willing but rather lonesome away

out there! We searched the horizon with glasses but could see

nothing save snow, undulating in endless sastrugi. To the south-east

the horizon was limited by our old enemy, ``the next ridge,'' some

two miles away. We wondered what could be beyond, although we knew it

was only the same featureless repetition, since one hundred and seventy-

five miles on the same course would bring us to the spot where David,

Mawson and Mackay had stood in 1909.

After Hurley had taken a photograph of the camp, the tent was struck

and the sledge repacked. At last the sail was rigged, we gave a final

glance back and turned on the homeward trail.

My diary of that night sums up: ``We have now been exactly six

weeks on the tramp and somehow feel rather sad at turning back, even

though it has not been quite a Sunday school picnic all along. It is

a great disappointment not to see a dip of 90°, but the time is too

short with this `climate.' It was higher than we expected to get,

after the unsatisfactory dips obtained near the two-hundred-mile

depot. The rate of increase since that spot has been fairly uniform

and indicates that 90 degrees might be reached in another fifty to sixty

miles, if the same rate held, and that means at least another week.

It's no good thinking about it for `orders are orders.' We'll have

our work cut out to get back as it is. Twenty-five days till we are

overdue. Certainly we have twenty-three days' food, eight days'

with us, ten days' at two hundred miles, and five days' at sixty-seven

miles, so with luck we should not go hungry, but Webb wants to get

five more full sets of dips if possible on the way back, and this

means two and a half days.''

That night the minimum thermometer registered its lowest at -25 degrees

F. It was December 21 and Midsummer Day, so we concluded that the spot

would be a very chilly one in the winter.

At this juncture we were very short of finnesko. The new ones we had

worn since the two-hundred-mile camp had moulted badly and were now

almost ``bald.'' The stitching wears through as soon as the hair

comes off and frequent mending is necessary.

We rose earlier than usual on the 22nd, so as to get more advantage

from the wind, which each evening had always tended to die down

somewhat. With forty-two square feet of sail, the twenty-mile wind

was too much for us, the sledge capsizing on the smallest pretext.

Instead of hanging the yard from the top of the mast, we placed it

across the load, reversing the sail and hooking the clews over the

top of the mast. Three or four pieces of lampwick at intervals

served as reefing-points by which the area of the sail could be

quickly cut down by bunching the upper part as much as was

necessary.

During the day we frequently saw our tracks in patches of snow left

during a previous snowfall, but they were much eroded, although only

three days old. After sledging in Adelie Land it is hard to realize

that on certain parts of the Ross Barrier tracks a year old may

remain visible.

After passing the two-hundred-and-eighty-three-mile mound, the

sledge-meter became very sickly. Spoke after spoke had parted and

we saw that nothing we could do would make it last very much longer.

As we intended in one place to make a cross-country run of seventy

miles, so as to cut off the detour to the ``Nodules,'' the meter was

carried on the sledge. We had now the mounds to check distances.

On December 23 we were lucky enough to catch sight of the two-hundred-

and-sixty-nine-mile mound and later the one at two hundred and sixty-

one miles, though there was a good deal of drift. The day's run was

twenty and a half miles.

A thing which helped us unexpectedly was that, now with the wind

behind, we found it unnecessary to wear the stiff, heavy, frozen,

burberry trousers. Thick pyjama trousers took their place in all

except the worst weather.

At our old two-hundred-and-forty-nine-mile camp, Webb took a complete

set of magnetic observations and another time-shot for watch-rate.

It was late when these were over, so we did only two and a half miles

more, halting for Christmas Eve, well content with a run of fourteen

miles in addition to a set of observations.

On Christmas Day the country was very rough, making sailing difficult.

Still, eighteen and a half miles were left behind. The wind was

practically along the sastrugi and the course was diagonal to both.

As the sledge strikes each sastruga, it skids northwards along it to

the discomfort of the wheelers and the disgust of the leader.

For Christmas dinner that night we had to content ourselves with

revising the menu for the meal which was to celebrate the two-hundred-

mile depot. But now it was all pretty well mapped out, having been

matured in its finer details for several days on the march. Hors

d'oeuvre, soup, meat, pudding, sweets and wine were all designed,

and estimates were out. Would we pick up the depot soon enough to

justify an ``auspicious occasion''?

Next day the wind was due south at thirty miles per hour. Dodging

big ramps and overturning on sastrugi, at the same time dragging well

upwind of the course to save leeway, twelve miles went by without the

two-hundred-and-fifteen-mile mound coming into sight. Finally, a

search with the glasses through falling snow revealed it a good two

miles back. As we particularly wanted some photos of the ramps at

this camp, we made across to it and had lunch there, Hurley exposing

the last of the films.

At two hundred and nine miles ``Lot's Wife'' appeared--a tall, thin

mound which Hurley had erected during a lunch-camp on the way out.

On the 27th, with a thirty-five-mile wind and a good deal of drift,

we did not see the two-hundred-and-three-mile mound until we almost

ran into it. By three o'clock the great event occurred--the depot

was found! We determined to hold the Christmas feast. After a cup

of tea and a bit of biscuit, the rest of the lunch ration was put

aside.

Webb set up his instrument in the lee of the big mound and commenced a

set of observations; I sorted out gear from the depot and rearranged

the sledge load; Hurley was busy in the tent concocting all kinds

of dishes. As the tableware was limited to three mugs and the Nansen

cooker, we had to come in to deal with each course the moment it was

ready. Aiming at a really high-class meal, Hurley had started by

actually cleaning out the cooker.

The absence of reindeer-hair and other oddments made everything taste

quite strange, though the basis was still the same old ration with a

few remaining ``perks.'' After the ``raisin gliders,'' soup and a

good stiff hoosh, Webb finished his observations while I recorded for

him. It is wonderful what sledging does for the appetite. For the

first week of the journey, the unaccustomed ration was too much for

us; but now when Hurley announced ``Pudding!'' we were all still

ravenous. It was a fine example of ye goode olde English plum-pudding,

made from biscuit grated with the Bonsa-saw, fat picked out of the

pemmican, raisins and glaxo-and-sugar, all boiled in an old food-bag.

This pudding was so filling that we could hardly struggle through a

savoury, ``Angels on runners,'' and cocoa. There was a general

recovery when the ``wine'' was produced, made from stewed raisins

and primus alcohol; and ``The King'' was toasted with much gusto.

At the first sip, to say the least, we were disappointed. The rule

of ``no heel taps'' nearly settled us, and quite a long interval

and cigars, saved up for the occasion by Webb, were necessary before

we could get courage enough to drink to the Other Sledging Parties

and Our Supporting Party.

The sun was low in the south when, cigars out and conversation

lagging, we finally toggled in for the finest sleep of the whole

journey.

The cook, under a doubtful inspiration, broke forth, later on, into a

Christmas Carol:

I've dined in many places but never such as these--

It's like the Gates of Heaven when you find you've lost the keys.

I've dined with kings and emperors, perhaps you scarce believe;

And even they do funny things when round comes Christmas Eve.

I've feasted with iguanas on a lonely desert isle;

Once in the shade of a wattle by a maiden's winsome smile.

I've ``grubbed'' at a threepenny hash-house, I've been at a

counter-lunch,

Reclined at a clap-up cafe where only the ``swankers'' munch.

In short, I've dined from Horn to Cape and up Alaska-way

But the finest, funniest dinner of all was on that Xmas Day.

For the first ten miles on the afternoon of the 28th, the sail was

reefed down to prevent the sledge overrunning us on smooth patches.

Not far past the one-hundred-and-ninety-mile mound, which was missed

in the drift, we picked up some of the outward tracks--a bas-relief of

three footsteps and a yard of sledge-meter track, raised half an inch

and undercut by the wind. It was not very much, but quite a comfort

when one is navigating in blinding weather.

At 11.30 P.M. we had marched twenty-one miles, and both light and

surface were improving, so I proposed making a long run of it. Hurley

and Webb eagerly agreed, and we had a preparatory hoosh. Ten miles

scudded by monotonously without a sign of the mounds around the

one-hundred-and-seventy-mile camp. As we were in the vicinity of a

point where we had determined to diverge from our outward track, a

course was laid direct for the one-hundred-and-thirteen-mile mark.

The sledge-meter, which had been affixed, made its presence evident

from time to time by ringing like a cash register, as still another

broken spoke struck the forks. We would halt for a moment and extract

the remains. Out of the original thirty-six wire spokes, only twelve

wire and one wooden one remained. At 11.30 A.M. on December 29, a

halt was called and the sledge-meter was then lying over on its side

with a helpless expression. It indicated twenty-two miles, making, so

we thought, a total of forty-three miles in the twenty-two and a

quarter hours since leaving the depot. Observations for position next

day proved that in its dying effort it exaggerated the truth; the

total run being 41.6 miles.

We were now well ahead of schedule time, there being four and a half

days' surplus food; above what was probably required to reach the

sixty-seven-and-a-half-mile depot. It was decided to hold three days

of this and to use one and a half days food as a bonus during the

coming week, as long as we were ahead of our necessary distance.

The sledging ration is quite enough to live on, but for the whole

of the journey we had felt that we could have done more distance

on a slightly larger ration. This may be partly explained by our

comparatively high altitude.

Next morning the sledge-meter was cut away and stuck in the snow.

It looked very forlorn sitting askew in its forks, with a pair of

worn-out finnesko hanging over it.

After twelve miles with a favourable wind, Webb took more observations;

Hurley and I recording by turns. There were several small holes

in the tent which needed mending, and I experimented with adhesive

plaster from the medical kit with great success. Heated over a fusee

and pressed hard down between the bottoms of mugs, held outside and

inside, the patches adhered well and made a permanent job.

Early on December 31, 1912, snow was falling. The light gave Hurley

an attack of snow-blindness and a miserable day. Crampons were worn

to give some security to the foothold on the uneven track. The

position, after a trudge of fifteen miles, was estimated at five miles

east of the one-hundred-and-twenty-three-mile mound.

On New Year's Day, 1913, the wind was fresher and the surface improved.

Estimation placed us to the north of one hundred and thirteen miles,

but we were not hopeful in the light falling snow of seeing a mound.

Soon, however, the snow ceased, and Webb made out a hillock two miles

ahead. It was identified as the one at one hundred and nine miles.

It had been my turn to be snowblind. I was so bad that the only

thing to do was to camp or ride on the sledge. The trail changed

here to straight downwind, so Webb and Hurley undertook the job,

hauling the sledge with me as a passenger for three and a half miles

to the one-hundred-and-five-mile mound. It must have been a trying

finish to a run of twenty miles.

In spite of the spell, which was a sleepless one, I was no better in

the morning and again had to ride. The others pulled away for five

miles with a good helping wind, but in a provoking light. The camp

was made where the one-hundred-mile mound was judged to be. We spent

longer over lunch, hoping that the clouds would clear. At last we

moved on, or rather _I_ was moved on. After two miles the surface

became heavier. My eyes were better now on account of the rest and

a snow ``poultice'' Webb had invented. I harnessed-in for five miles

over light, unpacked snow, with piecrust underneath. The day's work

was twelve miles.

The snow-clouds broke at noon on January 3, and a reliable latitude

was obtained. It agreed with our reckoning. Persevering over the

same trying surface as on the previous day, we sighted the ninety-

mile-mound in the rear as a rift broke in the sky. We must have

passed a few hundred yards from it.

We were still eleven miles from the depot, so at breakfast on the

4th the rations were reduced by one-half to give plenty of time to

locate our goal. On the 4th the sky was clear, but surface drift

prevented us from seeing any mounds till, in the afternoon, the

ramps near the sixty-seven-mile depot were discovered in fitful

glimpses. They bore too much to the north, so we altered course

correspondingly to the west, camping in rising wind and drift,

with great hopes for the morrow.

A densely overcast sky on the 5th; light snow falling! We moved

on two miles, but not being able to see one hundred yards, camped

again; then walking as far as seemed safe in various directions.

One could do nothing but wait for clear weather. The clouds

lightened at 6 P.M. and again at 9 P.M., when altitudes of the

sun were secured, putting us four miles south of the depot.

With only one chronometer watch, one has to rely entirely on dead

reckoning for longitude, the rate of a single watch being very

variable. The longitude obtained on this occasion from our latest

known rate moved us several miles to the east of the depot, so I

concluded that our distances since the camp at ninety miles had

been overestimated, and that we were probably to the south-east

of it. Accordingly, we shifted four miles to the north-west,

but by this time it had again clouded over and nothing could

be seen.

On the 6th the sky was still overcast, but a lucky peep at noon

aligned us on the exact latitude of the depot. We walked east

and west, but it snowed persistently and everything was invisible.

It is weary work waiting in the tent for weather to improve. During

this time Hurley amused himself and us by composing a Christmas

carol on the Christmas dinner; a fragment from which has already

appeared. I whiled away a whole afternoon, cutting up the remains

of two cigars which had refused to draw. Sliced up with a pair of

scissors and mixed with a few of Hurley's cigarettes, they made very

good smoking tobacco.

On the 7th the sky was immovable, and we trekked four miles due east,

camped once more and walked about without finding our goal.

I now decided that if the weather did not improve by the morning,

we should have to dash for the north. It was a risk, but matters

were coming to a serious pass. On broaching the subject to Webb

and Hurley, they unconditionally agreed with me.

At 3 A.M. the sky cleared rapidly and we turned out and saw the

ramps plainly to the east. Webb set up the theodolite while Hurley

and I paced out a half-mile base-line to find out the intervening

distance. Just as we got to the end of it, however, the clouds came

over again and the ramps faded.

There was only one thing for it now, and that was to make a break for

the coast. Of food, there was one full day's ration with enough

pemmican for half a hoosh, six lumps of sugar and nine raisins, rather

the worse for wear, oil for two days, and, last but not least, a pint

of alcohol. After four days on half-rations we felt fairly fit,

thanks no doubt to the good meals of the previous week.

There were sixty-seven miles to go, and in case we did not happen on

the narrow descent to the Hut, the food was apportioned to last for

five days. Everything unessential was stripped off the sledge,

including dip-circle, thermometers, hypsometer, camera, spare clothing

and most of the medical and repair kits.

At 7 A.M. we set off on the final stage of the journey. The sky was

densely overcast and snow was falling, but there was a strong wind

almost behind. We would march for an hour by my wrist-watch, halt

for five minutes and on again till all agreed that we had covered ten

miles; when it was lunch time. Each man's share of this consisted of

one-third of a biscuit, one-third of an ounce of butter and a drink

made of a spoonful of glaxo-and-sugar and one of absolute alcohol,

mixed in a mug of lukewarm water. We could not afford oil enough

to do much more than thaw the water, but the alcohol warmed us

splendidly, enabling us to get a good rest.

After an hour's spell we started again, luckily seeing just enough of

the sun to check the course. The wind grew stronger in the afternoon

and several times dense fog-banks drove down on us. Meeting one steep

rise, we sidled round it for what seemed hours, but my chief memory

of that afternoon was of the clouds of the northern horizon. They

were a deep bluish-grey colour--a typical ``water-sky''--but I have

never seen clouds moving so fast. It was like trying to steer by one

particular phase in a kaleidoscope. When all were satisfied that

twenty miles had been covered we camped.

Dinner consisted of a very watery hoosh, followed up by a mug of

alcohol and water. We were all very thankful for the forethought of

Dr. Mawson in providing absolute alcohol for lighting the primus,

instead of methylated spirit.

Breakfast on the 9th was of about the same consistency as dinner on

the night before, except that cocoa replaced the alcohol. In fact,

breakfast was possibly even more watery, as I was in charge of the

food-bag and surreptitiously decided to make the rations last

six days instead of five.

This was the worst day's march of the journey. The wind was booming

along at sixty miles per hour with dense drift and falling snow.

What made it worse was that it came from the south-east, forcing us

to pull partly across it. I was the upwind wheeler and had to hitch

on to the side of the sledge to reduce the leeway as much as possible.

The sledge was being continually jammed into big, old, invisible

sastrugi and we fell about in the wind until crampons became

absolutely necessary.

At 4 P.M. we were disgusted to find that the wind had veered to

south-by-east. So for possibly several hours we had been doing

Heaven only knows how many times the amount of work necessary, and

for any time up to four hours might have been marching three points

off our course. Being blown straight downwind, the sledge made rapid

progress, and about 6 P.M. a halt was called for lunch. This was

over almost as soon as it was begun, but we had a good rest,

sheltering ourselves with the floor-cloth from the wind which blew

through the tent.

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°. 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.

My plan was to go through Bass Strait and then to sail towards the

Royal Company Islands as given on the French chart, before heading

for Macquarie Island. From thence we should steam across to the

Auckland Islands. At both the latter places Mr. Waite would be able

to secure specimens. It was not expected that the weather would

permit of much trawling, but we anticipated some good soundings. As

a matter of fact, sub-antarctic weather in the winter may be predicted

with some certainty: strong winds, heavy seas, much fog and general

gloom.

We had a fine run through Bass Strait with a light south-east breeze,

arriving off King's Island at noon on May 28. The trawling gear was

got ready for the following day, but the sea was too high and the

ship continued south towards the position of the Royal Company

Islands.

On June 1 we were in latitude 53 degrees south, longitude 152 degrees

east, and had been cruising about fruitlessly in heavy weather for

days waiting for an opportunity to dredge. After being at sea for a

whole fortnight we had only three soundings to our credit, and it was,

therefore, resolved to make for Macquarie Island.

On the 7th we reached the island and anchored at North-East Bay in

twelve fathoms, about one mile from land.

After a stiff pull ashore, next day, we landed and found the party

all well. They had built a comfortable hut and were enjoying life as

far as possible, despite the constant gales and continuous days of

fog.

We then climbed up the hill to the wireless station, where everything

was in splendid order. Two small huts had been erected, one for the

engine and the other for the receiving apparatus. Sandell and Sawyer,

the two operators, were to be congratulated on the efficient way the

station had been kept going under very considerable difficulty. In

addition to the routine work with Hobart and Wellington they had

occasionally communicated with stations over two thousand miles

distant.

I was able to send the following message to Professor David: ```Aurora'

arrived Macquarie Island; all well, June 7; constant gales and high

seas have prevented dredging so far. Royal Company Islands not found

in the position indicated on the chart.''

We were able to land some stores for the use of the land party under

Ainsworth. Meteorological, biological and geological work were all in

progress and the scientific records should be of great value. Up to

the date of our arrival, no wireless messages had been received from

Adelie Land. As Dr. Mawson was in ignorance of its exact location,

the position of the Western Base under Wild was given to Ainsworth to

forward to Adelie Land in case communication should be established.

After Mr. Waite had obtained several birds, it was decided to move

down to Lusitania Bay to secure some Royal penguins and a sea-elephant.

Two days later, the `Aurora' anchored in the bay, three-quarters of

a mile from the beach, in sixteen fathoms; the weather was very misty.

Mr. Waite and Mr. Haines, the taxidermist, were rowed ashore.

The island, above a height of three hundred feet from sea-level, was

shrouded in mist throughout the day, and, before dark, all signs of

the land had disappeared. The mist did not clear until 6 P.M. on

the 15th.

We stayed for a whole fortnight at Macquarie Island, during which time

the highest velocity of the wind recorded on shore was thirty-five

miles per hour, although, during the winter, gales are almost of daily

occurrence. On June 22, the date of departure, a course was set for

the Auckland Islands, which lie in the track of homeward-bound vessels

from Australia via Cape Horn.

The group was discovered in 1806 by Captain Bristow of the `Ocean',

owned by Samuel Enderby. It comprises one main island and several

smaller ones, separated by narrow channels. There are two spacious

harbours; a northern, now called Port Ross, and a southern, Carnley

Harbour. The islands are situated about one hundred and eighty miles

south of Stewart Island (New Zealand).

After a run of three hundred and forty miles on a northeast course,

we entered Carnley Harbour and anchored off Flagstaff Point. A

breeze blew strong from the west-northwest. Next day, June 25, we

stood up to Figure of Eight Island and found good holding for the

anchor in nine and a half fathoms.

The eastern entrance to Carnley Harbour is formed by two bluff

points, about two miles apart; its upper extremity terminating in a

lagoon. The site of Musgrave's house (``Epigwaith'') is on the east

side of this lagoon. Here he spent twenty months after the wreck of

the `Grafton'.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Auckland Island (from the Admiralty Chart) showing the track

of the `Aurora'

We set off in the motor-launch on the 26th to visit Camp Cove, where

we found the two huts maintained by the New Zealand Government for

the benefit of castaways. In the larger hut there were potatoes,

biscuits, tinned meats and matches. The smaller hut was empty but on

the outside were carved many names of shipwrecked mariners. The

`Amakura' had visited the depot in November 1911. The various depots

established on the island by the New Zealand Government are visited

every six months.

While in Carnley Harbour we were able to make several hauls with the

small dredge.

After passing up the eastern coast of the main island we entered Port

Ross and anchored west of Shoe Island. On June 30 the depot on Erebus

Cove was visited, where three white sheds contain the usual

necessaries for unfortunate castaways. The New Zealand Government

steamer, `Hinemoa', while on a scientific expedition to the

Sub-Antarctic in 1907, rescued the sixteen survivors of the barque

`Dundonald', two thousand two hundred and three tons, which had been

wrecked on Disappointment Island. The captain and ten men had been

drowned and the chief officer had died from the effects of exposure

and starvation.

On July 2 we went to Observation Point, finding there a flat stone

commemorating the visit of the German Scientific Expedition of 1874.

The biologist found various kinds of petrels on Shoe Island, where the

turf was riddled in all directions by their burrows.

At Rose Island, close by, there are some fine basaltic columns, eighty

feet high, weathered out into deep caverns along their base.

In Sandy Bay, Enderby Island, there was an extensive depot. Among

the stores I found a Venesta case marked s.y. `Nimrod', which contained

dried vegetables and evidently formed part of the stores which were

sold on the return of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907.

After leaving the Auckland Islands for New Zealand, we were fortunate

in having fairly good weather. Five soundings were taken, and, on

July 9, the trawl was put over in three hundred and forty-five

fathoms. The net unfortunately fouled on a rocky bottom and so we

gained nothing but experience in the operation.

The `Aurora' arrived at Port Lyttleton on July 11 and we received a

very kind welcome from the people of Christchurch. Mr. J. J.

Kinsey, well known in connexion with various British Antarctic

expeditions, gave us valuable assistance during our stay. We were

back again in Melbourne on the 17th of the month.

While the first oceanographical cruise of the `Aurora' did not prove

very fruitful in results, chiefly on account of the stormy weather,

it provided the necessary training for officers and men in the

handling of the deep-sea gear, and we were able to realize later how

much we had learnt on our first cruise.

The ship, after undergoing a thorough overhaul at the State dockyard

at Williamstown, Victoria, undertook a second deep-sea cruise.

Leaving Hobart on November 12, 1912, she laid her course to the

southward in order to obtain soundings for a complete section of the

sea-floor, as nearly as possible on the meridian of Hobart. Our time

was limited to one month, during which a visit to Macquarie Island for

the purpose of landing stores and mail had to be made. Professor T.

Flynn of Hobart University accompanied the vessel in charge of the

biological work.

An interesting discovery was made two hundred miles south of

Tasmania. Here it was proved that a rocky ridge rose like a huge

mountain from depths of more than two thousand fathoms to within five

hundred and forty fathoms of the surface. A great number of

soundings were taken in the vicinity of this rise, subsequently

named the Mill Rise, until a heavy gale drove us far from its

situation.

On November 21 we were not far from Macquarie Island and, at 7 P.M.,

sounded in one thousand four hundred and fifty fathoms. As the

weather was remarkably fine for these latitudes we decided to lower

the trawl. Before dark it was being towed slowly towards the east

with one thousand nine hundred fathoms of wire out.

We spent an anxious night hoping that the weather would remain fine

long enough to permit us to get the gear on board again. We had been

driving before a light westerly wind, when the trawl caught on the

bottom and stopped the vessel.

A very heavy strain was imposed on the wire as the vessel rose in

the swell; the dynamometer registering up to seven tons. I decided

to wait for daylight before attempting to heave in the trawl. At 3

A.M. we cast the wire off the after-block and started to heave away;

it was two hours before the trawl cleared the bottom and the strain

was reduced.

At 8 A.M. the trawl was once more on board, the frames being bent and

twisted and the net badly torn. On sounding, the depth was found to

be only six hundred and thirty-six fathoms, so that we had evidently

put over the trawl on to the edge of a steep rise and then drifted

across it.

In view of our position--only thirty miles from Macquarie Island0--this

accident might have been expected. But opportunities of trawling had

been so few that risks had to be taken when the weather quieted down

for a few hours. Our only consolation on this occasion was that we

recovered the gear.

The following evening, at 7.30, the anchor was dropped in North-East

Bay, Macquarie Island, and we were immediately boarded by our land

party who were all well. They had become very clever boatmen

during their stay, using a small dinghy to make coastal journeys.

On November 24 we left the anchorage at 9 A.M. and spent the day in

its vicinity. More than one hundred soundings were taken, which

Blake, the geological surveyor, was to plot on the chart of the island

which he had almost completed.

Some idea of the steepness of the submarine mountain of which

Macquarie Island forms the crest may be gathered from a sounding,

taken ten and a half miles east of the island, which gave two thousand

seven hundred and forty-five fathoms and no bottom. In other words,

if the sea were to dry up, there would be a lofty mountain rising from

the plain of the ocean's bed to a height of nearly eighteen thousand

feet.

A great deal of work still required to be done off Macquarie Island,

but, as the uneven and rocky nature of the bottom prevented dredging,

I decided to sail on the 25th, continuing the voyage towards the

Auckland Islands.

Several people had expressed belief in a submarine ridge connecting

Macquarie Island with the Auckland group. Three soundings which we

obtained on this voyage did not support the suggestion, ranging as

they did from one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five to two

thousand four hundred and thirty fathoms, eighty-five miles

south-west of the Auckland group. We were the more glad to obtain

these soundings, as, during the winter cruise, in the same waters,

the weather had forced us to abandon the attempt.

On November 28 we took several soundings on the eastern side of the

Auckland Islands, but did not prolong our stay as we wished to

investigate the ridge south of Tasmania--the Mill Rise. The course was

therefore directed westward with a view to outlining the eastern edge

of this submarine elevation.

The first sounding to indicate that we were once more approaching the

Mill Rise was in one thousand and seventy-six fathoms. Continuing west

we secured the next record in one thousand three hundred fathoms,

limiting the southern extremity of the ridge which extends northward

for nearly one hundred miles. From this sounding the water shoaled

quickly as we steered north. Thus, on the same day, we were in eight

hundred and thirty-five fathoms at noon, in seven hundred and

thirty-five fathoms at 3.40 P.M. and in seven hundred and ten fathoms

at 7.30 P.M. After the last sounding we lowered the rock-gripper. On

the first trial, however, it failed to shut and, on the second, only

a little fine sand was recovered. As it was blowing hard most of the

time, we were very fortunate in being able to do this piece of work.

An inspection of the chart reveals the fact that the main direction of

the shallowest water is in a north-west and south-east direction, but

the number of soundings obtained was too small to give more than a

general outline. Later, we were able to add to these on the voyage

southward to relieve the Antarctic Bases.

The weather was so bad and the sea so heavy that we were unable to

obtain soundings on December 9, and, as dredging under such conditions

was out of the question, I decided to steer for the east coast of

Tasmania, where dredging might be possible under the lee of the land.

The constant gales were very disheartening, the last having continued

for four days with only short intervals of moderate weather.

On December 12 and 13, in calmer water, some thirty miles off the

east coast of Tasmania, trawlings were made successfully in one

thousand three hundred fathoms and seventy-five fathoms respectively.

From the deeper trawling were obtained a large octopus and several

interesting fish.

Just before noon on December 14 we arrived in Hobart and immediately

began preparations for the voyage to the Antarctic.

On December 24, 1912, preparations for sailing were complete. For ten

days every one connected with the `Aurora' had been working at high

pressure, and Christmas Day, our last day ashore, was to be

celebrated as a well-earned holiday.

There was on board a good supply of coal, five hundred and twenty-one

tons, and a very heavy mail of letters and packages for the members

of the Expedition who had been isolated in the far South for more than

twelve months. We were to take thirty-five sheep on board as well as

twenty-one dogs, presented by Captain Amundsen upon his return from

his South Polar expedition. Captain James Davis, of Hobart, of long

whaling experience, was to accompany us to give an expert opinion

upon such whales as we might meet. Mr. Van Waterschoot van der

Gracht, who had had previous experience in the Antarctic, joined as

marine artist, and Mr. S. N. Jeffryes as wireless operator. With

C. C. Eitel, Secretary of the Expedition, the whole party on board

numbered twenty-eight.

A very pleasant Christmas was spent ashore. The ship's company of

twenty-three men met for dinner, and we did not forget to wish a

``Merry Christmas'' to our leader and his twenty-six comrades who were

holding their celebration amid the icy solitudes of Antarctica. I

was glad, on this festive occasion, to be able to congratulate

officers and men on their willing and loyal service during the

previous twelve months; every one had done his best to advance the

objects of the Expedition.

The attractions of Hobart, at this season, are so numerous, and

Tasmanian hospitality so boundless, that it gives me great pleasure

to place on record that every man was at his post on the `Aurora' at 10

A.M. on Boxing Day.

As we drew away from the wharf amid the cheers of those who had come

to wish us God-speed, the weather was perfect and the scene on the

Derwent bright and cheering. Captain James Davis acted as pilot.

At 11.30 A.M. we had embarked the twenty-one dogs, which were brought

off from the Quarantine Station, and were steaming down Storm Bay.

Outside there was a heavy swell, and the wind was freshening from the

west. The course was laid south 50 degrees west, true.

For the next two days there was a westerly gale with a very high

sea, and the dogs and sheep had a bad time, as a good deal of water

came aboard. Two of the sheep had to be killed. By the afternoon

of the 29th it had moderated, and a sounding was secured.

This storm was followed by another from the west-northwest. The

`Aurora' weathered it splendidly, although one sea came over everything

and flooded the cabins, while part of the rail of the forecastle head

was carried away on the morning of the 31st. At this time we were in

the vicinity of the reputed position of the Royal Company Islands.

A sounding was taken with great difficulty, finding two thousand and

twenty fathoms and a mud bottom.

January 4, 1918, was a fine day, with a fresh westerly breeze and a

high sea. Occasionally there were snow squalls. At night the

wireless operator was able to hear H.M.S. `Drake' at Hobart, and also

the station at Macquarie Island; the ship having been fitted to

receive wireless signals before sailing.

Next day the sun was bright and there was only a moderate westerly

swell. Large bunches of kelp were frequently seen drifting on the

surface. ``Blue Billys''** flew in great numbers about the ship.

Two soundings were obtained in one thousand nine hundred fathoms.

** Prion Banksii.

On the 8th a heavy swell came from the south-east. During the

morning a sounding realized two thousand two hundred and seventy

fathoms and the sample of mud contained a small, black manganese

nodule. At 8 P.M. a floating cask was sighted and taken aboard after

much difficulty. It turned out to be a ship's oil cask, empty, giving

no clue from whence it came.

The first ice was observed about 6 P.M. on the 10th. The water was

still deep--more than two thousand fathoms.

By noon on January 11 loose pack came into view, with a strong blink

of heavier pack to the south. The course was changed to south-west.

At 7 P.M. the ship was steaming west in clear water, a few bergs

being in sight and a marked ice-blink to the south. Several whales

appeared which Captain James Davis reported were ``blue whales''

(finners or rorquals).

After we had been steering westward until almost midnight, the course

was altered to south-west in the hope of encountering the shelf-ice

barrier (met in 1912) well to the east of the Main Base station. On

the 12th we sailed over the position of the ice-tongue in 1912 without

seeing a trace of it, coming up with heavy broken floe at 10 A.M.

For four hours the `Aurora' pushed through massive floes and ``bergy

bits,'' issuing into open water with the blink of ice-covered land

to the south. At nine o'clock Adelie Land was plainly visible, and

a course was set for the Main Base. In squally weather we reached

the Mackellar Islets at midnight, and by 2 A.M. on the 13th dropped

anchor in Commonwealth Bay under the ice-cliffs in twenty fathoms.

At 6 A.M. Fletcher, the chief officer, reported that a heavy gust of

wind had struck the ship and caused the chain to carry away the

lashing of the heavy relieving-tackle. The chain then ran over the

windlass, and, before anything could be done, the pointer to which

the end of the chain was attached had been torn from the bolts, and

our best ground-tackle was lost overboard. It was an exasperating

accident.

At seven o'clock the port anchor was dropped in ten fathoms, about

eight hundred yards west of the first anchorage, with ninety fathoms

of chain. The wind shifted suddenly to the north, and the `Aurora'

swung inshore until her stern was within one hundred yards of the

cliffs; but the depth at this distance proved to be seventeen

fathoms. After a few northerly puffs, the wind shifted to the

south-east and then died away.

At 2.30 P.M. the launch was hoisted over and the mail was taken

ashore, with sundry specimens of Australian fruit as ``refreshment''

for the shore-party. The boat harbour was reached before any one

ashore had seen the `Aurora'. At the landing-place we were greeted

most warmly by nine wild-looking men; some with beards bleached by

the weather. They all looked healthy and in very fair condition,

after the severe winter, as they danced about in joyous excitement.

We learned that five sledging parties had left the Hut: Bage, Webb

and Hurley had returned from the south, Stillwell, Close and Laseron

from the east, and the others were still out. In Dr. Mawson's

instructions, all parties were to be back at the Hut by January 15,

1913.

The launch made some trips to and from the ship with specimens

during the afternoon. I returned on board and had a look at the cable.

The weather was fine, but changes were apt to occur without much

warning. At midnight it was blowing a gale from the south-east, and

the chain was holding well. The launch was hoisted up in the davits

and communication with the shore was suspended until 8 A.M. on January

15.

The lull was of two hours' duration, during which Murphy came aboard

and furnished me with some particulars about the sledging parties

still away.

Dr. Mawson, with Ninnis and Mertz, had gone to the south-east. They

were well provisioned and had taken eighteen dogs for transport

purposes. Bickerton, Hodgeman and Whetter had been out forty-three

days to the west and had food for forty days only. Madigan, McLean

and Correll had been away for seventy days in an easterly

direction.

Dr. Mawson had left a letter for me with instructions to take charge

if he failed to return to time, that is not later than January 15,

1913.

On January 16 a party was observed from the ship coming in over the

slope. There was much speculation as to its personnel since, at a

distance, the three figures could not be recognized. The launch took

us ashore and we greeted Madigan, McLean and Correll who had returned

from a very successful expedition along the eastern coast over

sea-ice.

Madigan and Bage came on board during the forenoon of the 17th and we

had a long consultation about the position of affairs owing to the

non-return of two parties. It was decided to re-erect the wireless

mast and stay it well while the ship was waiting, so that, in case of

any party being left at the Main Base, the wireless station would

be in working order.**

** It should be borne in mind that during the summer months (November,

December, January and part of February) wireless communication with

the outside world is impossible owing to continuous daylight reducing

the effective range. In summer the range was only a few hundred

miles, and the effective working distance for all times of the day

probably not above one hundred miles.

At one o'clock on the morning of January 18, de la Motte, the officer

on watch, reported that a party could be seen descending the glacier.

This proved to be Bickerton, Hodgeman and Whetter returning from their

trip along the west coast. Thus Dr. Mawson's party was the only

one which had not yet returned.

All day work on the wireless mast went along very satisfactorily,

while Captain James Davis and Chief Officer Fletcher spent their time

in the launch dragging for the cable lost on the morning of our

arrival. The launch returned at 10.30 P.M. and Captain Davis

reported that the grapnel had been buoyed until operations could be

resumed.

On January 19 we tried to recover the chain, and to this end the

`Aurora' was taken over to the position where the grapnels had been

buoyed and was anchored. All efforts to secure the chain were

unsuccessful. At 7 P.M. we decided to return to our former position,

having a hard job to raise the anchor, which appeared to have dragged

under a big rock. Finally it broke away and came up in a mass of

kelp, and with the stock ``adrift.'' The latter was secured and we

steamed back, ``letting go'' in eleven fathoms with ninety fathoms of

chain.

When Dr. Mawson's party was a week overdue, I considered that the

time had arrived to issue a provisional notice to the members of the

Expedition at Commonwealth Bay concerning the establishment of a

relief party to operate from the Main Base.

A party of four left the Hut on the 20th, keeping a sharp look-out to

the south-east for any signs of the missing party. They travelled

as far as the air-tractor sledge which had been abandoned ten miles to

the south, bringing it back to the Hut.

I decided to remain at Commonwealth Bay until January 30. If the

leader's party had not returned by that day, a search party was to

proceed eastward while the `Aurora' sailed for Wild's Base. From the

reports of the gales which prevailed during the month of March in

1912, and considering the short daylight there was at that time, I

felt that it would be risking the lives of all on board to return to

the Main Base after relieving Wild's party. I resolved, therefore,

to wait _as long as possible_. As a result of a consultation with

Madigan and Bage, I had a provisional notice drafted, to be posted

up in the Hut on January 22.

This notice was to the effect that the non-arrival of the leader's

party rendered it necessary to prepare for the establishment of a

relief expedition at Winter Quarters and appointed Bage, Bickerton,

Hodgeman, Jeffryes and McLean as members, under the command of

Madigan; to remain in Antarctica for another year if necessary.

On the same evening I went ashore to inspect the wireless mast, which

was practically complete. The work had been done thoroughly and,

provided the mast itself did not buckle, the stays were likely to

hold. Hannam, Bickerton and Jeffryes were busy placing the engine

and instruments in position.

I then went up the slope for about a mile. The Winter Quarters looked

like a heap of stones; boundless ice rose up to the southern skyline;

the dark water to the north was broken by an occasional berg or the

ice-covered islands. This wonderful region of ice and sea looks

beautiful on a fine day. But what a terrible, vast solitude,

constantly swept by icy winds and drift, stretches away to the

south! A party will go out to-morrow to visit the depot at the top

of the slope. This is the seventh day we have been waiting and

hoping to welcome the absentees!

On the 23rd the breeze was very strong in the forenoon, but the wind

moderated about 4 P.M., when the launch was able to leave for the

shore. We could see a search party (Hodgeman, Stillwell, and

Correll) marching against a strong south-east wind on their way to

examine the depot at Aladdin's Cave and its vicinity.

Though there was a moderate south-easter blowing, communication with

the land went on during the day. I went ashore early, but the search

party did not return until noon. They had remained at Aladdin's Cave

overnight and marched farther south next morning, approaching a line

of dense drift, without seeing anything.

It was arranged that another party of three men should start next

morning (January 25) and, going in a southeasterly direction, make a

search for five days, laying a depot at their farthest point.

Hodgeman, Hurley and McLean made preparations to set out. I left

instructions that a flag should be flown on the wireless mast if Dr.

Mawson returned.

I now went through the supplies of provisions and coal which were to

be landed for the use of the Relief Party. I intended to try and

have everything on shore by January 29, taking advantage of any

short interval of fair weather to send a boatload to the landing-

place.

On the 25th there was a hard south-east gale blowing until the

afternoon, when it moderated sufficiently to send off the launch with

thirteen bags of coal, Gillies being in charge. The boat harbour was

reached in safety, the wind freshening to a gale before 6 P.M.

Terrific gusts followed in rapid succession and, without warning, the

cable parted sixty fathoms from the anchor at 9 P.M. Having cleared

the reefs to leeward, we managed to get in the rest of the chain and

then stood along the coast to the north-west. By keeping about three

miles from the shore, we seemed to be beyond the reach of the more

violent gusts, but a short sea holding the ship broadside to the wind

during the squalls, rendered it difficult to maintain a fixed course.

With reefs and bergs around, the increasing darkness about midnight

made our position unpleasant. The engines had to be stopped and the

ship allowed to drift with the wind, owing to a bearing becoming hot,

but in a quarter of an hour they were moving once more.

Early on January 26 the `Aurora' was about half-way between Winter

Quarters and the western point of Commonwealth Bay, when the wind

suddenly ceased, and then came away light from the north-west. We

could see that a south-east gale was still raging close inshore.

Over the sea, towards the north, dark clouds were scudding with great

rapidity along the horizon: the scene of a violent disturbance.

We returned towards our late anchorage. On reaching it, the

south-east wind had moderated considerably, and we let go our spare

anchor and what had been saved of the chain.

To the north, violent gusts appeared to be travelling in various

directions, but, to our astonishment, these gusts, after approaching

our position at a great rate, appeared to curve upwards; the water

close to the ship was disturbed, and nothing else. This curious

phenomenon lasted for about an hour and then the wind came with a rush

from the south-east, testing the anchor-chain in the more furious

squalls.

The gale was in its third day on the 27th, and there was a ``hurricane

sky'' during the morning. The wind would die away, only to blow more

fiercely than before. The suddenness with which the changes occurred

may be gathered from the following extracts from my journal:

``January 27. 6 A.M. A whole gale blowing from the south-east.

``9 A.M. Light airs from north to east. Launch taking coal ashore.

``11 A.M. Last cargo of coal had just left ship when the wind

freshened from the south-east. The launch had just got inside the

boat harbour when a terrific gust struck the vessel and our chain

parted. We were blown out to sea while heaving in thirty fathoms of

chain which remained.

``4 P.M. We have been steaming backwards and forwards until the wind

died away. The launch has just come off and taken another load of

stores to the boat harbour.

``7 P.M. The weather is moderating with rising barometer. Nearly

everything required by the Relief Party is now ashore. Two or three

trips will take the remainder.

``We shall steam about for a few hours, and make the anchorage early

to-morrow morning.''

Next morning a kedge-anchor (about five hundred-weights) was lowered

with the remainder of the chain. For a time this held the ship, but

a gust of wind from the southeast caused it to drag. It was,

therefore, hauled up and, on coming to the surface, was seen to have

lost a fluke.

All equipment, coal and food were now on shore for the use of the

Relief Party. I had given them everything that could be spared from

the provisions set apart for the use of the ship's company. Next day

I purposed to cruise along the coast to the east, if the weather were

clear.

January 29 was fine, so we steamed off at 6.30 A.M. As no flag was

seen on the wireless mast, we knew that Dr. Mawson had not returned.

A course was kept two or three miles from the ice-cliffs beyond the

fringe of rocky islets.

At 4 A.M. on the 30th we were alongside the Mertz Glacier and reached

the head of the bay at the confluence of glacier with land-ice.

Mount Murchison was only dimly visible, but the weather was clear

along the glacier-tongue. Signals were fired and a big kite flown at

a height of about five hundred feet to attract attention on shore in

case the missing party were near.

``1.30 P.M. We are now about half a mile from the head of the inlet.

From the appearance of the country (heavily crevassed) approach to

the sea by a sledging-party would be extremely difficult. There is

no floe-ice at the foot of the cliff.

``10.30 P.M. We are approaching the end of the glacier-tongue around

which there is a collection of pack. There is some drift ahead and it

is difficult to see far. We have passed the eastern limit of coast to

be searched.

``10.35 P.M. The glacier-tongue is trending to the east and a line of

heavy pack extends to the north, with many large bergs. No sign of

flag or signal on the end of the barrier.

``January 31. We left the glacier-tongue at 8 A.M. and steered back

to Winter Quarters.

``At noon we could see Madigan Nunatak, a rocky patch, high up on

the slope.

``4.15 P.M. Sighted the large grounded berg, fifteen miles from the

Main Base.

``9 P.M. Off Main Base. There is no flag to be seen on the wireless

mast!

``Dr. Mawson's party is now sixteen days overdue; there must be

something seriously amiss. But from our examination of the line of

coast as far as 64 degrees 45' south, 146 degrees 19' east, there does

not appear to be any probability of finding traces along the shore line

at the base of vertical ice-cliffs.''

No communication with the shore was possible until the wind, which had

again risen, had moderated. We could just stand off and on until a

favourable opportunity occurred. Once the returning ten members of

the Expedition were embarked it was imperative to hasten towards

Wild's Base.

A week's gale in Commonwealth Bay! The seven days which followed I

do not think any of us will forget. From February 1 to 7 it blew a

continuous heavy gale, interrupted only when the wind increased to a

full hurricane ** (eighty mi1es an hour).

** * The maximum wind-velocity recorded at this time by the anemometer

on shore was approximately eighty miles an hour.

We endeavoured to maintain a position under the cliffs where the sea

had not room to become heavy. This entailed a constant struggle, as,

with a full head of steam during the squalls, the vessel drove

steadily seaward to where the rising waves broke on board and

rendered steering more perplexing. Then, when it had moderated to a

mere ``howl,'' we would crawl back, only to be driven out again by

the next squall. The blinding spray which was swept out in front of

the squalls froze solidly on board and lent additional difficulty to

the operation of ``wearing ship.''

It was on this occasion that we realized what a fine old vessel the

`Aurora' was, and, as we slowly moved back to shelter, could appreciate

how efficiently our engine-room staff under Gillies were carrying out

their duties. The ordinary steaming speed was six knots, yet for the

whole of this week, without a hitch, the ship was being driven at an

equivalent of ten knots. The fact of having this reserve power

undoubtedly saved us from disaster.

A typical entry from my diary reads:

``February 6. Just as the sun was showing over the ice-slopes this

morning (4 A.M.) the wind became very violent with the most terrific

squalls I have ever experienced. Vessel absolutely unmanageable,

driving out to sea. I was expecting the masts to go overboard every

minute. This was the worst, I think, lasting about two hours. At 6

A.M., still blowing very hard but squalls less violent, gradually

made shelter during the morning....''

On February 8 the weather improved after 1 A.M. The gusts were less

violent and the lulls were of longer duration. At 9 A.M. there was

only a gentle breeze. We steamed in towards the boat harbour and

signalled for the launch to come off with the ten members of the

shore-party. The latter had been instructed to remain at the Hut

until the vessel was ready to sail. Here, while the gale had been in

full career, they had helped to secure enough seal and penguin-meat to

keep the Relief Party and their dogs for another year.

The good-byes were brief while the launch discharged the men and their

belongings. Instructions were handed over to Madigan directing him

to follow the course believed to have been taken by Dr. Mawson and

to make an exhaustive search, commencing as soon as the `Aurora' left

Commonwealth Bay. Madigan gave me a letter containing a report of the

work done by the party which had left on the 25th.

It appears that they had been confined in Aladdin's Cave for twenty-four

hours by dense drift and then, in moderate drift, made four miles to

the south-east. Here they camped and were not able to move for thirty-

six hours in a high wind with thick snow.

On the 28th the drift decreased in amount and, though it was only

possible to see a few hundred yards and crevasses were frequent, they

kept a course of east 30 degrees south for six miles. A snow-mound

was built and on top of it were placed provisions and a note giving

the bearing and distance from Aladdin's Cave.

In the afternoon the wind subsided and it became clear. Eight miles

on the same course brought them to their farthest camp, twenty-three

miles from the Hut. A mound of eleven feet was erected here,

provisions and a note being left and some black bunting wound among

the snow-blocks. The depot was on a ridge and, with glasses, several

miles could be swept to the south-east.

The party consisted of McLean, Hodgeman and Hurley.

De la Motte and Hannam took the Relief Party ashore in the launch

and, as soon as they had returned--at 11.30 A.M.--we steamed out of

the bay. The weather had calmed and there were light airs and a

smooth sea.

The members of the Relief Party were as follows: C. T. Madigan

(leader), R. Bage, F. H. Bickerton, A. J. Hodgeman, Dr. A. L.

McLean and S. N. Jeffryes (wireless operator). The remaining ten

members of the Main Base Party returned to Australia: J. H. Close,

P. E. Correll, W. H. Hannam, J. G. Hunter, J. F. Hurley, C. F. Laseron,

H. D. Murphy, F. L. Stillwell, E. N. Webb and Dr. L. A. Whetter.

Throughout the afternoon we steered north-west and at 8.30 P.M. were

approaching heavy pack. Just then Hannam received a wireless message

from the Main Base informing us that Dr. Mawson had reached the Hut

alone, his two comrades having perished, and instructing me to return

at once and pick up all hands. We turned round and steered back

immediately.

At 8 A.M. on February 9 the ship entered Commonwealth Bay steaming

against a strong southerly breeze with some snow. We were right up

near the anchorage about noon and the Pilot Jack could be seen flying

from the wireless mast. Instructions were signalled for, but our

efforts were unobserved. We then steamed to and fro across the bay.

At 6 P.M. it was blowing a hard gale and showed signs of becoming

worse.

At 6 P.M. the wind was growing in strength and the barometer was

falling. Not having received any reply to my signal for

instructions, I felt it was necessary to decide whether I was

justified in remaining any longer.

After considering the position in all its bearings I decided to sail

westward without further delay and for the following reasons:

1. Dr. Mawson and his companions were in safety, comfortably housed

and fully equipped for another winter.

2. Any further delay was seriously endangering our chance of being

able to relieve Wild's party that year. The navigation of the

fifteen hundred miles to the Shackleton Ice-Shelf was becoming,

daily, more dangerous on account of the shortness of daylight and

the conditions of the ice.

3. The only vessel which had wintered in the vicinity of the

Western Base (the `Gauss') had been frozen in as early in the season

as February 22, spending more than twelve months in the ice. The

`Aurora' was not provisioned for a winter in the ice.

4. It had been ascertained from the records at the Main Base that

gales were often protracted at the close of the short summer season.

We had just experienced one such gale, lasting seven days.

5. As a seaman, I had realized the difficulties encountered in

approaching and getting away from the Western Base in 1912. It was

then three weeks later in the year.

I felt convinced that in leaving the Main Base, without further delay,

I was acting as Dr. Mawson would have wished, if I had been able to

acquaint him with the position of the Western Party.

At 6.30 P.M. we steamed out of the bay, the wind moderating as the

ship got well out to sea. At midnight there was a moderate breeze

from the south, with some snow.

On February 10 heavy pack was met, about fifty miles north of

Commonwealth Bay. After coasting along its margin for a while, we

pushed among the floes and, after three hours, reached a patch of

fairly open water about 1 P.M.

One hour later a large ice-formation was sighted, which tallied with

that met on January 3 of the previous year (1912) and which, on this

occasion, was no longer in its original position. We came to the

conclusion that the whole must have drifted about fifty miles to the

north-west during the intervening year. The face of this huge berg,

along which the `Aurora' coasted, was about forty miles in length.

Hannam heard fragments of a message from Dr. Mawson during the

evening. The words, ``crevasse,'' ``Ninnis,'' ``Mertz,'' ``broken''

and ``cable'' were picked up.

Good progress was made on the 11th against a high westerly sea.

The sun set in a clear sky and the barometer was slowly rising. Our

position was evidently north of the pack and, if unimpeded by ice,

there was a chance of the ship arriving at her destination in time.

Poor headway was made for nearly three days against an adverse wind

and sea. Then, late on the 14th, a breeze sprang up from the

east-south-east and, under all sail, the `Aurora' made seven knots.

Next morning we were driving along before an easterly gale in thick

snow, and at noon the day's run was one hundred and eighty miles.

The journal describes the following week:

``February 16. The weather cleared up this morning and the sun came

out, enabling us to fix our position.

``We are doing about eight knots under topsails and foresail. The sky

looked threatening this evening but improved considerably before

midnight.

``February 17. There were frequent snow squalls today, making it

difficult to see. Only a few scattered pieces of ice were about.

``February 18. Bright, clear weather to-day enabled us to get

good observations. There are a great many `blue whales' round

the ship, and the many bergs in sight are suggestive of heavy pack

to the south. A great many petrels and Cape pigeons have been seen.

``February 19. The ship was brought up this morning at 8.45 by a

line of heavy pack extending across the course. The weather was

misty, but cleared up before noon. We have been obliged to steer

a northerly course along the edge of the pack.

``The margin of this pack is some sixty miles farther north than

that which we followed in 1912.

``At midnight we were steering north-north-west; many bergs in sight

and a line of pack to port.

``February 20. At daylight we were able to steer southwest, being

at noon about twenty miles north of Termination Ice-Tongue.

Pushing through the looser edge of pack for a couple of hours we saw

the loom of the ice-tongue to the southward. The pack becoming

closer, we turned back to the north in order to try and push through

farther west, where the sky looked more promising.

``At dark we were in a patch of clear water, with ice all around. It

began to snow and, as the wind remained a light easterly, the ship was

allowed to drift until daylight.

``February 21. The morning was very foggy up till 11 A.M. We

steered west until noon and then entered the pack; there was a

promising sky towards the south. Fair progress was made through the

ice, which became looser as we advanced to the south. At 8 P.M. we

passed through leads by moonlight, having a favourable run throughout

the night.

``February 22. At 4 A.M. the wind freshened from the south-east with

some snow; the floes were getting heavier and the advent of a blizzard

was not hailed with joy. About noon the ship approached open water and

the snow ceased.

``We were now on the confines of the sea of bergs where navigation had

proved so dangerous in 1912.

``At 8 P.M. the driving snow and growing darkness made it impossible

to see any distance ahead. The next seven hours were the most

anxious I have ever spent at sea. Although the wind blew hard from

the south-east, we passed through the sea of bergs without mishap,

guided and protected by a Higher Power.

``February 23. At 4 A.M. the loom of an ice-tongue was sighted and

we were soon standing in to follow this feature until we reached the

Shackleton Shelf.

``At 8 A.M. we found that we were some miles south of our reckoning.

``At 11 A.M. we sighted a depot-flag on the slope. Soon after the

ship was up to the fast floe at the head of the bay, the ice being

nearly a mile farther north than on the previous year. In fact, the

ice-conditions as a whole had changed considerably.

``At noon we reached the Base and found the party all well.''

Wild and his comrades were as glad to see the `Aurora' as we were to

see them. They had commenced to lay in a stock of seal-meat fearing

that they might have to pass another winter on the glacier.

All the afternoon every one was busy getting baggage on board and

watering ship. The weather was good and I had intended to sail on the

same evening by moonlight, following the glacier-tongue northward in

clear water for sixty miles.

As we turned northward, ``all well'' on board, I felt truly thankful

that Wild's party had been relieved and anxiety on their account was

now at an end. The party included F. Wild (leader), G. Dovers,

C. T. Harrisson, C. A. Hoadley, Dr. S. E. Jones, A. L. Kennedy,

M. H. Moyes and A. D. Watson.

Early on the 24th there was a fresh easterly breeze, while the ship

steamed among fields of bergs, for the most part of glacier-ice. It

is marvellous how a vessel can pass through such an accumulation in

the dark and come off with only a few bumps!

Pack consisting of heavy broken floe-ice was entered at four o'clock

on the same day, and at 8 A.M. on the 25th we were clear of it,

steering once more among bergs, many of which were earth-stained.

The day was remarkably fine with light winds and a smooth sea.

After we had passed through three hundred miles of berg-strewn ocean,

large masses of ice, water-worn in most instances, were still

numerous, and on February 27, though our position was north of the

80th parallel, they were just beginning to diminish in numbers. At

noon on that day a sounding was made in two thousand two hundred and

thirty fathoms.

Any hope we may have had of steaming to the east with the object of

attempting to relieve the seven men at Adelie Land had to be

definitely abandoned on account of the small supply of coal which

remained.

There was now a clear run of two thousand miles through the zone of

westerly gales and high seas, and on March 14 we reached Port

Esperance. Mr. Eitel, Secretary of the Expedition, landed here and

caught the steamer Dover to Hobart. We heard of the disaster to

Captain Scott and it was learned that wireless messages had been

received from Dr. Mawson, which had been forwarded on to Australia

through the Macquarie Island party.

CHAPTER XIX THE WESTERN BASE--ESTABLISHMENT AND EARLY ADVENTURES

by F. Wild

At 7 A.M. on February 21, 1912, the `Aurora' steamed away to the

north leaving us on the Shackleton Ice-Shelf, while cheers and hearty

good wishes were exchanged with the ship's company. On the sea-ice,

that day, there stood with me my comrades--the Western Party;

G. Dovers, C. T. Harrisson, C. A. Hoadley, S. E. Jones, A. L. Kennedy,

M. H. Moyes and A. D. Watson.

We proceeded to the top of the cliff, where the remainder of the

stores and gear were hauled up. Tents were then erected and the work

of hut-building at once commenced. The site selected for our home was

six hundred and forty yards inland from the spot where the stores

were landed, and, as the edge of the glacier was very badly broken,

I was anxious to get a supply of food, clothing and fuel moved back

from the edge to safety as soon as possible.

Of the twenty-eight Greenland dogs that had reached Antarctica in the

`Aurora', nineteen were landed in Adelie Land and nine with us. So far,

none of these had been broken in for sledging, and all were in poor

condition. Their quarters on the ship had been very cramped, and

many times they had been thoroughly soaked in salt water, besides

enduring several blizzards in Antarctic waters.

Harrisson, Hoadley, Kennedy and Jones ``turned the first sod'' in the

foundations of the hut, while Dovers, Moyes, Watson and I sledged

along supplies of timber and stores. Inward from the brink of the

precipice, which was one hundred feet in height, the surface was fairly

good for sledges, but, owing to crevasses and pressure-ridges, the

course was devious and mostly uphill.

Until the building was completed, the day's work commenced at 6 A.M.,

and, with only half an hour for a midday meal, continued until 7 P.M.

Fortunately, the weather was propitious during the seven days when the

carpenters and joiners ruled the situation; the temperature ranging

from -12 degrees F. to 25 degrees F., while a moderate blizzard

interrupted one day. The chief trouble was that the blizzard deposited

six feet of snow around the stack of stores and coal at the landing-

place, thereby adding considerably to our labour. As evidence of the

force of the wind, the floe was broken and driven out past the foot

of the ``flying-fox,'' tearing away the lower anchor and breaking the

sheer-legs on the glacier.

An average day's work on the stores consisted in bringing thirteen

loads over a total distance of nine and a half miles. First of all,

the cases had to be dug out of the snow-drifts, and loading and

unloading the sledges was scarcely less arduous.

On February 27, while working on the roof, Harrisson made an addition

to our geographical knowledge. Well to the north of the mainland, and

bearing a little north of east, he could trace the outline of land.

Subsequently this was proved to be an island, thirty-two miles

distant, and seventeen miles north of the mainland. It was twenty

miles long and fifteen miles wide, being entirely ice-covered. Later

on, it was charted as Masson Island.

On the 28th, the hut was fit for habitation, the stove was installed,

and meals were cooked and eaten in moderate comfort. The interior of

the house was twenty feet square, but its area was reduced by a

lobby entrance, three feet by five feet, a dark-room three feet by

six feet situated on one side, and my cabin six feet six inches

square in one corner. The others slept in seven bunks which were

ranged at intervals round the walls. Of the remaining space, a

large portion was commodiously occupied by the stove and table.

On three sides, the roof projected five feet beyond the walls and

formed a veranda which was boarded up, making an excellent store-room

and work-room. This was a splendid idea of Dr. Mawson's, enabling us

to work during the severest storms when there was no room in the hut,

and incidentally supplying extra insulation and rendering the inside

much warmer. The main walls and roof were double and covered with

weather-proof felt. Daylight was admitted through four plate-glass

skylights in the roof.

A blizzard effectually prevented outdoor work on February 29, and

all hands were employed in the hut, lining the roof and walls and

fixing shelves for cooking and other utensils.

An attack was made on the transport of stores next day. As a result

of twelve hours' work, five and a half tons of coal were dragged up

and stowed under the veranda. It was Hoadley's birthday, and the cook

made a special feature of the dinner. With extra dainties like figs,

cake and a bottle of wine, we felt that the occasion was fitly

celebrated. On March 2, more stores were amassed round the house;

Hoadley, Harrisson and I doing odd jobs inside, opening cans, sorting

out stores, fitting bunks, shelves and the acetylene gas plant.

While undoing some packages of small boards, Hoadley found that a

space had been arranged in the centre of one of the bundles, and a box

of cigars inserted by some of the men originally employed upon the

construction of the hut in Melbourne. Enclosed was a letter of hearty

good wishes.

During the afternoon, Dovers and Kennedy lowered a small sledge down

to the floe and brought up a seal and three Adelie penguins. These

served for a while as fresh food for ourselves and the dogs.

Sunday March 3 was the finest day we had up till then experienced, and,

since the work was now sufficiently advanced to make us comparatively

comfortable and safe, I determined to make a proper Sunday of it. All

hands were called at 8.30 A.M. instead of 6 A.M. After breakfast a

few necessary jobs were done and at noon a short service was held.

When lunch was over, the skis were unpacked, and all went for a run to

the east in the direction of Masson Island.

The glacier's surface was excellent for travelling, but I soon found

that it would be dangerous to walk about alone without skis, as there

were a number of crevasses near the hut, some of considerable size;

I opened one twenty-five feet wide. They were all well bridged and

would support a man on skis quite easily.

A heavy gale, with falling snow and blinding drift, came on early

the next day and continued for forty-eight hours; our worst blizzard

up to that time. The temperature, below zero before the storm, rose

with the wind to 30 degrees F. Inside, all were employed preparing

for a sledging trip I intended to make to the mainland before the

winter set in. We were greatly handicapped by the want of a sewing

machine.** When unpacked, the one which had been brought was found

to be without shuttles, spools and needles. Large canvas bags, made

to contain two weeks' provisions for a sledging unit of three men,

were in the equipment, but the smaller bags of calico for the different

articles of food had to be sewn by hand. Several hundred of these were

required, and altogether the time consumed in making them was

considerable.

** By accident the small sewing machine belonging to Wild's party

was landed at the Main Base--ED.

Emerging on the morning of the 6th. after the blizzard had blown

itself out, we found that snow-drifts to a depth of twelve feet had

collected around the hut. For entrance and exit, a shaft had to be

dug and a ladder made. The stores, stacked in heaps close by, were

completely covered, and another blizzard swooping down on the 7th

made things still worse. This ``blow,'' persisting till the morning

of the 9th, was very heavy, the wind frequently attaining velocities

judged to reach ninety miles per hour, accompanied by drift so thick

that it was impossible to go outside for anything.

Beyond the erection of the wireless masts, everything was now ready

for the sledging journey. On the day when the wind abated, a party

set to work digging holes for the masts and stay-posts. The former

were to be fifty-two feet high, four and a half feet being buried in

the ice. Unfortunately, a strong breeze with thick drift sprang up

just as hoisting operations had started, and in a few minutes the

holes were filled up and the workers had to run for shelter.

Meanwhile, four men had succeeded in rescuing all the buried stores,

some being stowed alongside the hut, and the remainder stacked

up again on a new level.

On came another severe blizzard, which continued with only a few

minutes' interval until the evening of the 12th. During the short

lull, Jones, Dovers and Hoadley took a sledge for a load of ice from

a pressure-ridge rather less than two hundred yards from the hut.

While they were absent, the wind freshened again, and they had great

difficulty in finding a way to the entrance.

It was very disappointing to be delayed in this manner, but there was

consolation in the fact that we were better off in the hut than on the

glacier, and that there was plenty of work inside. The interior was

thus put in order much earlier than it would otherwise have been.

In erecting the hut, it was found that a case of nuts and bolts was

missing, and many places in the frame had in consequence to be

secured with nails. For a while I was rather doubtful how the

building would stand a really heavy blow. There was, however, no

need for uneasiness, as the first two blizzards drifted snow to such

a depth in our immediate vicinity that, even with the wind at hurricane

force, there was scarcely a tremor in the building.

The morning of Wednesday March 13 was calm and overcast. Breakfast

was served at six o'clock. We then set to work and cleared away the

snow from the masts and stay-posts, so that by 8.30 A.M. both masts

were in position. Before the job was over, a singular sight was

witnessed. A large section of the glacier--many thousands of tons--

calved off into the sea. The tremendous waves raised by the fall of

this mass smashed into fragments all the floe left in the bay. With

the sea-ice went the snow-slopes which were the natural roadway down.

A perpendicular cliff, sixty to one hundred feet above the water, was

all that remained, and our opportunities of obtaining seals and penguins

in the future were cut off. Of course, too, the old landing-place no

longer existed.

The whole of the sledging provisions and gear were brought out,

weighed and packed on the sledges; the total weight being one

thousand two hundred and thirty-three pounds. Dovers, Harrisson,

Hoadley, Jones, Moyes and myself were to constitute the party.

It was necessary for two men to remain behind at the base to keep the

meteorological records, to wind chronometers, to feed the dogs and to

bring up the remainder of the stores from the edge of the ice-cliff.

Kennedy, the magnetician, had to stay, as two term days** were due in

the next month. It was essential that we should have a medical man

with us, so Jones was included in the sledging party; the others

drawing lots to decide who should remain with Kennedy. The unlucky

one was Watson.

** Days set apart by previous arrangement for magnetic ``quick runs.''

To the south of the Base, seventeen miles distant at the nearest

point, the mainland was visible, entirely ice-clad, running almost

due east and west. It appeared to rise rapidly to about three

thousand feet, and then to ascend more gradually as the great plateau

of the Antarctic continent. It was my intention to travel inland

beyond the lower ice-falls, which extended in an irregular line of

riven bluffs all along the coast, and then to lay a depot or depots

which might be useful on the next season's journeys. Another reason

for making the journey was to give the party some experience in

sledging work. The combined weight of both sledges and effects was

one thousand two hundred and thirty-three pounds, and the total

amount of food carried was four hundred and sixty pounds.

While the sledges were being loaded, ten skua gulls paid us a visit,

and, as roast skua is a very pleasant change of food, Jones shot six

of them.

At 1 P.M. we left the hut, making an east-south-east course to clear

a pressure-ridge; altering the course once more to south-east. The

coast in this direction looked accessible, whereas a line running due

south would have brought us to some unpromising ice-falls by a

shorter route.

The surface was very good and almost free from crevasses; only one,

into which Jones fell to his middle, being seen during the afternoon's

march. Not wishing to do too much the first day, especially after

the ``soft'' days we had been forced to spend in the hut during the

spell of bad weather, I made two short halts in the afternoon and

camped at 5 P.M., having done seven and half miles.

On the 11th we rose at 5 A.M., and at 7 A.M. we were on the march.

For the two hours after starting, the surface was tolerable and then

changed for the worse; the remainder of the day's work being

principally over a hard crust, which was just too brittle to bear the

weight of a man, letting him through to a soft substratum, six or

eight inches deep in the snow. Only those who have travelled in

country like this can properly realize how wearisome it is.

At 9 A.M. the course was altered to south, as there appeared to be a

fairly good track up the hills. The surface of the glacier rose and

fell in long undulations which became wider and more marked as the

land approached. By the time we camped, they were three-quarters of

a mile from crest to crest, with a drop of thirty feet from crest to

trough. Despite the heavy trudging we covered more than thirteen

miles.

I made the marching hours 7 A.M. to 5 P.M., so that there was time to

get the evening meal before darkness set in; soon after 6 P.M.

The march commenced about seven o'clock on March 15, the thermometer

registering -8 degrees F., while a light southerly breeze made it feel

much colder. The exercise soon warmed us up and, when the breeze died

away, the remainder of the day was perfectly calm.

A surface of ``pie-crust'' cut down the mileage in the forenoon. At

11 A.M. we encountered many crevasses, from two to five feet wide,

with clean-cut sides and shaky bridges. Hoadley went down to his

head in one, and we all got our legs in others.

It became evident after lunch that the land was nearing rapidly, its

lower slopes obscuring the higher land behind. The crevasses also

became wider, so I lengthened the harness with an alpine rope to allow

more room and to prevent more than two men from being over a chasm at

the same time. At 4 P.M. we were confronted with one sixty feet

wide. Crevasses over thirty feet in width usually have very solid

bridges and may be considered safe, but this one had badly broken

edges and one hundred yards on the right the lid had collapsed. So

instead of marching steadily across, we went over singly on the

alpine rope and hauled the sledges along in their turn, when all had

crossed in safety. Immediately after passing this obstacle the grade

became steeper, and, between three and five o'clock, we rose two

hundred feet, traversing several large patches of neve.

That night the tent stood on a field of snow covering the lower slopes

of the hills. On either hand were magnificent examples of ice-falls,

but ahead the way seemed open.

With the exception of a preliminary stiffness, every one felt well

after the toil of the first few days.

In bright sunlight next morning all went to examine the ice-falls to

the east, which were two miles away. Roping up, we made an ascent

half-way to the top which rose five hundred feet and commanded a

grand panorama of glacier and coast. Soon the wind freshened and

drift began to fly. When we regained the tents a gale was blowing,

with heavy drift, so there was nothing to do but make ourselves as

comfortable as possible inside.

All through Saturday night the gale raged and up till 11.30 A.M. on

Sunday March 16. On turning out, we found that the tents and sledges

were covered deeply in snow, and we dug continuously for more than

two hours before we were able to pack up and get away. Both sledges

ran easily for nearly a mile over neve, when the gradient increased

to one in ten, forcing us to relay. It was found necessary to

change our finnesko for spiked boots. Relaying regularly, we

gradually mounted six hundred feet over neve and massive sastrugi.

With a steep slope in front, a halt was made for the night. The

sunset was a picture of prismatic colours reflected over the

undulating ice-sheet and the tumbling cascades of the glacier.

On the evening of March 18 the altitude of our camp was one thousand

four hundred and ten feet, and the slope was covered with sastrugi

ridges, three to four feet in height. Travelling over these on the

following day we had frequent capsizes.

The outlook to the south was a series of irregular terraces, varying

from half a mile to two miles in breadth and twenty to two hundred

feet in height. These were furrowed by small valleys and traversed

by ridges, but there was not a sign of rock anywhere.

The temperature varied from 4 degrees to 14 degrees F. during the day,

and the minimum recorded at night was -11 degrees F.

Another nine miles of slow ascent brought us to two thousand feet,

followed by a rise of two hundred and twenty feet in seven and

three-quarter miles on March 21. Hauling over high broken sastrugi

was laborious enough to make every one glad when the day was over.

The rations were found sufficient, but the plasmon biscuits were so

hard that they had to be broken with a geological hammer.

There now swept down on us a blizzard** which lasted for a whole week,

on the evening of March 21. According to my diary, the record is as

follows:

``Friday, March 22. Snowing heavily all day, easterly wind:

impossible to travel as nothing can be seen more than ten to twelve

yards away. Temperature high, 7 degrees to 18 degrees F.

** It is a singular fact that this blizzard occurred on the same date

as that during which Captain Scott and his party lost their lives.

``Saturday, March 23. Blowing hard at turn-out time, so did not

breakfast until 8.30. Dovers is cook in my tent this week. He got

his clothes filled up with snow while bringing in the cooker,

food-bag, etc. The wind increased to a fierce gale during the day,

and all the loose snow which fell yesterday was shifted.

``About 5 P.M. the snow was partially blown away from the skirt or

ground cloth, and the tent bulged in a good deal. I got into

burberries and went out to secure it; it was useless to shovel on

snow as it was blown off immediately. I therefore dragged the

food-bags off the sledge and dumped them on. The wind and drift were

so strong that I had several times to get in the lee of the tent to

recover my breath and to clear the mask of snow from my face.

``We are now rather crowded through the tent bulging in so much,

and having cooker and food-bag inside.

``Sunday, March 24. Had a very bad night. The wind was chopping

about from south-east to north and blowing a hurricane. One side of

the tent was pressed in past the centre, and I had to turn out and

support it with bag lashings. Then the ventilator was blown in and we

had a pile of snow two feet high over the sleeping-bags; this kept us

warm, but it was impossible to prevent some of it getting into the

bags, and now we are very wet and the bags like sponges. There were

quite two hundredweights of snow on us; all of which came through a

hole three inches wide.

``According to report from the other tent they are worse off than we

are; they say they have four feet of snow in the tent. All this is

due to the change of wind, making the ventilator to windward instead

of leeward.

``March 25, 26 and 27. Blizzard still continues, less wind but more

snowfall.

``Thursday, March 28. Heavy falling snow and drift, south-east wind.

At noon, the wind eased down and snow ceased falling, so we slipped

into our burberry over-suits and climbed out to dig for the sledges.

``Nothing could be seen except about two feet of the tops of the

tents, which meant that there was a deposit of five feet of freshly

fallen snow. The upper two feet was soft and powdery, offering no

resistance; under that it was still soft, so that we sank to our

thighs every step and frequently to the waist. By 4.30 P.M. both

sledges were rescued, and it was ascertained that no gear had been

lost. We all found that the week of idleness and confinement had

weakened us, and at first were only able to take short spells at the

digging. The sky and barometer promise fine weather to-morrow, but

what awful work it will be pulling!''

At 5.30 A.M. on March 29 the weather was bright and calm. As a

strong wind had blown throughout the night, a harder surface was

expected. Outside, we were surprised to find a fresh wind and thick,

low drift; owing to the tents being snowed up so high, the threshing

of the drift was not audible. To my disgust the surface was as soft

as ever. It appeared that the only resort was to leave the

provisions for the depot on the nearest ridge and return to the Base.

The temperature was -20 degrees F., and, while digging out the tents,

Dovers had his nose frost-bitten.

It took six of us well over an hour to drag the necessary food half a

mile up a rise of less than one hundred feet; the load, sledge included,

not being five hundred pounds. Nearly all the time we were sinking

thigh-deep, and the sledge itself was going down so far that the

instrument-box was pushing a mass of snow in front of it. Arriving on

the ridge, Moyes found that his foot was frozen and he had to go back

to camp, as there was too much wind to bring it round in the open.

Sufficient food and oil were left at this depot for three men for six

weeks; also a minimum thermometer.

In a fresh breeze and flying drift we were off at 10 A.M. next day.

At first we were ambitious and moved away with two sledges, sinking

from two to three feet all the time. Forty yards was as much as we

could do without a rest, and by lunch time nine hundred yards was the

total. Now the course was downhill, and the two sledges were pulled

together, creeping along with painful slowness, as walking was the

hardest work imaginable. After one of the most strenuous days I have

ever experienced, we camped; the sledge-meter recorded one mile four

hundred and fifty yards.

A spell of two days' blizzard cooped us up once more, but improved

the surface slightly. Still, it was dreadfully soft, and, but for the

falling gradient, we would not have made what we did; five miles six

hundred and ten yards, on April 2. On that and the following day it

was fortunate that the road chosen was free of crevasses.

At the foot of the hills I had decided to reduce the rations but,

as the track had grown firm once more, and we were only twenty-five

miles from the hut, with a week's food, I thought it would be safe

to use the full allowance.

Soon after leaving the hills (April 4), a direct course to the hut was

made. There was no mark by which to steer, except a ``water-sky''

to the north, the hinterland being clouded over. During the

afternoon, the sun occasionally gleamed through a tract of cirro-

stratus cloud and there was a very fine parhelion: signs of an

approaching blizzard. At 4.30 P.M. we had done seventeen and a half

miles, and, as all hands were fresh and willing, I decided to have a

meal and go on again, considering that the moon was full and there

were only six miles to be done.

After supper the march was continued till 8.30 P.M., by which time we

were due for a rest. I had begun to think that we had passed the hut.

April 5 was far from being a Good Friday for us. At 2 A.M. a fresh

breeze rose and rapidly increased to a heavy gale. At 10 A.M.

Hoadley and I had to go out to secure the tent; the weather-side

bulged in more than half the width of the tent and was held by a

solid load of drift, but the other sides were flapping so much that

almost all the snow had been shaken off the skirt. Though only five

yards away from it we could not see the other tent. At noon Hoadley

again went out to attend to the tent and entirely lost himself within

six feet of it. He immediately started to yell and I guessed what

was the matter at once. Dovers and I shouted our best, and Hoadley

groped his way in with a mask of snow over his face. He told us that

the wind which was then blowing a good eighty miles an hour, knocked

him down immediately he was outside, and, when he struggled to his

feet again, he could see nothing and had no idea in what direction lay

the tent.

The space inside was now so limited by the combined pressure of wind

and snow that we did not light the primus, eating lumps of frozen

pemmican for the evening meal.

The blizzard continued with unabated violence until eleven o'clock

next morning, when it moderated within an hour to half a gale. We

turned out and had a good hot meal. Then we looked to see how the

others had fared and found that their tent had collapsed. Getting at

once into wind-proof clothing, we rushed out and were horrified to see

Harrisson in his bag on the snow. He quickly assured us that he was

all right. After carrying him, bag and all, into our tent, he emerged

quite undamaged, but very hungry.

Jones and Moyes now had to be rescued; they were in a most

uncomfortable position under the fallen tent. It appears that the

tent had blown down on the previous morning at ten o'clock, and for

thirty-six hours they had had nothing to eat. We did not take long

to dig them out.

The wind dropped to a moderate breeze, and, through the falling snow,

I could make out a ``water-sky'' to the west. The three unfortunates

said that they felt fit to travel, so we got under way. The surface

was soft and the pulling very heavy, and I soon saw that the strain

was largely due to the weakness of the three who had been without

food. Calling a halt, I asked Jones if it would do to go on; he

assured me that they could manage to go on with an effort, and the

march was resumed.

Not long after, Dovers sighted the wireless mast, and a quarter of an

hour later we were safely in the hut, much to the surprise of Kennedy

and Watson, who did not expect us to be travelling in such weather,

and greatly to our own relief. According to the sledge-meter, the

last camp had only been two miles one hundred yards from home, and if

anything had been visible on the night of April 4, we could have got

in easily.

I was very pleased with the way all the party had shaped. They

had worked splendidly and were always cheerful, although conditions

had been exceptionally trying during this journey. No one was any

the worse for the hardships, except for a few blistered fingers from

frost-bites. The party lost weight at the average of two and a half

pounds; Harrisson was the greatest loser, being reduced six pounds.

Out of the twenty-five days we were away, it was only possible to

sledge on twelve days. The total distance covered, including relay

work, was nearly one hundred and twenty-two miles, and the greatest

elevation reached on the southern mainland was two thousand six

hundred feet above sea-level.

Kennedy and Watson had been very busy during our absence. In a few

days they had trained five of the dogs to pull in harness, and

transported the remainder of the stores from the landing-place,

arranging them in piles round the hut. The weather at the Base had

been quite as bad as that experienced by us on the land slopes.

In the first blizzard both wireless masts were broken down. Watson

and Kennedy managed to repair and re-erect one of the masts, but it

was only thirty-seven feet in height. Any final hopes of hearing

wireless signals were dispelled by the discovery that the case

containing the detector and several other parts necessary for a

receiving-station were missing.

Watson had fitted up a splendid dark-room, as well as plenty of

shelves and racks for cooking utensils.

Kennedy was able to secure a series of observations on one of his

term days, but, before the next one, the tent he was using was blown

to ribbons.

CHAPTER XX THE WESTERN BASE--WINTER AND SPRING

On Easter Sunday, April 7, 1912, a furious blizzard kept us close

prisoners. To meet the occasion, Dovers prepared a special dinner,

the principal item being roast mutton, from one of the six carcases

landed with the stores. Divine service was held in the forenoon.

The blizzard raged with such force all Sunday and Monday that I

dared not let any one go out to feed the dogs, although we found,

later, that a fast of three days did not hurt them at all.

I now thought it time to establish a winter routine. Each member had

his particular duties to perform, in addition to general work, in

which all hands were engaged. Harrisson took charge of the lamps and

checked consumption of oil. Hoadley had the care of the provisions,

making out lists showing the amount the cook might use of each article

of food, besides opening cases and stowing a good assortment on

convenient shelves in the veranda. Jones and Kennedy worked the

acetylene plant. In connexion with this, I should mention that several

parts were missing, including T-pieces for joints and connexions for

burners. However Jones, in addition to his ability as a surgeon,

showed himself to be an excellent plumber, brazier and tinsmith, and

the Hut was well lighted all the time we occupied it. Moyes's duties

as meteorologist took him out at all hours. Watson looked after the

dogs, while Dovers relieved other members when they were cooks. The

duty of cook was taken for a week at a time by every one except myself.

A night watch was kept by each in turn. The watchman went on duty at

9 P.M., usually taking advantage of this night to have a bath and wash

his clothes. He prepared breakfast, calling all hands at 8.30 A.M. for

this meal at nine o'clock. The cook for the week was exempt from all

other work. In the case of Kennedy, whose magnetic work was done

principally at night, arrangements were made to assist him with the

cooking.

Work commenced during the winter months at ten o'clock and, unless

anything special had to be done, finished at 1 P.M., when lunch was

served. The afternoon was usually devoted to sport and recreation.

The frequent blizzards and heavy snowfall had by this time buried

the Hut so deeply that only the top of the pointed roof was visible

and all the outside stores were covered.

My diary for April 9 says:

``The blizzard'' (which had commenced on the evening of the 6th)

``played itself out during the night and we got to work immediately

after breakfast. There was still a fresh breeze and low drift, but

this gradually died away.

``We were an hour digging an exit from the Hut. The day has been

occupied in cutting a tunnel entrance, forty feet long, through the

drift, so that driving snow cannot penetrate, and we shall be able to

get out with less trouble.

``As we get time I intend to excavate caverns in the huge drifts

packed round the house and stow all our stores inside; also a good

supply of ice for use during blizzards.

``I had intended to make a trip to Masson Island before the winter

properly set in, but with the weather behaving as it does, I don't

think it would be wise.''

The 10th, 11th and 12th being fine, good progress was made in digging

out store-rooms on either side of the tunnel, but a blizzard on the

13th and 14th stopped us again.

On going to feed the dogs during the afternoon of the 14th, Watson

found that Nansen was dead; this left us with seven, as Crippen had

already died. Of the remainder, only four were of any value;

Sweep and the two bitches, Tiger and Tich, refusing to do anything

in harness, and, as there was less than sufficient food for them,

the two latter had to be shot. Sweep would have shared the same fate

but he disappeared, probably falling down a crevasse or over the edge

of the glacier.

Until the end of April almost all our time was spent in making

store-rooms and in searching for buried stores; sometimes a shaft

would have to be sunk eight to twelve feet. Bamboo poles stuck in

the snow marked the positions of the different stacks. The one marking

the carbide was blown away, and it was two days before Dovers finally

unearthed it. By the 30th, caves roomy enough to contain everything

were completed, all being connected by the tunnel. We were now

self-contained, and everything was accessible and immune from the

periodic blizzards.

The entrance, by the way, was a trap-door built over the tunnel and

raised well above the outside surface to prevent it being drifted

over. From below it was approached by a ladder, but the end of the

tunnel was left open, so that in fine weather we could run sledges

in and out with loads of ice. With each blizzard the entrance was

completely choked, and it gave two men a day's work to clear it out

once more.

On April 16 Kennedy had a term day. A fresh breeze was blowing and

the temperature was -20 degrees F. Some of his observations had to be

taken in the open and the remainder in a tent. The series took three

hours to complete and by that time he was thoroughly chilled through,

his feet and fingers were frost-bitten and his language had grown more

incisive than usual.

Between the 10th and the 19th we made a search for penguins and seals.

Hoadley and Moyes staying behind, the rest of us with tents and

equipment journeyed along the edge of the glacier to the south,

without seeing the smallest sign of life. The edge of the shelf-ice

was very much fissured, many of the breaches giving no sign of their

presence, in consequence of which several falls were sustained. It

should be remarked that the Shackleton Shelf-Ice runs mainly in a

southerly direction from the Winter Quarters, joining the mainland at

a point, afterwards named Junction Corner. The map of Queen Mary Land

illustrates this at a glance.

From the 25th to the 29th, Kennedy, Harrisson and Jones were employed

building an igloo to be used as a magnetic observatory. On the

afternoon of the 30th, the magnetician invited every one to a

tea-party in the igloo to celebrate the opening. He had the place

very nicely decorated with flags, and after the reception and the

formal inspection of the instruments, we were served with quite a good

tea. The outside temperature was -33 degrees F. and it was not much

higher inside the igloo. As a result, no one extended his visit beyond

the bounds of politeness.

On May 1, Harrisson, Hoadley and Watson went away south towards the

land at the head of the bay, which curved round to Junction Corner, to

examine icebergs, take photographs and to search for seals. They

took the four dogs with them and, as the load was a light one--three

hundred and forty-two pounds--the dogs pulled it easily.

I went with the others to the north, hoping that we might find a

portion of the glacier low enough to give access to the sea-ice.

There were several spots where the ice-cliffs were not more than forty

to fifty feet high, but no convenient ramps led down from the cliffs.

In any case neither penguins nor seals were to be had in the

vicinity. A great, flat sheet of frozen sea stretched away to the

north for quite thirty miles.

May 2 was fine, but the 3rd and 4th were windy once more and we had

to remain indoors. Saturday, the 4th, was clean-up day, when the

verandas, tunnel and cave were swept and tidied, the stove cleaned,

the hut and darkroom scrubbed and the windows cleared. The last was

a job which was generally detested. During the week, the windows in

the roof collected a coat of ice, from an inch to three inches thick,

by condensation of moisture. Chipping this off was a most tedious

piece of work, while in the process one's clothes became filled with

ice.

One Sunday, Harrisson, Hoadley and Watson returned from their short

trip; they had missed the strong winds which had been blowing at the

Base, although less than twenty miles away. Some very fine old

icebergs were discovered which were of interest to the two geologists

and made good subjects for Harrisson's sketches. Watson had had a

nasty fall while crossing a patch of rough ice, his nose being rather

badly cut in the accident.

On May 7 another blizzard stopped all outside work. Moyes ventured

as far as the meteorological screen at noon and got lost, but luckily

only for a short time. The barometer behaved very strangely during

the blow, rising abruptly during a little more than an hour, and then

slowly falling once more. For a few hours on the 8th there was a

lull and the store of ice was replenished, but the 9th and 10th were

again spent indoors, repairing and refitting tents, poles and other

sledging gear during the working hours, and reading or playing chess

and bridge in the leisure time. Harrisson carved an excellent set of

chessmen, distinguishing the ``black'' ones by a stain of permanganate

of potash.

Bridge was the favourite game all through the winter, and a continuous

record of the scores was kept. Two medals were struck: a neat little

thing for the highest scorer and a huge affair as large as a plate,

slung on a piece of three-and-a-half-inch rope, with ``Jonah''

inscribed on it, to be worn by the player at the foot of the list.

Divine service was held every Sunday, Moyes and I taking it in turn.

There was only one hymn book amongst the party, which made it necessary

to write out copies of the hymns each week.

The sleeping-bags used on the first sledging journey had been hung up

near the roof. They were now taken down to be thoroughly overhauled.

As a consequence of their severe soaking, they had shrunk considerably

and required enlarging. Dovers's bag, besides contracting a good deal,

had lost much hair and was cut up to patch the others. He received a

spare one to replace it.

May 15 was a beautiful bright morning and I went over to an icy cape

two miles southward, with Harrisson, Hoadley, Dovers and Watson, to

find a road down to the sea-ice. Here, we had good fortune at last,

for, by following down a crevasse which opened out at sea-level into

a magnificent cave, we walked straight out on to the level plain.

Along the edge of the glacier there was not even a seal's blow-hole.

Watson took some photos of the cave and cliff.

It was Kennedy's term night; the work keeping him in the igloo from

10 P.M. until 2.30 A.M. He had had some difficulty in finding a

means of warming the observatory--an urgent necessity, since he found

it impossible to manipulate delicate magnetic instruments for three or

four hours with the temperature from -25 degrees F. to -30 degrees F.

The trouble was to make a non-magnetic lamp and the problem was finally

solved by using one of the aluminium cooking pots; converting it into

a blubber stove. The stove smoked a great deal and the white walls

were soon besmirched with a layer of soot.

The 17th, 18th and 19th were all calm but dull. One day I laid out

a ten-hole golf course and with some homemade balls and hockey sticks

for clubs played a game, not devoid of interest and excitement.

During a blizzard which descended on the evening of the 20th, Zip and

Sweep disappeared and on the 21st, a search on the glacier having been

in vain, Dovers and Hoadley made their way down to the floe. They

found Zip well and hearty in spite of having had a drop of at least

forty feet off the glacier. A further search for Sweep proved

fruitless. We were forced to conclude that he was either killed by

falling over the precipice or he had gone far away hunting for

penguins.

The regular blizzard immured us on May 22, 23 and 24; the wind at

times of terrific force, approaching one hundred miles per hour.

It was impossible to secure meteorological observations or to feed

the dogs until noon on the 24th. Moyes and I went out during a slight

cessation and, with the aid of a rope from the trap-door, managed to

find the dogs, and gave them some biscuits. The drift was then so

thick that six feet was as far as one could see.

We did not forget Empire Day and duly ``spliced the mainbrace.'' The

most bigoted teetotaller could not call us an intemperate party. On

each Saturday night, one drink per man was served out, the popular

toast being ``Sweethearts and Wives.'' The only other convivial

meetings of our small symposium were on the birthdays of each member,

Midwinter's Day and King's Birthday.

On the 25th we were able to make an inventory of a whole series of

damages effected outside. The dogs' shelter had entirely carried

away; a short mast which had been erected some weeks previously as a

holdfast for sledges was snapped off short and the sledges buried,

and, worst of all, Kennedy's igloo had parted with its roof, the

interior being filled with snow, underneath which the instruments were

buried. The dogs were, however, all quite well and lively. It was

fortunate for them that the temperature always rose during the

blizzards. At this period, when on fine days it was usual to

experience -25 degrees to-37 degrees F., the temperature rose in

the snowstorms to 25 degrees or even 30 degrees F.

Monday the 27th was beautifully clear. The tunnel entrance was

opened and some of the party brought in ice while others undid the

rope lashings which had been placed over the hut. This was so

compactly covered in snow that the lashings were not required and I

wanted to make a rope ladder to enable us to get down to the sea-ice

and also to be used by Watson and Hoadley, who were about to dig a

shaft in the glacier to examine the structure of the ice.

Fine weather continued until June 2. During this time we were

occupied in digging a road from the glacier down to the sea-ice in the

forenoons and hunting for seals or skiing in the afternoons. Kennedy

and Harrisson rebuilt the magnetic igloo. A seal-hole was eventually

found near the foot of the glacier and this was enlarged to enable the

seals to come up.

At the end of May, daylight lasted from 9 A.M. until 3 P.M., and the

sunrise and sunset were a marvel of exquisite colour. The nightly

displays of aurora australis were not very brilliant as the moon was

nearing the full.

On the days of blizzards, there was usually sufficient work to be

found to keep us all employed. Thus on June 2, Watson and I were

making a ladder, Jones was contriving a harpoon for seals, Hoadley

was opening cases and stowing stores in the veranda, Dovers cleaning

tools, Moyes repairing a thermograph and writing up the meteorological

log, Harrisson cooking and Kennedy sleeping after a night-watch.

Between June 4 and 22 there was a remarkably fine spell. It was not

calm all the time, as drift flew for a few days, limiting the horizon

to a few hundred yards. An igloo was built as a shelter for those

sinking the geological shaft, and seal-hunting was a daily recreation.

On June 9, Dovers and Watson found a Weddell seal two and a half miles

to the west on the sea-ice. They killed the animal but did not cut it

up as there were sores on the skin. Jones went over with them

afterwards and pronounced the sores to be wounds received from some

other animal, so the meat was considered innocuous and fifty pounds

were brought in, being very welcome after tinned foods. Jones

took culture tubes with him and made smears for bacteria. The tubes

were placed in an incubator and several kinds of organisms grew, very

similar to those which infect wounds in ordinary climates.

The snowstorms had by this time built up huge drifts under the lee of

the ice-cliffs, some of them more than fifty feet in height and

reaching almost to the top of the ice-shelf. An exhilarating sport was

to ski down these ramps. The majority of them were very steep and

irregular and it was seldom that any of us escaped without a fall at

one time or another. Several of the party were thrown from thirty

to forty feet, and, frequently enough, over twenty feet, without being

hurt. The only accident serious enough to disable any one happened to

Kennedy on June 19, when he twisted his knee and was laid up for a week.

There were many fine displays of the aurora in June, the best being

observed on the evening of the 18th. Curtains and streamers were

showing from four o'clock in the afternoon. Shortly after midnight,

Kennedy, who was taking magnetic observations, called me to see the

most remarkable exhibition I have so far seen. There was a double

curtain 30 degrees wide unfolded from the eastern horizon through

the zenith, with waves shimmering along it so rapidly that they

travelled the whole length of the curtain in two seconds. The

colouring was brilliant and evanescent. When the waves reached the end

of the curtain they spread out to the north and rolled in a voluminous

billow slowly back to the east. Kennedy's instruments showed that a

very great magnetic disturbance was in progress during the auroral

displays, and particularly on this occasion.

Hoadley and Watson set up a line of bamboos, a quarter of a mile

apart and three miles long, on the 20th, and from thence onwards took

measurements for snowfall every fortnight.

On Midwinter's Day the temperature ranged from -38 degrees F. to -25

degrees F. and daylight lasted from 10 A.M. until 4 P.M. We proclaimed

a universal holiday throughout Queen Mary Land. Being Saturday, there

were a few necessary jobs to be done, but all were finished by 11 A.M.

The morning was fine and several of us went down to the floe for

skiing, but after twelve o'clock the sky became overcast and the

light was dimmed. A strong breeze brought along a trail of drift,

and at 6 P.M. a heavy blizzard was in full career. Inside, the hut

was decorated with flags and a savoury dinner was in the throes of

preparation. To make the repast still more appetising, Harrisson,

Hoadley and Dovers devised some very pretty and clever menus.

Speeches, toasts and a gramophone concert made the evening pass

quickly and enjoyably.

From this time dated our preparations for spring sledging, which I

hoped would commence about August 15. Jones made some experiments

with ``glaxo,'' of which we had a generous supply. His aim was to make

biscuits which would be suitable for sledging, and, after several

failures, he succeeded in compressing with a steel die a firm biscuit

of glaxo and butter mixed, three ounces of which was the equivalent in

theoretical food value to four and a half ounces of plasmon biscuit;

thereby affording a pleasant variety in the usual ration.

July came in quietly, though it was dull and cloudy, and we were able

to get out on the first two days for work and exercise. On the 2nd a

very fine effect was caused by the sun shining through myriads of

fog-crystals which a light northerly breeze had brought down from the

sea. The sun, which was barely clear of the horizon, was itself a

deep red, on either side and above it was a red mock sun and a

rainbow-tinted halo connected the three mock suns.

On the 5th and 6th the wind blew a terrific hurricane (judged to reach

a velocity of one hundred miles per hour) and, had we not known that

nothing short of an earthquake could move the hut, we should have been

very uneasy.

All were now busy making food-bags, opening and breaking up pemmican

and emergency rations, grinding biscuits, attending to personal gear

and doing odd jobs many and various.

In addition to recreations like chess, cards and dominoes, a

competition was started for each member to write a poem and short

article, humorous or otherwise, connected with the Expedition. These

were all read by the authors after dinner one evening and caused

considerable amusement. One man even preferred to sing his poem.

These literary efforts were incorporated in a small publication known

as ``The Glacier Tongue.''

Watson and Hoadley put in a good deal of time digging their shaft in

the glacier. As a roofed shelter had been built over the top, they

were able to work in all but the very worst weather. While the rest

of us were fitting sledges on the 17th and 18th, they succeeded in

getting down to a level of twenty-one feet below the surface of the

shelf-ice.

Sandow, the leader of the dogs, disappeared on the 18th. Zip, who had

been missed for two days, returned, but Sandow never came back, being

killed, doubtless, by a fall of snow from the cliffs. All along the

edge of the ice-shelf were snow cornices, some weighing hundreds of

tons; and these often broke away, collapsing with a thunderous sound.

On July 31, Harrisson and Watson had a narrow escape. After

finishing their day's work, they climbed down to the floe by a huge

cornice and sloping ramp. A few seconds later, the cornice fell and

an immense mass of hard snow crashed down, cracking the sea-ice for

more than a hundred yards around.

July had been an inclement month with three really fine and eight

tolerable days. In comparison with June's, which was -14.5 degrees F.,

the mean temperature of July was high at -1.5 degrees F. and the early

half of August was little better.

Sunday August 11 was rather an eventful day. Dovers and I went out

in the wind to attend to the dogs and clear the chimney and, upon our

return, found the others just recovering from rather an exciting

accident. Jones had been charging the acetylene generators and by

some means one of them caught fire. For a while there was the danger

of a general conflagration and explosion, as the gas-tank was floating

in kerosene. Throwing water over everything would have made matters

worse, so blankets were used to smother the flames. As this failed to

extinguish them, the whole plant was pulled down and carried into the

tunnel, where the fire was at last put out. The damage amounted to

two blankets singed and dirtied, Jones's face scorched and hair

singed, and Kennedy, one finger jammed. It was a fortunate escape

from a calamity.

A large capsized berg had been noticed for some time, eleven miles to

the north. On the 14th, Harrisson, Dovers, Hoadley and Watson took

three days' provisions and equipment and went off to examine it. A

brief account is extracted from Harrisson's diary:

``It was a particularly fine, mild morning; we made good progress,

three dogs dragging the loaded sledge over the smooth floe without

difficulty, requiring assistance only when crossing banks of soft

snow. One and a half miles from `The Steps,' we saw the footprints

of a penguin.

``Following the cliffs of the shelf-ice for six and three quarter

miles, we sighted a Weddell seal sleeping on a drift of snow. Killing

the animal, cutting off the meat and burying it in the drift delayed

us for about one hour. Continuing our journey under a fine bluff,

over floe-ice much cracked by tide-pressure, we crossed a small bay

cutting wedge-like into the glacier and camped on its far side.

``After our midday meal we walked to the berg three miles away. When

seen on June 28, this berg was tilted to the north-east, but the

opposite end, apparently in contact with the ice-cliffs, had lifted

higher than the glacier-shelf itself. From a distance it could be seen

that the sides, for half their height, were wave-worn and smooth.

Three or four acres of environing floe were buckled, ploughed up and

in places heaped twenty feet high, while several large fragments of

the broken floe were poised aloft on the old `water-line' of the

berg.

``However, on this visit, we found that the berg had turned completely

over towards the cliffs and was now floating on its side surrounded by

large separate chunks; all locked fast in the floe. In what had been

the bottom of the berg Hoadley and Watson made an interesting find of

stones and pebbles--the first found in this dead land!

``Leaving them collecting, I climbed the pitted wave-worn ice, brittle

and badly cracked on the higher part. The highest point was fifty

feet above the level of the top of the shelf-ice. There was no sign

of open water to the north, but a few seals were observed sleeping

under the cliffs.''

Next morning the weather thickened and the wind arose, so a start was

made for the Base. All that day the party groped along in the

comparative shelter of the cliff-face until forced to camp. It was

not till the next afternoon in moderate drift that a pair of skis

which had been left at the foot of `The Steps' were located and the

hut reached once again.

After lunch on August 1l, while we were excavating some buried

kerosene, Jones sighted a group of seven Emperor penguins two miles

away over the western floe. Taking a sledge and camera we made after

them. A mile off, they saw us and advanced with their usual stately

bows. It seemed an awful shame to kill them, but we were sorely in

need of fresh meat. The four we secured averaged seventy pounds in

weight and were a heavy load up the steep rise to the glacier; but

our reward came at dinner-time.

With several fine days to give us confidence, everything was made

ready for the sledge journey on August 20. The party was to consist

of six men and three dogs, the object of the journey being to lay out

a food-depot to the east in view of the long summer journey we were

to make in that direction. Hoadley and Kennedy were to remain at the

Base, the former to finish the geological shaft and the latter for

magnetic work. There remained also a good deal to do preparing stores

for later sledge journeys.

The load was to be one thousand four hundred and forty pounds

distributed over three sledges; two hundred pounds heavier than

on the March Journey, but as the dogs pulled one sledge, the actual

weight per man was less.

The rations were almost precisely the same as those used by Shackleton

during his Expedition, and the daily allowance was exactly the same--

thirty-four ounces per man per day. For his one ounce of oatmeal, the

same weighs of ground biscuit was substituted; the food value being the

same. On the second depot journey and the main summer journeys, a

three-ounce glaxo biscuit was used in place of four and a half ounces

of plasmon biscuit. Instead of taking cheese and chocolate as the

luncheon ration, I took chocolate alone, as on Shackleton's southern

journey it was found more satisfactory than the cheese, though the

food value was practically the same.

The sledging equipment and clothing were identical with that used by

Shackleton. Jaeger fleece combination suits were included in the

outfit but, though excellent garments for work at the Base, they were

much too heavy for sledging. We therefore wore Jaeger underclothing

and burberry wind clothing as overalls.

The weather was not propitious for a start until Thursday, August 22.

We turned out at 5.30 A.M., had breakfast, packed up and left the Hut

at seven o'clock.

After two good days' work under a magnificently clear sky, with the

temperature often as low as -34 degrees F., we sighted two small

nunataks among a cluster of pressure-ridges, eight miles to the south.

It was the first land, in the sense of rocks, seen for more than seven

months. We hoped to visit the outcrops--Gillies Nunataks--on our return.

The course next day was due east and parallel to the mainland, then

ten miles distant. To the north was Masson Island, while at about

the same distance and ahead was a smaller island, entirely ice-covered

like the former--Henderson Island.

A blizzard of three days' duration kept us in camp between August 27

and 30. Jones, Moyes and I had a three-man sleeping-bag, and the

temperature being high, 11 degrees to 15 degrees F., we were very warm,

but thoroughly tired of lying down for so long. Harrisson, Dovers and

Watson had single bags and therefore less room in the other tent.

The last day of August was beautifully bright: temperature -12 degrees

to -15 degrees F. We passed Henderson Island in the forenoon, and,

hauling up a rise to the south of it, had a good view of the

surroundings. On the right, the land ran back to form a large bay,

seventeen miles wide. This was later named the Bay of Winds, as a

``blow'' was always encountered while crossing it.

In the centre of the bay was a nunatak, which from its shape at once

received the name of the Alligator. In front, apparently fifteen

miles off, was another nunatak, the Hippo, and four definite

outcrops--Delay Point and Avalanche Rocks--could be seen along the

mainland. The sight of this bare rock was very pleasing, as we had

begun to think we were going to find nothing but ice-sheathed land.

Dovers took a round of angles to all the prominent points.

The Hippo was twenty-two miles away, so deceptive is distance in these

latitudes; and in one and a half days, over very heavy sastrugi, we

were in its vicinity. The sledges could not be brought very near the

rock as it was surrounded by massive ridges of pressure-ice.

We climbed to the top of the nunatak which was four hundred and twenty

feet high, four hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. It was

composed of gneissic granite and schists. Dovers took angles from an

eminence, Watson collected geological specimens and Harrisson sketched

until his fingers were frost-bitten. Moss and lichens were found and

a dead snow petrel--a young one--showing that the birds must breed in

the vicinity.

To the south, the glacier shelf appeared to be very little broken,

but to the north it was terribly torn and twisted. At each end of

the nunatak there was a very fine bergschrund.** Twenty miles to the

east there appeared to be an uncovered rocky islet; the mainland

turning to the southward twelve miles away. During the night the

minimum thermometer registered -47 degrees F.

** The term not used in the usual sense. Referring to a wide,

imposing crevasse caused by the division of the ice as it presses

past the nunatak.--ED.

An attempt to get away next morning was frustrated by a strong gale.

We were two hundred yards from the shelter of the Hippo and were

forced to turn back, since it was difficult to keep one's feet,

while the sledges were blown sideways over the neve surface.

I resolved to leave the depot in this place and return to the Base,

for our sleeping-bags were getting very wet and none of the party

were having sufficient sleep. We were eighty-four miles from the hut;

I had hoped to do one hundred miles, but we could make up for that by

starting the summer journey a few days earlier. One sledge was left

here as well as six weeks' allowance of food for three men, except tea,

of which there was sufficient for fifty days, seventy days oil and

seventy-eight days' biscuit. The sledge was placed on end in a hole

three feet deep and a mound built up around it, six feet high; a

bamboo and flag being lashed to the top.

On September 4 we were homeward bound, heading first to the mainland

leaving Delay Point on our left, to examine some of the outcrops of

rock. Reaching the coast about 3 P.M., camp was shortly afterwards

pitched in a most beautiful spot. A wall of solid rock rose sheer for

over four hundred feet and was crowned by an ice-cap half the thickness.

Grand ice-falls surged down on either side.

The tents were erected in what appeared to be a sheltered hollow, a

quarter of a mile from Avalanche Rocks. One tent was up and we were

setting the other in position when the wind suddenly veered right

round to the east and flattened out both tents. It was almost as

humorous as annoying. They were soon raised up once more, facing

the other way.

While preparing for bed, a tremendous avalanche came down. The

noise was awful and seemed so close that we all turned to the door and

started out. The fastening of the entrance was knotted, the people

from the other tent were yelling to us to come out, so we dragged up

the bottom of the tent and dived beneath it.

The cliff was entirely hidden by a cloud of snow, and, though the

crashing had now almost ceased, we stood ready to run, Dovers

thoughtfully seizing a food-bag. However, none of the blocks had come

within a hundred yards of us, and as it was now blowing hard, all hands

elected to remain where they were.

Several more avalanches, which had broken away near the edge of the

mainland, disturbed our sleep through the night, but they were not

quite so alarming as the first one. A strong breeze was blowing at

daybreak; still the weather was not too bad for travelling, and so I

called the party. Moyes and I lashed up our bags, passed them out and

strapped them on the sledge; Jones, in the meantime, starting the

cooker. Suddenly a terrific squall struck the front of our tent, the

poles burst through the apex, and the material split from top to

bottom.

Moyes and I were both knocked down. When we found our feet again, we

went to the aid of the other men, whose tent had survived the gust.

The wind rushed by more madly than ever, and the only thing to do was

to pull away the poles and allow the tent to collapse.

Looking around for a lee where it could be raised, we found the only

available shelter to be a crevasse three hundred yards to windward,

but the wind was now so strong that it was impossible to convey the

gear even to such a short distance. All were frequently upset and

blown along the surface twenty or thirty yards, and, even with an

ice-axe, one could not always hold his own. The only resort was to

dig a shelter.

Setting to work, we excavated a hole three feet deep, twelve feet long

and six feet wide; the snow being so compact that the job occupied

three hours. The sledges and tent-poles were placed across the hole,

the good tent being laid on top and weighted down with snow and blocks

of ice. All this sounds very easy, but it was a slow and difficult

task. Many of the gusts must have exceeded one hundred miles per hour,

since one of them lifted Harrisson who was standing beside me, clean

over my head and threw him nearly twenty feet. Everything movable was

stowed in the hole, and at noon we had a meal and retired into sleeping-

bags. At three o'clock a weighty avalanche descended, its fearful

crash resounding above the roar of the wind. I have never found

anything which gave me a more uncomfortable feeling than those

avalanches.

The gale continued on September 6, and we still remained packed in the

trench. If the latter had been deeper and it had been possible to sit

upright, we should have been quite comfortable. To make matters

worse, several more avalanches came down, and all of them sounded

horribly close.

We were confined in our burrow for five days, the wind continuing to

blow with merciless force. Through being closed up so much, the

temperature of the hole rose above freezing-point, consequently our

sleeping-bags and clothes became very wet.

On Sunday September 8, Moyes went out to feed the dogs and to bring

in some biscuit. He found a strong gusty wind with falling snow, and

drift so thick that he could not see five yards. We had a cold lunch

with nothing to drink, so that the primus should not raise the

temperature. In the evening we sang hymns and between us managed to

remember the words of at least a dozen.

The long confinement was over on the 10th; the sky was blue and the

sun brilliant, though the wind still pulsated with racking gusts. As

soon as we were on the ice, away from the land, two men had to hold

on to the rear of each sledge, and even then capsizes often occurred.

The sledge would turn and slide broadside-on to leeward, tearing the

runners badly on the rough ice. Still, by 9.30 A.M. the surface

changed to snow and the travelling improved. That night we camped

with twenty miles one hundred yards on the meter.

There was a cold blizzard on the 11th with a temperature of -30 degrees

F. Confined in the tents, we found our sleeping-bags still sodden and

uncomfortable.

With a strong beam wind and in moderate drift big marches were made

for two days, during which the compass and sastrugi determined our

course.

My diary of September 14 runs as follows:

``On the march at 7 A.M.; by noon we had done twelve miles one

thousand five hundred yards. Lunch was hurried, as we were all

anxious to get to the hut to-night, especially we in the three-man

bag, as it got so wet while we were living underground that we have

had very little sleep and plenty of shivering for the last four

nights. Last night I had no sleep at all. By some means, in the

afternoon, we got on the wrong course. Either the compass was

affected or a mistake had been made in some of the bearings, as

instead of reaching home by 5 P.M. we were travelling till 8 P.M.

and have done thirty-two miles one thousand one hundred yards. Light

loads, good surface and a fair wind account for the good travelling,

the sail doing almost all the work on the man-hauled sledge.

``The last two hours we were in the dark, except for a young moon,

amongst a lot of crevasses and pressure-ridges which none of us could

recognize. At one time, we found ourselves on a slope within a dozen

yards of the edge of the glacier; this decided me to camp. Awfully

disappointing; anticipating another wretched night. Temperature

-35 degrees F.''

Next day we reached home. The last camp had been four and a half

miles north of the hut. I found that we had gone wrong through using

149 degrees as the bearing of Masson Island from the Base, when it should

have been 139 degrees. I believe it was my own mistake, as I gave the

bearing to Dovers and he is very careful.

Before having a meal, we were all weighed and found the average loss

to be eight pounds. In the evening, Moyes and I weighed ourselves

again; he had gained seven pounds and I five and three-quarter

pounds.

Comparing notes with Hoadley and Kennedy, I found that the weather at

the Base had been similar to that experienced on the sledging journey.

It was now arranged that Jones was to take charge of the main western

journey in the summer. While looking for a landing-place in the

`Aurora', we had noted to the west an expanse of old, fast floe,

extending for at least fifty miles. The idea was for Jones and party

to march along this floe and lay a depot on the land as far west as was

possible in four weeks. The party included Dovers, Harrisson, Hoadley

and Moyes. They were to be assisted by the dogs.

It was my intention to take Kennedy and Watson up to the depot we

had left on the hills in March, bringing back the minimum thermometer

and probably some of the food. Watson was slightly lame at the

time, as he had bruised his foot on the last trip.

Until Jones made a start on September 26, there were ten days of

almost continuous wind and drift. The equinox may have accounted for

this prolonged period of atrocious weather. No time, however, was

wasted indoors. Weighing and bagging food, repairing tents, poles,

cookers and other gear damaged on the last journey and sewing and

mending clothes gave every man plenty of employment.

At 6 A.M. on the 26th, Jones reported that there was only a little

low drift and that the wind was dying away. All hands were therefore

called and breakfast served.

Watson, Kennedy and I assisted the others down to the sea-ice by a

long sloping snow-drift and saw them off to a good start in a

south-westerly direction. We found that the heavy sledge used for

carrying ice had been blown more then five hundred yards to the edge

of the glacier, capsized among the rough pressure-slabs and broken.

Two heavy boxes which were on the sledge had disappeared altogether.

The rest of the day was devoted to clearing stores out of the

tunnels. It was evident to us that with the advent of warmer weather,

the roof of the caves or grottoes (by the way, the hut received the

name of ``The Grottoes'') would sink, and so it was advisable to

repack the cases outside rather than dig them out of the deep snow.

By 6 P.M. nearly two hundred boxes were passed up through the trap-

door and the caverns were all empty.

After two days of blizzard, Watson, Kennedy and I broke trail with

loads of one hundred and seventy pounds per man. Right from the

start the surface was so soft that pulling became very severe. On

the first day, September 29, we managed to travel more than nine

miles, but during the next six days the snow became deeper and more

impassable, and only nineteen miles were covered. Crevasses were

mostly invisible, and on the slope upwards to the ice-cap more

troublesome than usual. The weather kept up its invariable wind and

drift. Finally, after making laborious headway to two thousand feet,

Kennedy strained his Achilles tendon and I decided to return to ``The

Grottoes.''

At 2 P.M. on October 8, the mast was sighted and we climbed down into

the Hut, finding it very cold, empty and dark. The sun had shone

powerfully that day and Kennedy and Watson had a touch of snow-

blindness.

Two weeks went by and there was no sign of the western depot party.

In fact, out of sixteen days, there were thirteen of thick drift and

high wind, so that our sympathies went out to the men in tents with

soaking bags, waiting patiently for a rift in the driving wall of

snow. On October 23 they had been away for four weeks; provisions

for that time having been taken. I had no doubt that they would be

on reduced rations, and, if the worst came, they could eat the dogs.

During a lull on October 24, I went to the masthead with the

field-glasses but saw nothing of the party. On that day we weighed

out provisions and made ready to go in search of them. It was my

intention to go on the outward track for a week. I wrote instructions

to Jones to hoist a large flag on the mast, and to burn flares each

night at 10 P.M. if he should return while I was away.

There was a fresh gale with blinding drift early on the following

morning; so we postponed the start. At 4 P.M. the wind subsided to

a strong breeze and I again went up the mast to sweep the horizon.

Westward from an icy cape to the south a gale was still blowing and

a heavy cloud of drift, fifty to sixty feet high, obscured everything.

An hour later Watson saw three Adelie penguins approaching across the

floe and we went down to meet them, bringing them in for the larder.

Four Antarctic petrels flew above our heads: a sign of returning

summer which was very cheering.

The previous night had promised a fine day and we were not

disappointed on October 26. A sledge was packed with fourteen days'

provisions for eight men and we started away on a search expedition

at 10 A.M.

After doing a little over nine miles we camped at 5.30 P.M. Before

retiring to bag, I had a last look round and was delighted to see

Jones and his party about a mile to the south. It was now getting

dark and we were within two hundred yards of them before being seen,

and, as they were to windward, they could not hear our shouts. It

was splendid to find them all looking well. They were anxious to get

back to ``The Grottoes,'' considering there was only one serviceable

tent between them. Kennedy and I offered to change with any of them

but, being too eager for warm blankets and a good bed, they trudged

on, arriving at the Base at midnight.

Briefly told, their story was that they were stopped in their

westerly march,when forty-five miles had been covered, by a badly

broken glacier--Helen Glacier--on the far side of which there was open

sea. There was only one thing to do and that was to set out for the

mainland by a course so circuitous that they were brought a long way

eastward, back towards ``The Grottoes.'' They had very rough travelling,

bad weather, and were beset with many difficulties in mounting on to

the land-ice, where the depot had to he placed. Their distance from

the Base at this point was only twenty-eight miles and the altitude was

one thousand feet above sea-level. On the ice-cap they were delayed by

a blizzard and for seventeen days--an unexampled time--they were unable

to move from camp. One tent collapsed and the occupants, Jones, Dovers

and Hoadley, had to dig a hole in the snow and lower the tent into it.

These are a few snatches from Jones's diary:

``The next sixteen days (following Wednesday, October 9) were spent at

this camp.... Harrisson and Moyes occupied one tent and Dovers,

Hoadley and myself the other.

``On Saturday, the third day of the blizzard, the wind which had been

blowing steadily from the east-south-east veered almost to east and

the tents commenced to flog terrifically. This change must have

occurred early in the night, for we awoke at 5 A.M. to find clouds

of snow blowing under the skirt on one side: the heavy pile on the

flounce having been cut away by the wind. As it would have been

impossible to do anything outside, we pulled the tent poles together

and allowed the tent to collapse. The rest of the day was spent in

confined quarters, eating dry rations and melting snow in our mugs by

the warmth of our bodies.... Although Harrisson and Moyes were no

more than twenty feet from us, the noise of the gale and the flogging

of our tents rendered communication impossible.

``The terrible flapping at last caused one of the seams of our tent

to tear; we sewed it as well as we were able and hoped that it would

hold till daylight.

``On Monday morning, the same seam again parted and we decided to let

the tent down again, spending the day in a half-reclining position....

``At 6.30 P.M. the gale eased and, during a comparative lull, Moyes

came out to feed the dogs. Noticing our position, he helped us to

re-erect the tent and Dovers then went out and piled snow over the

torn seam. Moyes said that Harrisson and he had been fairly

comfortable, although the cap of their tent was slowly tearing with

the pressure of the wind and snow on the weather panels....

``On Friday, the 18th, Swiss, one of the dogs, returned very thin

after six days' absence from the camp.

``On the following Monday the blizzard moderated somewhat and we

proceeded to make our quarters more roomy by digging out the floor

and undercutting the sides, thus lowering the level about eighteen

inches.

``Our tent now looks as if it were half blown over. To relieve the

tremendous strain on the cap, we lowered the feet of the two lee poles

on to the new floor. The tent now offered very little resistance to

the wind. We were able to communicate with Harrisson and Moyes and

they said they were all right.''

When the snow and wind at last held up, they immediately made down

to the sea-ice and back towards home, and, when they met us, had done

nineteen miles. All were stiff next day, and no wonder; a march of

twenty-eight miles after lying low for seventeen days is a very

strenuous day's work.

Preparations were made on October 28 for the main eastern summer

journey, the object of which was to survey as much coast-line as

possible and at the same time to carry on geological work, surveying

and magnetics. The party was to consist of Kennedy, Watson and

myself.

Jones, Dovers and Hoadley were to start on the main western journey

on November 2. I arranged that Harrisson and Moyes should remain at

the Hut, the latter to carry on meteorological work, and Harrisson

biology and sketching. Later, Harrisson proposed to accompany me as

far as the Hippo depot, bringing the dogs and providing a supporting

party. At first I did not like the idea, as he would have to travel

one hundred miles alone, but he showed me that he could erect a tent

by himself and, as summer and better weather were in sight, I agreed

that he should come.

Each party was taking fourteen weeks' provisions, and I had an

additional four weeks' supply for Harrisson and the dogs. My total

load came to nine hundred and seventy pounds; the dogs pulling four

hundred pounds with the assistance of one man and three of us dragging

five hundred and seventy pounds.

CHAPTER XXI THE WESTERN BASE--BLOCKED ON THE SHELF-ICE

by F. Wild

We started away on the main eastern journey with a spurt of eleven

miles on a calm and cloudless day, intending to follow our former

track over the shelf-ice to the Hippo Nunatak. The surface varied;

soft patches putting a steady brake on the ardour of the first,

fresh hours of marching.

In the afternoon, it was only necessary to wear a shirt, singlet,

heavy pyjama trousers, finnesko and socks, and even then one

perspired freely. The temperature stood at 17 degrees F. The dogs

pulled their load well, requiring help only over loose snow.

The evening of Friday November 1, 1912, saw us past Masson Island and

about ten miles from the mainland. All day there had been a chill

easterly breeze, the temperature being well below zero. The sky was

hazy with cirro-stratus and a fine halo ``ringed'' the sun.

Looking out from the tent in the morning we saw that the clouds were

dense and lowering, but the breezes were light and variable until 5

P.M., when an east-north-east wind arose, bringing snow in its train.

Travelling through foggy drift, we could just ascertain that the Bay

of Winds had opened up on the right. The day's march was a good one

of sixteen miles thirty-five yards.

The Bay of Winds did not belie its name. Throughout November 3 the

wind veered about in gusts and after lunch settled down to a hard

south-easter.

We had made a good start; more than sixty-two miles in a little over

four days. The camp was half-way across the Bay of Winds, with the

Alligator Nunatak six miles off on the ``starboard bow'' and the Rock

of the Avalanches seventeen miles straight ahead. Passing glimpses

were caught of the Hippo twenty-four miles distant.

On November 5, after a day's blizzard, there was much accumulated snow

to shovel away from tents and sledges. Finding the hauling very

arduous, we headed in for the land to find a better surface, passing

the Alligator Nunatak close on its southern side.

At noon on the 6th, the sledges were running parallel to the Rock of

the Avalanches, three miles away, and soon afterwards we came to a

large boulder; one of four in a line from the rock-cliffs, from which

they had been evidently transported, as they were composed of the

same gneiss.

The Hippo was close at hand at four o'clock and, on nearing the

shattered ice about the depot, we released the dogs and pulled the

sledge ourselves. On being freed, they galloped over to the rock and

were absent for over an hour. When they returned, Amundsen's head

was daubed with egg-yolk, as we thought. This was most probable as

scores of snow petrels were flying about the rocks.

A nasty shock was awaiting us at the depot. The sledge, which had

been left on end, two feet buried in hard snow and with a mound six

feet high built round it, had been blown completely away. The stays,

secured to foodbags, were both broken; one food-bag weighing

sixty-eight pounds having been lifted ten feet. This was a very

serious loss as the total load to be carried now amounted to one

thousand one hundred and eighty pounds, which was too great a weight

to be supported by one sledge.

It appeared, then, that the only thing to do was to include Harrisson

in the party, so that we could have his sledge. This would facilitate

our progress considerably, but against that was the fact that Moyes

would be left alone at the Base under the belief that Harrisson had

perished.

A gale was blowing on the 7th, but as we were partly under the lee of

the Hippo, it was only felt in gusts. A visit was made to the

Nunatak; Harrisson to examine the birds, Watson for geology and

photography, while I climbed to the summit with the field-glasses to

look for the missing sledge. Kennedy remained at the camp to take a

series of magnetic observations.

There were hundreds of snow petrels pairing off, but no eggs were seen

in any of the nest-crevices. They were so tame that it was quite

easy to catch them, but they had a habit of ejecting their partially

digested food, a yellow oily mess, straight at one. This was the

stuff we had thought was egg-yolk on Amundsen's head the previous

night.

Upon returning to camp, the search for the sledge was continued.

After prospecting with a spade in possible snow-drifts and crevasse-

lids, we walked out fanwise, in the direction of the prevailing wind,

but with no result. I decided, therefore, to take Harrisson with me.

I was extremely sorry for Moyes, but it could not be helped.

On the way back towards the land to the south, we found that the

surface had improved in the morning's gale. Camp was finally pitched

on a slope close to the high land.

The coast, from the Base to this spot--Delay Point--runs almost due

east and west and with no deep indentations except the Bay of Winds.

To the west, the slope from the inland plateau is fairly gradual and

therefore not badly broken, but still farther west it is much

steeper, coming down from two thousand feet in a very short distance,

over tumbling ice-fields and frozen cascades. Several outcrops of

dark rock lay to the east, one of them only two miles away.

The wind-velocity fluctuated between sixty and eighty miles per

hour, keeping us securely penned. Harrisson and Kennedy, after

battling their way to our tent for a meal, used the second primus and

cooker, brought for Harrisson, in their own tent. All we could do was

to smoke and listen to the fierce squalls and lashing drift. I had

brought nothing to read on the trip, making up the weight in tobacco.

Watson had Palgrave's `Golden Lyrics', Kennedy, an engineer's hand-book,

and Harrisson, a portion of the `Reign of Mary Tudor'. There was a

tiny pack of patience cards, but they were in the instrument-box on the

sledge and none of us cared to face the gale to get them.

The wind, on the 10th, saw fit to moderate to half a gale; the drift

creeping low and thick over the ground; the land visible above it.

Donning burberrys, we made an excursion to the rocks ahead. Two miles

and a climb of six hundred feet were rather exhausting in the strong

wind. There were about eighty acres of rock exposed on the edge of

the ice-cap, mainly composed of mica schists and some granite; the

whole extensively weathered. A line of moraine ran from the rocks

away in an east-north-east direction.

Most of the next day was broken by a heavy gale and, since the

prospect ahead was nothing but bare, rough ice, we passed the day in

making everything ready for a start and repaired a torn tent. The

rent was made by Amundsen, who dragged up the ice-axe to which he

was tethered and, in running round the tent, drove the point of the

axe through it, narrowly missing Kennedy's head inside.

Tuesday November 12 was an interesting day. The greater part of the

track was over rippled, level ice, thrown into many billows, through

devious pressure-hummocks and between the inevitable crevasses. The

coast was a kaleidoscope of sable rocks, blue cascades, and fissured

ice-falls. Fifteen miles ahead stood an island twenty miles long,

rising in bare peaks and dark knolls. This was eventually named

David Island.

The dogs were working very well and, if only a little additional

food could be procured for them, I knew they could be kept alive.

Zip broke loose one night and ate one of my socks which was hanging

on the sledge to dry; it probably tasted of seal blubber from the boots.

Switzerland, too, was rather a bother, eating his harness whenever he

had a chance.

On the 14th, a depot was formed, consisting of one week's provisions

and oil; the bags being buried and a mound erected with a flag on

top. Kennedy took a round of angles to determine its position.

At the end of two snowy days, after we had avoided many ugly

crevasses, our course in an east-south-east line pointed to a narrow

strait between David Island and the mainland. On the southern side of

the former, there was a heaped line of pressure-ice, caused by the

flow from a narrow bay being stopped by the Island. After lunch, on

the 16th, there was an hour's good travelling and then we suddenly

pulled into a half-mile of broken surface--the confluence of the slowly

moving land-ice and of the more rapidly moving ice from a valley on

our right, from which issued Reid Glacier. It was impossible to steer

the dogs through it with a load, so we lightened the loads on both

sledges and then made several journeys backwards and forwards over the

more broken areas, allowing the dogs to run loose. The crevasses ran

tortuously in every direction and falls into them were not uncommon.

One large lid fell in just as a sledge had cleared it, leaving a hole

twelve feet wide, and at least a hundred feet deep. Once over this

zone, the sledges were worked along the slope leading to the mainland

where we were continually worried by their slipping sideways.

Ahead was a vast sea of crushed ice, tossed and piled in every

direction. On the northern horizon rose what we concluded to be a

flat-topped, castellated berg. Ten days later, it resolved itself

into a tract of heavy pressure ridges.

Camping after nine and a half miles, we were surprised, on moving east

in the morning, to sight clearly the point--Cape Gerlache--of a

peninsula running inland to the southwest. A glacier from the

hinterland, pushing out from its valley, had broken up the shelf-ice

on which we were travelling to such an extent that nothing without wings

could cross it. Our object was to map in the coastline as far east as

possible, and the problem, now, was whether to go north or south. From

our position the former looked the best, the tumbled shelf-ice appearing

to smooth out sufficiently, about ten miles away, to afford a passage

east, while, to the south, we scanned the Denman Glacier, as it was

named, rolling in magnificent cascades, twelve miles in breadth, from

a height of more than three thousand feet. To get round the head of

this ice-stream would mean travelling inland for at least thirty miles.

So north we went, getting back to our old surface over a heavy ``cross

sea,'' honeycombed with pits and chasms; many of them with no

visible bottom. There was half a mile to safety, but the area had

to be crossed five times; the load on the twelve-foot sledge being

so much, that half the weight was taken off and the empty sledges

brought back for the other half. Last of all came the dogs' sledge.

Kennedy remarked during the afternoon that he felt like a fly

walking on wire-netting.

The camp was pitched in a line of pressure, with wide crevasses and

``hell-holes'' within a few yards on every side. Altogether the day's

march had been a miserable four miles. On several occasions, during

the night, while in this disturbed area, sounds of movement were

distinctly heard; cracks like rifle shots and others similar to

distant heavy guns, accompanied by a weird, moaning noise as of the

glacier moving over rocks.

November 18 was a fine, bright day: temperature 8 degrees to 20 degrees

F. Until lunch, the course was mainly north for more than five miles.

Then I went with Watson to trace out a road through a difficult area in

front. At this point, there broke on us a most rugged and wonderful

vision of ice-scenery.

The Denman Glacier moving much more rapidly than the Shackleton Shelf,

tore through the latter and, in doing so, shattered both its own sides

and also a considerable area of the larger ice-sheet. At the actual

point of contact was what might be referred to as gigantic bergschrund:

an enormous chasm over one thousand feet wide and from three hundred

feet to four hundred feet deep, in the bottom of which crevasses

appeared to go down for ever. The sides were splintered and crumpled,

glittering in the sunlight with a million sparklets of light. Towering

above were titanic blocks of carven ice. The whole was the wildest,

maddest and yet the grandest thing imaginable.

The turmoil continued to the north, so I resolved to reconnoitre

westward and see if a passage were visible from the crest of David

Island.

The excursion was postponed till next day, when Kennedy, Watson and I

roped up and commenced to thread a tangled belt of crevasses. The

island was three and a half miles from the camp, exposing a bare ridge

and a jutting bluff, nine hundred feet high--Watson Bluff. At the

Bluff the rock was almost all gneiss, very much worn by the action

of ice. The face to the summit was so steep and coarsely weathered

that we took risks in climbing it. Moss and lichens grew luxuriantly

and scores of snow petrels hovered around, but no eggs were seen.

Owing to an overcast sky, the view was not a great deal more

enlightening than that which we had had from below. The Denman

Glacier swept down for forty miles from over three thousand feet

above sea-level. For twenty miles to the east torn ice-masses lay

distorted in confusion, and beyond that, probably sixty miles distant,

were several large stretches of bare rock-like islands.

On November 20, a strong north-east wind blew, with falling snow.

Nothing could be seen but a white blanket, above, below and all

around; so, with sudden death lurking in the bottomless crevasses on

every hand, we stayed in camp.

A blizzard of great violence blew for two days and the tent occupied

by Kennedy and myself threatened to collapse. We stowed all our

gear in the sleeping-bags or in a hole from which snow had been dug

for cooking. By the second day we had become extremely tired of

lying down. One consolation was that our lips, which were very sore

from exposure to the sun and wind, had now a chance of healing.

Next afternoon, the gale moderated sufficiently for us to go once

more to David Island, in clearer weather, to see the outlook from the

bluff. This time the sun was shining on the mainland and on the

extension of the glacier past the bluff to the north. The distant

southern slopes were seamed with a pattern of crevasses up to a height

of three thousand feet. To the north, although the way was certainly

impassable for twelve miles, it appeared to become smoother beyond

that limit. We decided to try and cross in that direction.

We persevered on the 24th over many lines of pressure-ice and then

camped near an especially rough patch. Watson had the worst fall on

that day, going down ten feet vertically into a crevasse before his

harness stopped him. After supper, we went to locate a trail ahead,

and were greatly surprised to find salt water in some of the cracks.

It meant that in two days our descent had been considerable, since the

great bergschrund farther south was well over three hundred feet in

depth and no water had appeared in its depths.

A few extracts from the diary recall a situation which daily became

more serious and involved:

``Monday, November 25. A beautiful day so far as the weather and

scenery are concerned but a very hard one. We have been amongst

`Pressure,' with a capital P, all day, hauling up and lowering the

sledges with an alpine rope and twisting and turning in all

directions, with waves and hills, monuments, statues, and fairy

palaces all around us, from a few feet to over three hundred feet in

height. It is impossible to see more than a few hundred yards ahead

at any time, so we go on for a bit, then climb a peak or mound,

choose a route and struggle on for another short stage.

``We have all suffered from the sun to-day; Kennedy has caught it

worst, his lips, cheeks, nose and forehead are all blistered. He has

auburn hair and the tender skin which frequently goes with it....

``Tuesday, November 26. Another very hard day's work. The first

half-mile took three hours to cover; in several places we had to cut

roads with ice-axes and shovels and also to build a bridge across a

water-lead. At 1 P.M. we had done just one mile. I never saw or

dreamt of anything so gloriously beautiful as some of the stuff we

have come through this morning. After lunch the country changed

entirely. In place of the confused jumble and crush we have had, we

got on to neve slopes; huge billows, half a mile to a mile from crest

to crest, meshed with crevasses...

``We all had falls into these during the day: Harrisson dropping

fifteen feet. I received rather a nasty squeeze through falling into

a hole whilst going downhill, the sledge running on to me before I

could get clear, and pinning me down. So far as we can see, the same

kind of country continues, and one cannot help thinking about having

to return through this infernal mess. The day's distance--only one

thousand and fifty yards.

``Wednesday, November 27. When I wrote last night about coming back,

I little thought it would be so soon. We turn back to-morrow for the

simple reason that we cannot go on any farther.

``In the morning, for nearly a mile along a valley running

south-east, the travelling was almost good; then our troubles

commenced again.

``Several times we had to resort to hand-hauling with the alpine rope

through acres of pitfalls. The bridges of those which were covered

were generally very rotten, except the wide ones. Just before lunch

we had a very stiff uphill pull and then a drop into a large basin,

three-quarters of a mile in diameter.

``The afternoon was spent in vain searching for a road.... On every

side are huge waves split in every direction by crevasses up to two

hundred feet in width. The general trend of the main crevasses is

north and south....

``I have, therefore, decided to go back and if possible follow the

road we came by, then proceed south on to the inland ice-cap and find

out the source of this chaos. If we are able to get round it and

proceed east, so much the better; but at any rate, we shall be doing

something and getting somewhere. We could push through farther east

from here, but it would be by lowering the gear piecemeal into chasms

fifty to one hundred feet deep, and hauling it up on the other side;

each crevasse taking at least two hours to negotiate. For such slow

progress I don't feel justified in risking the lives of the party.''

Snow fell for four days, at times thickly, unaccompanied by wind. It

was useless to stir in our precarious position. Being a little in

hand in the ration of biscuits, we fed the dogs on our food, their own

having run out. I was anxious to keep them alive until we were out of

the pressure-ice.

From this, our turning-point out on the shelf-ice, the trail lay over

eighteen inches of soft snow on December 3, our former tracks, of

course, having been entirely obliterated. The bridged crevasses were

now entirely hidden and many weak lids were found.

At 9 A.M. Harrisson, Watson and I roped up to mark a course over a

very bad place, leaving Kennedy with the dogs. We had only gone

about one hundred yards when I got a very heavy jerk on the rope

and, on looking round, found that Watson had disappeared. He weighs

two hundred pounds in his clothes and the crevasse into which he had

fallen was fifteen feet wide. He had broken through on the far side

and the rope, cutting through the bridge, stopped in the middle so

that he could not reach the sides to help himself in any way. Kennedy

brought another rope over and threw it down to Watson and we were then

able to haul him up, but it was twenty minutes before he was out. He

reappeared smiling, and, except for a bruise on the shin and the loss

of a glove, was no worse for the fall.

At 2.30 P.M. we were all dead-beat, camping with one mile one thousand

seven hundred yards on the meter. One-third of this distance was relay

work and, in several places, standing pulls with the alpine rope. The

course was a series of Z's, S's, and hairpin turns, the longest straight

stretch one hundred and fifty yards, and the whole knee-deep in soft

snow, the sledges sinking to the cross-bars.

The 4th was a repetition of the previous day--a terribly hard two and

a half miles. We all had ``hangman's drops'' into crevasses. One

snow-bridge, ten feet wide, fell in as the meter following the twelve-

foot sledge was going over behind it.

The 5th was a day of wind, scurrying snow and bad light. Harrisson

went out to feed the dogs in the morning and broke through the lid of

a crevasse, but fortunately caught the side and climbed out.

The diary again:

``Friday, December 6. Still bad light and a little snowfall, but we

were off at ten o'clock. I was leading and fell into at least a dozen

crevasses, but had to be hauled out of one only. At 1.30 P.M. we

arrived at the open lead we had crossed on the outward journey and

found the same place. There had been much movement since then and we

had to make a bridge, cutting away projections in some places and

filling up the sea-water channels with snow and ice. Then Harrisson

crossed with the aid of two bamboo poles, and hauled me over on a

sledge. Harrisson and I on one side and Kennedy and Watson on the

other then hauled the sledges backwards and forwards, lightly loaded

one way and empty the other, until all was across. The shelf-ice is

without doubt afloat, if the presence of sea-water and diatomaceous

stains on the ice is of any account. We camped to-night in the same

place as on the evening of November 25, so with luck we should be out

of this mess to-morrow. Switzerland had to be killed as I cannot

afford any more biscuit. Amundsen ate his flesh without hesitation,

but Zip refused it.''

Sure enough, two days sufficed to bring us under the bluff on David

Island. As the tents were being pitched, a skua gull flew down. I

snared him with a line, using dog's flesh for bait and we had stewed

skua for dinner. It was excellent.

While I was cooking the others climbed up the rocks and brought back

eight snow petrels and five eggs, with the news that many more birds

were nesting. After supper we all went out and secured sixty eggs

and fifty-eight birds. It seemed a fearful crime to kill these

beautiful, pure white creatures, but it meant fourteen days' life for

the dogs end longer marches for us.

Fresh breeze, light snow and a bad light on the 9th; we remained in

camp. Two more skuas were snared for the evening's dinner. The snow

petrels' eggs were almost as large as hens' eggs and very good to

eat when fresh. Many of them had been under the birds rather too

long, but although they did not look so nice, there was little

difference in the taste. I was very glad to get this fresh food, as

we had lived on tinned meat most of the year and there was always the

danger of scurvy.

The light was too changeable to make a satisfactory start until the

evening of December 11, when we managed to dodge through four and a

half miles of broken ice, reaching the mainland close to our position

on November 16, and camping for lunch at midnight. In front was a

clear mile on a peninsula and then the way led across Robinson Bay,

seven miles wide, fed by the Northcliffe Glacier.

Another night march was commenced at 8 P.M. The day had been

cloudless and the sun very warm, softening the surface, but at the

time of starting it was hardening rapidly. Crossing the peninsula we

resolved to head across Robinson Bay as the glacier's surface was still

torn up. We ended with a fine march of twelve miles one thousand two

hundred yards.

The fine weather continued and we managed to cross three and a half

miles of heavy sastrugi, pressure-ridges and crevasses, attaining the

first slopes of the mainland at 1O P.M. on December 14. The discovery

of two nunataks springing out of the piedmont glacier to the south,

lured us on.

The first rock--Possession Nunataks--loomed ahead, two hundred feet

above, up a slope of half a mile. Here a depot of provisions and

spare gear was made, sufficient to take us back to the Hippo. The

rock was found by Watson to be gneiss, rich in mica, felspar and

garnets. We lunched in this place and resumed our march at midnight.

The second nunatak was on the course; a sharp peak in the south,

hidden by the contour of the uprising ridges. In four miles we

steadily ascended eight hundred feet. While we were engaged pitching

camp, a Cape pigeon flew overhead.

There were advantages in travelling at night. The surface was firmer,

our eyes were relieved from the intense glare and our faces no longer

blistered. On the other hand, there were disadvantages. The skirt of

the tent used to get very wet through the snow thawing on it in the

midday sun, and froze solid when packed up; the floor-cloths and

sleeping-bags, also, never had a chance of drying and set to the same

icy hardness. When we had mounted higher I intended to return to

work by day.

It was not till the altitude was three thousand feet that we came in

sight of the far peak to the south. We were then pulling again in

daylight. The ice-falls of the Denman Glacier on the left were still

seen descending from the plateau, while down on the plain we saw that

the zone of disrupted ice, into which the short and intricate track of

our northern attempt had been won, extended for quite thirty miles.

The surface then softened in a most amazing fashion and hauling became

a slow, dogged strain with frequent spells. A little over four miles

was the most we could do on the 18th, and on the 19th the loads were

dragging in a deluge of dry, flour-like snow. A long halt was made at

lunch to repair a badly torn tent.

The peak ahead was named Mount Barr-Smith. It was fronted by a steep

rise which we determined to climb next day. On the eastern margin of

the Denman Glacier were several nunataks and higher, rising ground.

Following a twenty-four hours' blizzard, the sky was overcast, with

the usual dim light filtering through a mist of snow. We set off to

scale the mountain, taking the dip-circle with us. The horizon was so

obscured that it was useless to take a round of angles. Fifteen miles

south of Mount Barr-Smith, and a little higher there was another peak,

to be subsequently called Mount Strathcona; also several intervening

outcrops. Not a distinct range of mountains as we had hoped. The

Denman Glacier sweeps round these projecting rocks from the south-west,

and the general flow of the ice-sheet is thereby concentrated within

the neck bounded by the two peaks and the higher land to the east.

Propelled by the immense forces of the hinterland, this stream of ice

is squeezed down through a steep valley at an accelerated speed, and,

meeting the slower moving Shackleton Shelf, rends it from top to bottom

and presses onward. Thus chaos, icequake, and ruin.

Our tramp to Mount Barr-Smith was through eighteen inches of soft

snow, in many places a full two feet deep. Hard enough for walking,

we knew from experience what it was like for sledging. There was only

sufficient food for another week and the surface was so abominably

heavy that in that time, not allowing for blizzards, it would have

been impossible to travel as far as we could see from the summit of

Mount Barr-Smith, while four miles a day was the most that could have

been done. Our attempt to make east by rounding the Denman Glacier

to the south had been foiled, but by turning back at that point, we

stood a chance of saving our two remaining dogs, who had worked so

well that they really deserved to live.

Sunday December 22 broke with a fresh breeze and surface drift;

overhead a clear sky. We went back to Mount Barr-Smith, Kennedy

taking an observation for latitude, Watson making a geological survey

and collecting specimens, Harrisson sketching. The rocks at the

summit were granites, gneisses and schists. The latitude worked out

at 67 degrees 10.4' S., and we were a little more than one hundred

and twenty miles in an air-line from the hut.

In the next two days, downhill, we ``bullocked'' through eleven miles,

reaching a point where the depot at Possession Nunataks was only

sixteen miles away. The surface snow was very sticky in places,

clogging the runners badly, so that they had to be scraped every

half-mile. Stewed skua was the feature of our Christmas Eve supper.

From the diary:

``Christmas Day, Wednesday. Turned out and got away at 8 A.M., doing

nine miles before lunch down a steep descent. The sun was very hot,

and after lunch the surface became sticky, but at 5 P.M. we reached

the depot, having done fifteen miles one hundred yards and descended

two thousand three hundred feet.

``I am afraid I shall have to go back to travelling by night, as the

snow is so very soft down here during the day; not soft in the same

way as the freshly fallen powdery stuff we had on the hills, but

half-thawed and wet, freezing at night into a splendid surface for the

runners. The shade temperature at 5.30 P.M. to-day was 29 degrees F.,

and a thermometer laid in the sun on the dark rocks went up to 87

degrees F.

``Some time ago, a plum-pudding was found in one of our food-bags, put

there, I believe, by Moyes. We ate it to-night in addition to the

ordinary ration, and, with a small taste of spirits from the medical

store, managed to get up quite a festive feeling. After dinner the

Union Jack and Australian Ensign were hoisted on the rocks and I

formally took possession of the land in the name of the Expedition,

for King George V. and the Australian Commonwealth.''

Queen Mary Land is the name which, by gracious sanction, was

eventually affixed to that area of new land.

Night marches commenced at 1 A.M. on December 27. The sail was

hoisted for the first time and the fresh breeze was of great

assistance. We were once more down on the low peninsula and on its

highest point, two hundred feet above the shelf-ice, Kennedy took a

round of angles.

Along the margin of the shelf the crevasses were innumerable and, as

the sun was hot and the snow soft and mushy, we pitched camp about six

miles from the bluff on David Island.

At 6 A.M. on the 28th we rounded the bluff and camped under its leeward

face. After lunch there was a hunt for snow petrels. Fifty-six were

caught and the eggs, which all contained chicks, were given to the dogs.

It was my intention to touch at all the rocks on the mainland on the

way home, as time and weather permitted. Under a light easterly

breeze we scudded along with sail set and passed close to several

outcrops. Watson examined them, finding gneiss and granite principally,

one type being an exceptionally coarse granite, very much weathered.

A mile of bad crevasses caused some delay; one of the dogs having a

fall of twelve feet into one abyss.

Next day, the Hippo hove in sight and we found the depoted food in

good condition. The course had been over high pressure-waves and in

some places we had to diverge on account of crevasses and--fresh water!

Many of the hollows contained water from thawed snow, and in others

there was a treacherous crust which hid a slushy pool. The march of

eighteen miles landed us just north of the Avalanche Rocks.

While we were erecting the tents there were several snow-slips, and

Watson, Kennedy and I walked landwards after supper to try for a

``snap'' of one in the act of falling, but they refused to oblige us.

It was found that one or more avalanches had thrown blocks of ice,

weighing at least twenty tons, two hundred yards past the hole in

which we spent five days on the depot journey. They had, therefore,

travelled six hundred yards from the cliff.

The Alligator Nunatak was explored on January 2, 1913. It was found

to be half a mile long, four hundred feet high and four hundred and

fifty feet in width, and, like most of the rock we had seen, mainly

gneiss.

There was half a gale blowing on the 4th and though the wind was abeam,

the sail was reefed and we moved quickly. The dogs ran loose, their

feet being very sore from pulling on rough, nobbly ice. The day's run

was the record up to that time--twenty-two miles. Our camp was in the

vicinity of two small nunataks discovered in August 1912. We reckoned

to be at the Base in two days and wondered how poor Moyes was faring.

Early on the 5th, the last piece of broken country fell behind, and

one sledge being rigged with full sail, the second sledge was taken in

tow. Both dogs had bleeding feet and were released, running alongside.

During the halt for lunch a sail was raised on the dogs' sledge, using

tent poles as a mast, a floor-cloth for a sail, an ice-axe for an upper

yard and a bamboo for a lower yard. Getting under way we found that

the lighter sledge overran ours; so we cast off and Harrisson took the

light sledge, the sail working so well that he rode on top of the load

most of the time. Later in the afternoon the wind increased so much

that the dogs' sledge was dismasted and taken in tow once more, the

sail on the forward sledge being ample for our purpose.

At 4 P.M. we had done twenty miles, and, everybody feeling fresh,

I decided to try and reach ``The Grottoes,'' fifteen miles away.

The wind increasing to a gale with hurtling drift, the sail was reefed,

and even then was more than enough to push along both sledges. Two of

us made fast behind and maintained a continual brake to stop them

running away. At 9 P.M. the gale became so strong that we struck sail

and camped. Altogether, the day's run was thirty-five miles.

An hour's march next morning, and, through the glasses, we saw the

mast and soon afterwards the hut. Just before reaching home, we

struck up a song, and in a few seconds Moyes came running out. When

he saw there were four of us, he stood on his head.

As we expected, Moyes had never thought of Harrisson coming with me

and had quite given him up as dead. When a month had elapsed--the time

for which Harrisson had food--Moyes packed a sledge with provisions for

Harrisson, himself and the dogs and went out for six days. Then,

recognizing the futility of searching for any one in that white

waste of nothingness, he returned. He looked well, after his lonely

nine weeks, but said that it was the worst time he had ever had in his

life. Moyes reported that the Western party were delayed in starting

by bad weather until November 7.

The total distance sledged during our main summer eastern journey was

two hundred and thirty-seven miles, including thirty-two of relay

work, but none of the many reconnoitring miles. Out of seventy

days, there were twenty-eight on which the weather was adverse. On

the spring depot journey the travelling had been so easy that I

fully expected to go four hundred or five hundred miles eastward in

the summer. It was therefore, a great disappointment to be blocked as

we were.

CHAPTER XXII THE WESTERN BASE--LINKING UP WITH KAISER WILHELM II LAND

by Dr. S. E. Jones

On our return from the Western Depot journey towards the end of

October 1912, we found preparations completed for the long western

trip, towards Gaussberg in Kaiser Wilhelm II Land, which was discovered

by the German Antarctic Expedition of 1902. The departure was delayed

for several days, but came at last on November 7, Moyes bidding us

adieu and wishing us good luck.

The party consisted of Dovers (surveyor), Hoadley (geologist), and

myself (surgeon). We were hauling one sledge with rations for nine

weeks. Our course, which was almost due south lay over the glacier

shelf practically parallel to the sea-cliffs. The surface was good,

and we covered eleven miles by nightfall, reaching a point some two

or three miles from the rising land slopes. As the high land was

approached closer, the surface of the glacier-shelf, which farther

north was practically level, became undulating and broken by pressure-

ridges and crevasses. These, however, offered no obstacle to sledging.

Proceeding in the morning and finding that an ascent of the slopes

ahead was rendered impracticable by wide patches of ice, we turned

more to the west and steered for Junction Corner. Upon our arrival

there, it was discovered that several bergs lay frozen within the

floe close to where the seaward wall of the glacier-shelf joined that

of the land ice-sheet. Some of these bergs were old and rotten, but

one seemed to have broken away quite recently.

From the same place we could see several black points ahead; our

course was altered towards them, almost due westward, about halt a

mile from the sea-cliffs. They proved to be rocks, six in number,

forming a moraine. As it was then half-past five, we camped in order

that Hoadley might examine them. There had been a halo visible all

day, with mock suns in the evening.

In the morning a high wind was blowing. Everything went well for a

little over a mile, when we found ourselves running across a steep

slope. The wind having increased and being abeam, the sledge was

driven to leeward when on a smooth surface, and when amongst soft

sastrugi, which occurred in patches, was capsized. Accordingly camp

was pitched.

The next day being less boisterous, a start was made at 9 A.M. There

was still a strong beam wind, however, which carried the sledge

downhill, with the result that for one forward step two had to be

taken to the right. We were more fortunate in the afternoon and

reached the depot laid on the earlier journey at 5.30 A.M. From this

position we had a fine view of the Helen Glacier running out of a bay

which opened up ahead.

Having picked up the depot next morning, we were disappointed to find

that we should have to commence relay work. There were then two

sledges with rations for thirteen weeks; the total weight amounting

to one thousand two hundred pounds. By making an even division

between the two sledges the work was rendered easy but slow. When we

camped at 6 P.M., five and a half miles had been covered. The surface

was good, but a strong beam wind hindered us while approaching the

head of Depot Bay. The ice-cap to the west appeared to be very

broken, and it seemed inevitable that we should have to ascend to a

considerable altitude towards the south-west to find a good travelling

surface.

In the morning we were delayed by heavy wind, but left camp at ten

o'clock after spending an hour digging out the sledges and tent. At

lunch time the sun became quite obscured and each of us had many

falls stumbling over the invisible sastrugi. At five o'clock the

weather became so thick that camp was pitched. Hoadley complained of

snow-blindness and all were suffering with cracked lips; there was

consequently a big demand for hazeline cream in the evening.

On Wednesday November 13, we started early, and, finding a good firm

track over a gently rising plateau, made fair progress. At three

o'clock a gale sprang up suddenly; and fortunately the sledges were

only a quarter of a mile apart as we were relaying them in stages up

the rising plateau. The tent was pitched hurriedly, though with

difficulty, on account of the high wind and drift. The distance for

the day was four miles one thousand five hundred yards, the last mile

and a half being downhill into a valley at the head of the bay. The

morainic boulders visible from the camp at the depot were now obscured

behind a point to the west of Depot Bay.

The next sixty hours were spent in sleeping-bags, a heavy snowstorm

making it impossible to move. Owing to the comparatively high

temperature, 20 degrees to 26 degrees F., the snow melted readily on

the lee side of the tent, and, the water running through, things became

uncomfortably wet inside. At midday of the 16th, however, we were

able to go out, and, after spending two and a half hours digging out

the tent and sledges, we made a start, travelling two and three-quarter

miles on a south-westerly course.

During the morning of the 17th a slight descent was negotiated, but in

the afternoon came the ascent of the slopes on the western side of

Depot Bay. The ice-cap here was very badly crevassed, and spiked

boots had to be worn in hauling the sledges up the steep neve slopes.

In the latter part of the afternoon a course was made more to the

west, and about the same time the south-east wind freshened and we

travelled for a couple of hours through thick drift. The night's camp

was situated approximately at the eastern edge of the Helen Glacier.

The portion of the ice-cap which contributes to the glacier below is

marked off from the general icy surface on either side by a series of

falls and cascades. These appeared quite impassable near sea-level,

but we hoped to find a smooth passage at an altitude of about one

thousand feet.

A start was made at 7 A.M. The surface consisted of ice and neve and

was badly broken by pressure-mounds, ten to twenty feet high, and

by numerous crevasses old and recent; many with sunken or fallen

bridges. While crossing a narrow crevasse, about forty feet of the

bridge collapsed lengthwise under the leading man, letting him fall to

the full extent of his harness rope. Hoadley and myself had passed

over the same spot, unsuspecting and unroped, a few minutes previously,

while looking for a safe track. We were now nearing the approximate

western edge of the Helen Glacier, and the broken condition of the ice

evidently indicated considerable movement. Later in the morning a

more southerly course was kept over an improving surface.

At midday Dovers took observations of the sun and found the latitude

to be 66 degrees 47' S. Owing to the heat of the sun the fat in the

pemmican had been melting in the food-bags, so after lunch the

provisions were repacked and the pemmican was put in the centre of the

large tanks. In the afternoon we hoisted the sail, and by evening

had done four miles. From our camp the eye could range across the

Helen Glacier eastward to the shelf-ice of ``The Grottoes.'' Far away

in the north-west was a wide expanse of open water, while a multitude

of bergs lay scattered along the coast to the west of the Helen

Glacier.

The next day was gloriously bright, with a breeze just strong enough

to make hauling pleasant. Erecting a sail, we made an attempt to haul

both sledges, but found that they were too heavy. It was soon

discovered that a considerable detour would have to be made to cross

the broken ice on the western edge of the Helen Glacier. By keeping

to the saddles and valleys as much as possible and working to the south,

we were able to avoid the rougher country, but at 4 P.M. we arrived at

what at first appeared an impasse.

At this point three great crevassed ridges united to form the ice-falls

on the western side of the glacier. The point of confluence was the

only place that appeared to offer any hope of a passage, and, as we did

not want to retrace our steps, we decided to attempt it. The whole

surface was a network of huge crevasses, some open, the majority from

fifty to one hundred feet or more in width. After many devious turns,

a patch of snow between two large abysses was reached. As the ice in

front seemed even more broken than that behind, camp was pitched.

After tea a search was made for a way out, and it was found that by

travelling along a narrow, knife-edge ridge of ice and neve, with an

open crevasse on each side, a good surface could be reached within a

mile of the camp. This ridge had a gradient of one in ten, and,

unfortunately, also sloped down towards one of the open crevasses.

During the next four days a heavy blizzard raged. There was a

tremendous snowfall accompanied by a gale of wind, and, after the

second day, the snow was piled four feet high round the tent,

completely burying the sledges and by its pressure greatly reducing

the space inside the tent. On the 23rd, the fourth day, we dug out

the floor, lowering the level of the tent about two feet, and this

made things more comfortable. While digging, a crack in the ice was

disclosed running across the floor, and from this came a considerable

draught. By midday the weather had improved sufficiently to allow

us to move.

The sledge and tent were excavated from beneath a great mass of soft

snow; the new level of the snow's surface being four to five feet

above that on which the camp had been made four days earlier. The

wind having fallen, we went ahead with the sledges. While crossing

the ridge of ice which led into the valley below, one man hauled the

sledges while the other two prevented them from sliding sideways

downhill into the open crevasse. That afternoon we noticed very fine

iridescent colouring in cirro-cumulus clouds as they crossed the sun.

The next day gave us a pleasant surprise, there being a strong breeze

dead aft, while the travelling surface ahead looked distinctly

favourable. Sail was hoisted and the two sledges were coupled

together. The course for a short distance was downhill, and we had

to run to keep up with the sledges. The slopes on the far side of

the valley we had entered on the previous afternoon were not so

formidable as they had looked, for by lunch time six and a half

miles had been covered. The surface was good, with occasional long

undulations. After lunch a turn to the north was made for a short

distance in order to come in touch with the coastline. Then the march

west was resumed by travelling parallel to the shore at a distance of

five to ten miles. At halting-time the extreme western edge of Helen

Glacier was passed, and below lay young floe-ice, studded with

numerous bergs.

In the morning, Dovers called attention to what appeared to be an

ice-covered island lying to the north-north-west, thirty to forty

miles away. We watched this carefully during the day, but found its

form to be constant. Through binoculars, icy patches and bluff

points at the eastern and western ends were distinguishable.**

** This was examined in detail from the `Aurora' in January 1913 and

found to be an island, which was named Drygalski Island, for it is

evidently the ice-covered ``high-land'' observed by Professor

Drygalski (German Expedition, 1902) from his balloon.--ED.

As soon as camp was struck the march was resumed direct for what every

one thought was a rocky outcrop, though nearer approach proved it to

be merely the shady face of an open crevasse. The same course was

maintained and the ridge of ice that runs down to the western point

of Depot Bay was soon close at hand. From its crest we could see a

group of about a dozen rocky islands, the most distant being five miles

off the coast. All were surrounded by floe. Descending steeply from

the ridge into a valley which ran out to the sea-cliffs, we pitched

camp for lunch.

The meal completed, Hoadley and I descended to the edge of the

glacier in order to see if there were a passable route to the sea-ice.

Crossing wide areas of badly crevassed ice and neve during a descent

of nine hundred feet, we reached the sea-front about one and a half

miles from the camp. Below us there was a chaos of bergs and smaller

debris, resulting from the disintegration of the land-ice, which were

frozen into the floe and connected to one another by huge ramparts of

snow. Following a path downward with great difficulty, we approached

a small berg which was discovered to be rapidly thawing under the

action of the heat absorbed by a pile of stones and mud. The

trickling of the falling water made a pleasant relief in the otherwise

intense silence. As it seemed impossible to haul sledges through this

jumble of ice and snow, Hoadley suggested that he should walk across

the floe and make a brief geological examination of at least the

largest islet. I therefore returned to the camp and helped Dovers

take observations for longitude and magnetic variation.

Hoadley returned at 9 P.M. and reported that he had seen an immense

rookery of Emperor penguins near the largest islet, besides Adelie

penguins, silver-grey, Wilson and Antarctic petrels and skua gulls.

He also said that he thought it possible to take a sledge, lightly

laden, through the drifts below the brink of the glacier.

Accordingly in the morning the eleven-foot sledge was packed with

necessaries for a week's stay, although we intended to remain only

for a day in order to take photographs and search for specimens.

Erecting a depot flag to mark the big sledge, we broke camp at midday

and soon reached the sea-front. Our track then wound among the

snow-drifts until it emerged from the broken ice which was observed

to border the land ice-sheet for miles. The travelling became

unexpectedly good for a time over highly polished, green sea-ice,

and thence on to snow, amid a field of numerous small bergs. Many of

these showed a marked degree of ablation, and, in places, blocks of

ice perched on eminences had weathered into most grotesque forms.

There were numerous streams of thaw-water running from mud-covered

bergs. Perspiring in the heat, we more than once stopped to slake

our thirst.

Approaching the largest rock--Haswell Island, as it was called later--

we saw more distinctly the immense numbers of Emperor penguins covering

several acres of floe. The birds extended in rows even on to the

lower slopes of several bergs. The sound of their cries coming across

the ice reminded one of the noise from a distant sports' ground

during a well-contested game. We camped at 5 P.M. on a snow-drift at

the southern end of the island. A large rookery of Adelie penguins

on a long, low rock, about a mile distant, soon made itself evident.

Although the stay was intended to occupy only about twenty-four

hours, we were compelled to remain five days on the island on account

of a snowstorm which continued for practically the whole of the time.

This did not prevent us from leaving the tent and wandering about;

Hoadley keen on the geology and Dovers surveying whenever the light

was good enough. The temperature of the rock was well above freezing-

point where it was exposed, and snow melted almost as soon as it fell.

Our sleeping-bags and gear soon became very wet, but we rejoiced in

one compensation, and that was a change in diet. It was agreed that

five Adelie penguins or ten Cape pigeons' eggs made a good tasty entree

to the monotonous ration.

The camp was situated on the largest of a group of about twelve small

islets, lying within five or six miles of the coast, on the lower

slopes of which several outcrops of rock could be observed. Haswell

Island was found to be roughly diamond-shaped; three-quarters of a

mile in length, the same in width, and about three hundred feet on the

highest point. It was surrounded by one season's floe, raised in

pressure-ridges on the eastern side. On the northern, southern, and

especially the eastern face, the rock was steep; on the western aspect,

there was a more gentle slope down to the floe, the rock being almost

concealed by big snow-drifts. There were signs of previous glaciation

in the form of erratics and many examples of polishing and grooving.

The rock was very rotten, and in many places, especially about the

penguin rookeries, there were collections of soil. Two deep gorges

cut through the island from north-west to south-east, in both of which

there were small ponds of fresh water.

The most marked feature was the wonderful abundance of bird life, for

almost all the birds frequenting the shores of the continent were

found nesting there. Adelie penguins were in greatest numbers.

Besides the large rookery on one of the smaller islets, there were

numerous rookeries of fifty to one hundred birds each on Haswell

Island. In most cases the penguins made their nests on the rock

itself, but, failing this, had actually settled on snow-drifts, where

they presented a peculiar sight, as the heat of their bodies having

caused them to sink in the snow, their heads alone were visible

above the surface. One bird was observed carrying an egg on the

dorsal surface of his feet as the Emperor penguins do. Feathers were

scattered broadcast around each rookery. These result from the

numerous fights which occur and are also partly derived from the bare

patch of skin at the lower part of the abdomen which provides the

necessary heat for incubation when the bird is sitting. Most of the

birds had two eggs in a well-advanced stage of incubation, and it was

a difficult task to find a sufficient number fresh enough for culinary

purposes. Attached to each rookery was a pair of skua gulls, who

swooped down and quickly flew off with any eggs left for a moment

untended.

The Emperor penguins had their rookery on the floe, about a mile from

the island. The birds covered four to five acres, but there were

undoubted signs that a much larger area had been occupied. We estimated

the numbers to be seven thousand five hundred, the great majority being

young birds. These were well grown, most of them standing as high as

the shoulders of the adults. They were all very fat, covered by a grey

down, slightly darker on the dorsal than on the ventral surface, with

dark tails and a black, straight beak. The eyes were surrounded by a

ring of grey plumage, and this again by a black band which extended over

the skull to the root of the beak. Thus the markings on the young do

not correspond with those of the adults. A few of the larger chicks

had commenced to moult, the change of plumage being observed on the

flippers.

Daily we watched large numbers of adults departing from and returning

to the rookery. The direction in which they travelled was north,

towards open water, estimated to be twenty miles distant. Although

more than once the adults' return to the rookery was carefully

noted, we never saw the young birds being fed, old birds as they

entered the rookery quietly going to sleep.

Hoadley, on his first visit to the island, had seen Antarctic petrels

flying about, and a search revealed a large rookery of these on the

eastern side. The nesting-place of this species of petrel had never

before been discovered, and so we were all elated at the great find.

About three hundred birds were found sitting in the gullies and

clefts, as close together as they could crowd. They made no attempt

to form nests, merely laying their eggs on the shallow dirt. Each

bird had one egg about the same size as that of a domestic fowl.

Incubation was far advanced, and some difficulty was experienced in

blowing the specimens with a blow-pipe improvised from a quill.

Neither the Antarctic nor any other petrels offered any resistance

when disturbed on their nests, except by the expectoration of large

quantities of a pink or green, oily fluid.

The Cape pigeons had just commenced laying when we arrived at the

island. On the first day only two eggs were found, but, on the

fourth day after our arrival, forty were collected. These birds make

a small shallow nest with chips of stone.

The silver-grey or Southern Fulmar petrels were present in large

numbers, especially about the steep north-eastern side of the island.

Though they were mated, laying had scarcely commenced, as we found

only two eggs. They made small grottoes in the snow-drifts, and

many pairs were seen billing and cooing in such shelters.

The small Wilson petrels were found living in communities under slabs

of rock, and Hoadley one afternoon thought he heard some young birds

crying.

Skua gulls were present in considerable force, notably near the

penguin rookeries. They were breeding at the time, laying their eggs

on the soil near the summit of the island. The neighbourhood of a

nest was always betrayed by the behaviour of these birds who, when we

intruded on them, came swooping down as if to attack us.

Although many snow petrels were seen flying about, we found only one

with an egg. The nests were located in independent rocky niches but

never in rookeries.

Vegetable life existed in the form of algae, in the pools, lichens on

oversell rocks and mosses which grew luxuriantly, chiefly in the Adelie

penguin rookeries.

Weddell seals were plentiful about the island near the tide-cracks;

two of them with calves.

Though the continuous bad weather made photography impossible,

Hoadley was able to make a thorough geological examination of the

locality. On December 2 the clouds cleared sufficiently for

photography, and after securing some snapshots we prepared to move on

the next day. Dovers built a small cairn on the summit of the island

and took angles to the outlying rocks.

On the 3rd we packed our specimens and left for the mainland at 9.30

A.M., arriving at the land ice-cliffs at 2 P.M. The snow surface was

soft, even slushy in places, and the heat amongst the bergs along the

coast of the mainland was very oppressive. After we had dug out the

second sledge and re-arranged the loads, the hour was too late for

sledging, so Dovers took another observation in order to obtain the

rate of the half-chronometer watch. While on the island, we had

examined the coast to the west with glasses and concluded that the

only way to get westward was to ascend to a considerable altitude on

the ice-cap, which, as far as the eye could reach, descended to the

sea-level in long cascades and falls. We had expected to place a depot

somewhere near Haswell Island, but such procedure was now deemed

inadvisable in view of its distance from what would probably be our

direct return route.

A start was made next day against an opposing wind, the sledges being

relayed up a steep hillside. Later on, however, a turn was made more

to the west, and it was then possible to haul both sledges at the same

time. The surface was soft, so that after every halt the runners had

to be cleared. The distance for the day was five and a half miles,

and the night's camp was at an altitude of about one thousand five

hundred feet, located just above the broken coastal ice.

During December 5 and 6 a snowstorm raged and confined us to our tent.

The high temperature caused the falling snow to melt as it touched the

tent, and, when the temperature fell, the cloth became thickly coated

with ice.

On the 7th the march was resumed, by skirting a small valley at an

approximate altitude of two thousand feet. The ice-cap ahead

descended in abrupt falls to the floe. Having a fair wind and a

smooth surface, we made good headway. In the afternoon we ran into

a plexus of crevasses, and the surface was traversed by high ridges.

The snowbridges in many cases were weak and several gave way while

the sledge was crossing them. A chasm about fifty feet deep and one

hundred feet long was passed, evidently portion of a crevasse, one

side of which had been raised. Later in the afternoon the surface

became impassable and a detour to the south was rendered necessary.

This difficulty arose near the head of the valley, in which situation

the ice-cap fell in a series of precipitous terraces for about one

thousand feet.

At midday on the 8th we were compelled to continue the detour over a

badly crevassed surface, ascending most of the time. On that night,

camp was pitched again amongst crevasses. The sledge-meter showed

only two miles one thousand one hundred yards for the afternoon,

relaying having been necessary.

The sledges slipped along in the morning with a fresh breeze in their

favour. The sky was covered with rapidly scudding, cirro-cumulus

clouds which, by midday, quite obscured the sun, making surrounding

objects and even the snow at our feet indistinguishable. After

continuing for four and a half miles, we were forced to camp. In the

afternoon a heavy snowstorm commenced and persisted throughout the

following day.

Though snow was still falling on the morning of the 11th, camp was

broken at 10 A.M., and we moved off rapidly with a strong wind.

During the morning the surface was gently undulating, but it mounted

in a gradual ascent until nightfall. In the latter part of the

afternoon the sun was clouded over, and steering had to be done by

the aid of the wind. To the north we had a fine view of Drygalski's

``High Land'' (Drygalski Island), perceiving a distinct seaward

ice-cliff of considerable height.

As there were no prominences on the ice-cap that could be used for

surveying marks, Dovers had considerable difficulty in keeping a

reckoning of our course. The trouble was overcome by building

snow-mounds and taking back-angles to them with the prismatic compass.

At this juncture we were about ten miles from the shore and could see

open water some thirty miles to the north. Frozen fast within the

floe were great numbers of bergs.

We started off early on December 12 with the aid of a fair breeze

over a good surface, so that both sledges were easily hauled along

together. The course was almost due west, parallel to the coast.

Open water came within a few miles of the ice-cliffs, and, farther

north, a heavy belt of pack was observed. When the sun sank lower,

the bergs on the northern horizon were refracted up to such a degree

that they appeared to be hanging from the sky.

The aid rendered by the sail under the influence of a fair breeze was

well shown on the following day. In four hours, on a good surface,

both sledges were transported seven miles. When we moved off, the

wind was blowing at ten to fifteen miles an hour. By 10 A.M. the

sky became overcast and the wind freshened. Camp was pitched for

lunch at 11 A.M., as we hoped that the weather would clear again

later, but the wind increased and snow began to fall heavily in the

afternoon, so we did not stir. The storm continued throughout the

following day and it was impossible to march until the 15th.

Continuing the ascent on the 16th out of a valley we had crossed on

the previous day, we halted on the top of a ridge within view of

German ``territory''--a small, dark object bearing due west, evidently

bare rock and presumably Gaussberg. The course was altered accordingly

towards this object and everything went smoothly for ten miles. Then

followed an area where the ice fell steeply in waves to the sea, crossed

by crevasses which averaged fifty feet in width. The snow-bridges were

deeply concave, and the lower side of each chasm was raised into a ridge

five to ten feet high. Making fast the alpine rope on to the sledges,

one of us went ahead to test the bridge, and then the sledges, one at a

time, were rushed down into the trough and up on the other side. After

crossing ten or more crevasses in this fashion, we were forced to camp

by the approach of a rapidly moving fog driven before a strong westerly

wind. While camp was being prepared, it was discovered that a tin of

kerosene on the front sledge had been punctured causing the loss of a

gallon of fuel. Fortunately, we were well within our allowance, so the

accident was not serious. Soon after tea our attention was drawn to a

pattering on the tent like rain, caused by a fall of sago snow.

In the morning the weather was clearer, and we saw that it was

impossible to reach Gaussberg by a direct route. The ice ahead was

cleft and split in all directions, and, in places, vertical faces

stood up to a height of one hundred feet. The floe was littered with

hundreds of bergs, and in several localities there were black spots

which resembled small rocks, but it was impossible to approach close

enough to be certain. Retracing the way out of the broken ice, we

steered in a south-westerly direction, just above the line of serac

and crevassed ice. The coast here trended to the south-west, forming

the eastern side of Drygalski's Posadowsky Bay. The going was heavy,

the surface being covered by a layer of frost-crystals deposited

during the night. A fog came up again early in the afternoon and had

quite surrounded us at camping time. During the day there were fine

clouds of ice-crystals in the air, and at 8 P.M. a fog-bow was seen

in the east.

Turning out in the morning we saw Gaussberg peeping over a ridge to

the west, but were still prevented from steering directly towards it

by the broken surface. When we had advanced ten miles, a heavy fog

brought us to a halt at 5 P.M.

On Friday the 20th, in spite of a sticky surface, thirteen miles was

covered on a west-south-west course. The ice-cap continued to be

undulating but free of crevasses. The altitude was between two

thousand five hundred and three thousand feet.

In the morning, after travelling two miles, we came in sight of

Gaussberg again and steered directly towards it. The surface was

good with a downward grade. At five and a quarter miles a depot was

made of the small sledge and most of the food, in expectation of a

clear run to the mountain. Not far ahead, however, were two broken-

backed ridges intersecting the course, and a detour had to be made

to the south to cross them higher up.

Midsummer's day, December 22, was spent in the tent, a move being

impossible on account of the high wind. In the afternoon we walked

ahead a short distance and reconnoitred six or seven crumpled ridges.

Though the barometer had been falling ominously for twenty-four hours,

the bad weather did not continue.

Gaussberg was reached in the afternoon, after our track had passed

through seventeen miles of dangerous country. For the first few miles

the surface consisted of a series of steep, buckled ice-ridges; later,

it was snow-covered, but at times literally cut into a network of

crevasses.

The only approach to Gaussberg from the plateau is from the south.

To the east and west there are magnificent ice-falls, the debris from

which litters the floe for miles around.

December 24 and Christmas Day were devoted to examining the mountain.

Dovers made a long series of observations for longitude, latitude and

magnetic variation, while Hoadley examined the rocks and took

photographs.

On the southern side, the ice-cap abuts against this extinct volcano

at an elevation of about four hundred feet above sea-level; the

summit of the mountain rises another eight hundred feet. On the

north, the rock descends to the floe. Gaussberg is pyramidal in

shape, falling steeply, from a ridge at the summit. The sides are

covered with a loose rubble of volcanic fragments, square yards of

which commence to slide at the slightest disturbance. This renders

climbing difficult and accounts for the large numbers of isolated

blocks fringing the base.

At the summit two cairns were found, the bamboo poles which had

previously marked them having blown over. Further examination

revealed many other bamboos which had been used as marks, but no

other record of the visit of the German expedition, ten years before,

was met. Bird life was not plentiful, being limited to a few skuas,

Wilson petrels and snow petrels; the latter nesting under slabs of

rock. There were large quantities of moss where thaw-water had been

running.

The ice and snow near the mountain showed evidences of marked thawing,

and we had difficulty in finding a favourable spot for our camp.

Christmas Day was gloriously fine, with just sufficient wind to

counteract the heat of the sun. At midday the Christmas ``hamper''

was opened, and it was not long before the only sign of the

plum-pudding was the tin. In the afternoon we ascended the mountain

and left a record in a cairn at the top. By the route followed,

Gaussberg was two hundred and fifteen miles from ``The Grottoes''

but relay work had made the actual distance covered three hundred

miles.

We had been away from home seven weeks, and, though there was

sufficient food for an outward journey of another week, there was no

indication that the country would change. Further, from the summit

of Gaussberg one could see almost as far as could be marched in a

week. Accordingly it was decided to commence our return on the 26th,

making a course almost due east, thus cutting out numerous detours

which had to be taken on the outward journey.

We left the mountain on December 26, pursuing a course to the south

of our outward track so as to avoid some crevassed ridges. Ascending

steadily against a continuous headwind, we picked up the second sledge

at midday on the 28th.

Next day all the gear was transferred to one sledge and a course made

direct to the Helen Glacier; the other sledge being abandoned.

On December 31, after a day's blizzard, the surface was found to be

covered with sastrugi of soft snow eighteen inches to two feet in

depth. In crossing a wide crevasse, the sledge became bogged in the

soft snow of a drift which had a deceptive appearance of solidity. It

took us ten minutes to extricate ourselves, and, after this, crevasses

were negotiated at a run.

A violent blizzard raged during the following day--the first of the New

Year 1913. This proved to be a blessing, for it made the surface more

crisp and firm. In the morning the sun was obscured and nothing was

visible but the snow at our feet, so that steering was very difficult.

In the afternoon the sun broke through, a strong westerly wind sprang

up and we moved along at a good pace, covering more than thirteen miles

before camping.

On January 3 the track bordered on the edge of the plateau, the surface

being almost level, rising gently towards the south.

After a violent blizzard of three days' duration, which confined us

in the tent, we continued on the same course for four days, averaging

about eleven miles each day. The surface was good, but a strong

south-easter blew practically all the time and reduced our speed

considerably.

At 10 A.M. on January 9, a fog-bank was observed in the east. This

rapidly approached, and in fifteen minutes was quite close. There

was now a splendid display of rings and arcs, caused apparently by

minute ice-crystals which filled the air without obscuring the sun

or sky. First an arc of prismatic colours appeared in the east,

and in a few seconds the sky seemed literally to be covered with

other arcs. At first they seemed to be scattered indiscriminately,

but after a short time several arcs joined and we could discern a

symmetrical arrangement. The sun was surrounded by a ring, the lower

portion of which was broken by an inverted arc; two other arcs were

visible on either side. A large ring appeared encircling the zenith,

intersecting the first and passing through the sun. Two pairs of arcs

were also seen, one pair in each ring. Excepting the arcs and ring

about the zenith, which was grayish-white against the blue sky, the

arcs showed prismatic colouring. The display lasted ten minutes and

ended with the disappearance of the ice-crystals.

[ILLUSTRATION IN TEXT]

The diagram shows the arrangement of the arcs:

S = Sun. Z = Zenith.

At A, B, C, mock suns could be seen.

From our camp on the night of January 10, broken country could be

seen ahead. To the north, open water was visible, and to the

north-east the Shackleton Shelf, so that we were nearing home at last.

Here, a heavy snowstorm delayed us for two and a half days, and it

was not till the afternoon of January 13 that we were able to move

ahead.

The next day was dull, the sun being quite obscured; and the only

check upon the steering was the south-easterly wind. At midday the

thermometer registered 35 degrees F. in the shade, and the surface became

quite sticky. After tea we walked ahead for a couple of hundred yards

to the summit of a ridge where the full extent of the Helen Glacier

was laid before us. It was evident that our position was some miles

north of the true course, but, considering the absence of steering

marks and the constant overcast weather, we considered ourselves lucky

in being so close to it.

The bad weather continued and snow fell during the following day. On

the 16th the light was better, and we pushed into a strong wind which

freshened to the force of a moderate gale before we had travelled two

miles. Approaching a steep ascent we were compelled to camp. The

morning brought an improvement, and the crossing of the Helen Glacier

was commenced a mile or two above the outward course.

At midday on January 18, over treacherous ice, in the face of strong

winds, we were making good headway towards Junction Corner. Almost

daily for a fortnight a Wilson petrel had visited us, the only form

of life seen on the return journey.

On the 19th we were not able to move until 8.80 P.M., when the wind,

which had been blowing with the force of a gale, subsided. During

the afternoon a magnificent view of the Helen Glacier was obtained,

and in the west we could see Haswell Island and Drygalski Island.

Continuing on the same course, throughout the following day, we picked

up the hut with the binoculars at 5 P.M. There now came a quick

descent to Junction Corner.

On the lower levels there was clear evidence of thawing having

occurred. The firm surface of snow which had been present on the

outward journey was now converted into rough ice, over which we

walked painfully in finnesko. Neve and ice surfaces were covered

with sharp spicules, and the sides and bridges of crevasses were

unmistakably thawed.

Leaving Junction Corner at 6 A.M., we steered a course for the hut,

running parallel to the edge of the glacier. At 3 P.M. the mast was

sighted, and, later, the hut itself. When within half a mile of

``The Grottoes'' we saw three figures on the floe and guessed that the

eastern party had returned. In a few minutes greetings were heartily

exchanged and they had welcomed us home.

Instructions had been given that the Western Base should be in

readiness to embark on the `Aurora' not later than January 30, 1913.

When Wild's party had arrived, preparations for departure were

immediately made. Geological and biological collections were packed,

stores were sorted out and cases containing personal gear were sledged

to the edge of the glacier.

Harrisson contrived a winch for sounding and fishing. Fourteen-gauge

copper wire was wound on it and, through a crack in the sea-ice a

quarter of a mile from the glacier, bottom was reached in two hundred

and sixty fathoms. As the water was too deep for dredging, Harrisson

manufactured cage-traps and secured some fish, a squid, and other

specimens.

At this time there was abundant evidence of life. Skua gulls frequently

flew about the hut, as well as Cape pigeons, Antarctic, snow, Wilson,

giant and silver-grey petrels. Out on the sea-ice, there were Adelie

and Emperor penguins; the latter moulting. Hundreds of seals were seen

with glasses on the edge of the floe, ten miles to the north.

On the whole, January was a very fine month. Some of the days seemed

really hot; the shade temperature on one occasion reaching 37 degrees

F., and, in several instances, 33 degrees F. It was quite a common

thing for a man to work outside in loose, light garments; in fact,

with nothing more than a singlet on the upper part of the body.

On January 26, while Kennedy took observations, Wild and the others

went for a walk towards the open water. The surface was very rough

and broken by leads, along which Weddell seals lay in great numbers.

Three miles of ice were found to have drifted out, reducing the

northern expanse to seven miles.

In view of the possibility of the `Aurora' not relieving them, the

party went through their food-supplies, finding that these were

sufficient for another year, with the exception of meat. With regard

to coal, two tons of briquettes remained, which, augmented by good

stock of seal-blubber, would provide sufficient fuel.

Laying in a store of seals' flesh and blubber now became the

principal work, and every fine day saw a party out with a sledge.

Unfortunately, the nearest crack on the sea-ice was nearly two miles

away, so that the return journey, with a heavily laden sledge, was

long and tedious. Two holes were dug in the glacier near the hut,

one for blubber and the other for meat.

On January 31 six miles of sea-ice still remained, and, if the ship

had arrived to time, a good deal of sledging would have been required

to transport all the gear aboard.

In February, the weather altered for the worse, and there was not a

single fine day until the 20th. A strong east-southeast wind with

falling snow prevailed. As the days were shortening rapidly, all were

beginning to feel anxious about the `Aurora'.

Wild erected a flagstaff on the highest ice-pinnacle near ``The

Grottoes'' and flew a large flag on it whenever the wind moderated.

On the 16th, a lamp-screen and reflector were fitted at the mast-head

and each night a hurricane lamp was placed there, which could be seen

eight miles with the naked eye.

On the 20th Dovers and Wild made a large signboard, taking it out to

a prominent point on the glacier, three and a half miles to the north.

It was lashed to a bamboo pole with a flag flying on it. The open

water was then only three miles distant.

Wild writes:

``The 22nd February was the anniversary of the day the `Aurora' left

us, but the weather was very different. A heavy blizzard was

raging, the wind's velocity ranging up to eighty miles per hour. As

it was Saturday, we kept the usual routine, scrubbing out and cleaning

up the hut. We could not help speculating as to whether we should

have to do it for another whole year. But every one had great faith

in `good old Davis,' and nobody was at all downhearted.

``When we `turned out' on Sunday there was still a strong wind

and drift, but this died away to a light breeze before breakfast was

over, and the sun came out. I had a look round with the glasses and

saw that the ice had broken away beyond a limit of one and a half

miles. As there was a sledge, which Harrisson had been using for

sounding, within a few yards of the water's edge, Jones and I went off

to bring it in. We had gone less than half a mile when we saw what at

first appeared to be a penguin, standing on some pack-ice in the

distance, but which we soon saw was the mast-head of the `Aurora'.

``It was evident that she could not be alongside for some time, so

Jones went back to the hut to tell the others to bring down a load of

gear, and I went on to meet the ship. Before the `Aurora' had reached

the fast ice, all the party were down with two sledge loads, having

covered the mile and a half in record time.

``We were all anxious, of course, for news, and the first we received

was the sad account of the deaths of Ninnis and Mertz; then of the

wonderful march made by Dr. Mawson.

``Before closing, I should like to pay a tribute to the good-fellowship,

unfailing industry, enthusiasm and unswerving loyalty which

characterized my comrades. During the whole of the Expedition, whether

carrying out monotonous routine work at the Base or under the trying

conditions of sledging, all duties were performed with never-failing

good temper and perseverance.

``Should it ever be my lot to venture on a like expedition I hope to

have some, if not all, of the same party with me. But whether we meet

again or not, I shall always think of every man of them with the

greatest affection and respect.''

CHAPTER XXIII A SECOND WINTER

During the first busy year in Adelie Land, when the Hut was full of

life and work, there were few moments for reflection. Yet, over the

speculative pipe at home after a successful day's labour on the wireless

masts, or out on the turbulent plateau when the hour of hoosh brought

the strenuous day to a close, more than one man was heard to say, ``One

year in this country is enough for me.'' Still, in the early days, no

one could predict what would happen, and therefore a change in the

perverse climate was always considered probable. So great was the

emulation, and so keen were all to extend our geographical boundaries,

that the year sped away almost before the meagre opportunity came.

With the cheery support of numbers, we did not find it a difficult matter

``to drive dull care away.''

Now there were only seven of us; we knew what was ahead; the weather had

already given ample proof of the early approach of winter; the field

of work which once stretched to the west, east and south had no longer

the mystery of the ``unknown''; the Ship had gone and there was scant

hope of relief in March.

Against all this. There remained the Hut--a proven shelter from the

wind; and, most vital of all, there was abundant food for another

year. Every avenue of scientific work was not yet closed. Even the

routine of meteorological and magnetic work was adding in no slight

degree to the sum of human knowledge. Our short mile of rocks still

held some geological secrets, and there were biological discoveries

yet to make. A wireless telegraphic station had at last been

established, and we could confidently expect communication with the

outside world at an early date. These were some of the obvious

assurances which no one had the heart to think about at first; and

then there was always our comradeship, most enduring of all.

February, during 1912, was a tolerable month with a fair proportion of

sunny, moderately calm days. A year later, the first eight days of

this month were signalized by the blizzard in which the `Aurora' had

such a perilous experience. While the winter began in 1912 with the

advent of March, now in 1913 it came on definitely in early February.

Autumn was a term which applied to a few brilliant days which would

suddenly intervene in the dense rack of drift-snow.

We set to work to make the Hut, if anything, safer and snugger. Bage

put finishing touches to the break-wind of rock and cases, and with

Hodgeman and McLean nailed battens of wood over a large sheet of

canvas which had been stretched across the windward side of the roof,

overlapping rolls of black paper, scraps of canvas and bagging, which

were also battened down to make the eastern and western faces more

air-tight.

Before the Ship left us, the remaining coal briquettes had been dug

out of a bed of ice and carefully piled on a high point of the rocks.

Round them all the spare timber and broken cases were gathered to

provide sufficient fuel for the ensuing winter. The penguins' eggs,

which had been stored in boxes, were stacked together on the windward

side of the Hut, and a choice selection of steaks of seal and penguin

for our own use were at the storeman's disposal in the veranda.

Madigan, in addition to his meteorological duties, took charge of the

new sledging-dogs which had been presented by Captain Amundsen. A

good many seals had been already killed, and a big cache of meat and

blubber was made alongside the Hut to last throughout the winter.

Bickerton found many odd jobs to occupy his time in connexion with

the petrol-engine and the wireless installations. He was also busied

with the anemometer, which had broken down and needed a strong start

for its second year of usefulness.

Bage, following the parting instructions of Webb, became the owner of

the Magnetograph House and the Absolute Hut, continuing to keep the

magnetic records. As storeman, Bage looked after the food-supplies.

The canvas coverings had made the veranda drift-tight, so the storeman

could arrange his tins and cases on the shelves with some degree of

comfort, and the daily task of shovelling out snow was now at an end.

Further, Hodgeman and he built an annex out of spare timber to connect

the entrance veranda with the store. This replaced the old snow-tunnel

which had melted away, and, when completed and padded outside with old

mattresses, was facetiously styled the ``North-West Passage.'' The only

thing which later arose to disturb the composure of the storeman was

the admission of the dogs to a compartment in the veranda on the eastern

side. His constant care then became a heap of mutton carcases which the

dogs in passing or during the occasional escapades from their shelter

were always eager to attack.

Hodgeman helped to change the appearance of the living-hut by cutting

the table in two and, since there was now plenty of room, by putting

in more shelves for a larder on which the storeman displayed his

inviting wares to the cook, who could think of nothing original for

the next meal.

McLean undertook the duties of ice-cutting and coal-carrying throughout

the year, kept the biological log and assisted in general observations.

He also sent off sealed messages in bottles, regularly, on the chance

of their being picked up on the high seas, thereby giving some

indication of the direction of currents.

Jeffryes was occupied regularly every night listening attentively for

wireless signals and calling at intervals. The continuous winds soon

caused many of the wire stays of the main wireless mast to become slack,

and these Jeffryes pulled taut on his daily rounds.

Looking back and forward, we could not but feel that the sledging

programme of the previous summer had been so comprehensive that the

broad features of the land were ascertained over a wide radius; beyond

what we, with our weakened resources of the second year, could reach.

The various observations we were carrying on were adding to the value

of the scientific results, but we could not help feeling disappointed

that our lot was not cast in a new and more clement region.

It was to be a dreary and difficult time for the five men who had

volunteered to remain behind in order to make a thorough search for

myself and comrades. They were men whom I had learned to appreciate

during the first year, and I now saw their sterling characters in a

new light. To Jeffryes all was fresh, and we envied him the novelties

of a new world, rough and inhospitable though it was. As for me, it

was sufficient to feel that

...He that tossed thee down into the Field,

He knows about it all--He knows, He knows.

On the night of February 15, Jeffryes suddenly surprised us with the

exciting intelligence that he had heard Macquarie Island send a coded

weather report to Hobart. The engine was immediately set going, but

though repeated attempts were made, no answer could be elicited. Each

night darkness was more pronounced and signals became more distinct,

until, on the 20th, our call reached Sawyer at Macquarie Island, who

immediately responded by saying ``Good evening.'' The insulation of a

Leyden jar broke down at this point, and nothing more could be done

until it was remedied.

At last, on February 21, signals were exchanged, and by the 23rd a

message had been dispatched to Lord Denman, Governor-General of the

Commonwealth, acquainting him with our situation and the loss of our

comrades and, through him, one to his Majesty the King requesting his

royal permission to name a tract of newly discovered country to the east,

``King George V Land.'' Special messages were also sent to the relatives

of Lieutenant B. E. S. Ninnis and Dr. X. Mertz.

The first news received from the outside world was the bare statement

that Captain Scott and four of his companions had perished on their

journey to the South Pole. It was some time before we knew the

tragic details which came home, direct and poignant, to us in Adelie

Land.

To Professor David a fuller account of our own calamity was sent and,

following this, many kind messages of sympathy and congratulation

were received from all over the world. On February 26 Lord Denman

sent an acknowledgment of our message to him, expressing his sorrow at

the loss of our two companions; and on March 7 his Majesty the King

added his gracious sympathy, with permission to affix the name, King

George V Land, to that part of the Antarctic continent lying between

Adelie Land and Oates Land.

On February 23 there was a spell of dead calm; heavy nimbus clouds

and fog lowering over sea and plateau. Fluffy grains of sago snow fell

most of the day, covering the dark rocks and the blue glacier. A

heaving swell came in from the north, and many seals landed within the

boat harbour, where a high tide lapped over the ice-foot. The bergs

and islands showed pale and shadowy as the snow ceased or the fog lifted.

Then the wind arose and blew hard from the east-south-east for a day,

swinging round with added force to its old quarter--south-by-east.

March began in earnest with much snow and monotonous days of wind.

By contrast, a few hours of sunny calm were appreciated to the full.

The face of the landscape changed; the rocky crevices filling flush

with the low mounds of snow which trailed along and off the ridges.

On March 16 every one was relieved to hear that the `Aurora' had

arrived safely in Hobart, and that Wild and his party were all well.

But the news brought disappointment too, for we had always a lingering

ray of hope that there might be sufficient coal to bring the vessel

back to Adelie Land. Later on we learned that on account of the

shortage of funds the Ship was to be laid up at Hobart until the

following summer. In the meantime, Professors David and Masson were

making every effort to raise the necessary money. In this they were

assisted by Captain Davis, who went to London to obtain additional

donations.

It was now a common thing for those of us who had gone to bed before

midnight to wake up in the morning and find that quite a budget of

wireless messages had been received. It took the place of a morning

paper and we made the most of the intelligence, discussing it from

every possible point of view. Jeffryes and Bickerton worked every

night from 8 P.M. until 1 A.M., calling at short intervals and

listening attentively at the receiver. In fact, notes were kept of

the intensity of the signals, the presence of local atmospheric

electrical discharges--``static''--or intermittent sounds due to

discharges from snow particles--St. Elmo's fire--and, lastly, of

interference in the signals transmitted. The latter phenomenon should

lead to interesting deductions, for we had frequent evidence to show

that the wireless waves were greatly impeded or completely abolished

during times of auroral activity.

Listening at the wireless receiver must have been very tedious and

nerve-racking work, as so many adventitious sounds had to be

neglected. There was, first of all, the noise of the wind as it swept

by the Hut; then there was the occasional crackling of ``St. Elmo's

fire''; the dogs in the veranda shelter were not always remarkable

for their quietness; while within the Hut it was impossible to avoid

slight sounds which were often sufficient to interrupt the sequence of

a message. At times, when the aurora was visible, signals would often

die away, and the only alternative was to wait until they recurred,

meanwhile keeping up calls at regular intervals in case the ether was

not ``blocked.'' So Jeffryes would sometimes spend the whole evening

trying to transmit a single message, or, conversely, trying to receive

one. By experience it was found easier to transmit and receive wireless

messages between certain hours in the evening, while not infrequently,

during the winter months, a whole week would go by and nothing could

be done. During such a period auroral displays were usually of nightly

occurrence. Then a ``freak night'' would come along and business would

be brisk at both terminals.

It was often possible for Jeffryes to ``hear'' Wellington, Sydney,

Melbourne and Hobart, and once he managed to communicate directly

with the last-named. Then there were numerous ships passing along the

southern shores of Australia or in the vicinity of New Zealand whose

``calls'' were audible on ``good nights.'' The warships were at times

particularly distinct, and occasionally the ``chatter in the ether''

was so confusing that Sawyer, at Macquarie Island, would signal that

he was ``jammed.''

The ``wireless'' gave us another interest in life, and plenty of

outside occupation when the stays became loose or an accident

occurred. It served to relieve some of the tedium of that second

year:

Day after day the same

Only a little worse.

On March 13 there was a tremendous fall of snow, and worst ``pea-souper''

we had had during the previous year. Next day everything was deluged,

and right up the glacier there were two-foot drifts, despite a sixty-mile

wind.

It was very interesting to follow the changes which occurred from day

to day. First of all, under the flail of the incessant wind, a crust

would form on the surface of the snow of the type we knew as ``piecrust,''

when out sledging. It was never strong enough to bear a man, but the

sledge-runners would clear it fairly well if the load were not too heavy.

Next day the crust would be etched, and small flakes and pellets would

be carried away until the snow was like fleece. Assuming that the wind

kept up (which it always did) long, shallow concavities would now be

scooped out as the ``lobules'' of the fleece were carried away piecemeal.

These concavities became deeper, hour by hour and day by day, becoming

at last the troughs between the crests of the snow-waves or sastrugi.

All this time the surface would be gradually hardening and, if the sun

chanced to shine for even a few hours every day, a shining glaze would

gradually form on the long, bevelled mounds. It was never a wise thing

to walk on these polished areas in finnesko and this fact was always

learnt by experience.

Above the Hut, where the icy slopes fell quickly to the sea, the snow

would lie for a few days at the very most, but, lower down, where the

glacier ran almost level for a short distance to the harbour ice, the

drifts would lie for months at the mercy of the wind, furrowed and cut

into miniature can~ons; wearing away in fragments until the blue ice

showed once more, clear and wind-swept.

Towards the end of March the wind gave a few exhibitions of its power,

which did not augur well for the maximum periods of the winter. A few

diary jottings are enough to show this:

``March 23. During the previous night the wind steadily rose to an

eighty-mile `touch' and upwards. It was one of those days when it is

a perpetual worry to be outside.

``March 24. Doing at least seventy miles per hour during the morning.

About 8 P.M. there was a temporary lull and a rise of .15 in the

barometer. Now, 9.30 P.M., it is going `big guns.' The drift is fairly

thick and snow is probably falling.

``March 25. Much the same as yesterday.

``March 28. In a seventy-five-mile wind, Hodgeman had several fingers

frost-bitten this morning while attending to the anemograph.

``March 29. It was quite sunny when we opened the trap-door,though

it blew about sixty miles per hour with light drift.

``March 30. The wind is doing itself full justice. About 8 P.M. it

ranged between ninety-five and one hundred miles per hour, and now the

whole hut is tremulous and the stove-pipe vibrates so that the two large

pots on the stove rattle.''

At the beginning of April, McLean laid the foundations of The Adelie

Blizzard which recorded our life for the next seven months. It was a

monthly publication, and contributions were invited from all on every

subject but the wind. Anything from light doggerel to heavy blank

verse was welcomed, and original articles, letters to the Editor,

plays, reviews on books and serial stories were accepted within the

limits of our supply of foolscap paper and type-writer ribbons.

_____________________________________________________

/ \

/ THE ADELIE BLIZZARD \

| |

| / Registered at the General Plateau Office \

|/ \ |

| / for transmission by wind as a newspaper \ |

| / \ |

| -o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- |

| |

| ----CONTENTS---- |

| o-o-o-o- |

| |

| Editorial .............................. Page 1 |

| Southern Sledging Song ................. " 2 |

| A Phantasm of the Snow ................. " 3 |

| The Romance of Exploration |

| First Crossing of Greenland (Nansen) . " 8 |

| Ode to Tobacco .......................... " 10 |

| Punch, the dinner epilogue .............. " 11 |

| To the Editor ........................... " 12 |

| Scott's British Antarctic Expedition .... " 13 |

| Statics and Antarctics .................. " 14 |

| Wireless--the realization ............... " 16 |

| Birth's, Deaths and Marriages ........... " 17 |

| The Evolution of Women .................. " 18 |

| A Concise Narrative ..................... " 21 |

| The Daylight Proposition ................ " 23 |

| Meteorological and Magnetic Notes ....... " 24 |

| Calendar Rhymes ......................... " 25 |

| Answers to Correspondents ............... " 26 |

| |

| o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- |

| |

| VOL-I--No. I April, 1913 |

| |

|__________________________________________________________|

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

It was the first Antarctic publication which could boast a real cable

column of news of the day. Extracts from the April number were read

after dinner one evening and excited much amusement. An ``Ode to

Tobacco'' was very popular, and seemed to voice the enthusiasm of our

small community, while ``The Evolution of Women'' introduced us to a

once-familiar subject. The Editor was later admitted by wireless to

the Journalists' Association (Sydney).

Many have asked the question, ``What did you do to fill in the time

during the second year?''

The duties of cook and night-watchman came to each man once every

week, and meteorological and magnetic observations went on daily.

Then we were able to devote a good deal of time to working up the

scientific work accomplished during the sledging journeys. The

wireless watches kept two men well occupied, and in spare moments the

chief recreation was reading. There was a fine supply of illustrated

journals and periodicals which had arrived by the `Aurora', and with

papers like the `Daily Graphic', `Illustrated London News', `Sphere'

and `Punch', we tried to make up the arrears of a year in exile. The

``Encyclopaedia Britannica'' was a great boon, being always ``the last

word'' in the settlement of a debated point. Chess and cards were

played on several occasions. Again, whenever the weather gave the

smallest opportunity, there were jobs outside, digging for cases,

attending to the wireless mast and, in the spring, geological collecting

and dredging. If the air was clear of drift, and the wind not over

fifty miles per hour, one could spend a pleasant hour or more walking

along the shore watching the birds and noting the changes in ``scenery''

which were always occurring along our short ``selection'' of rocks.

During 1912 we had been able to study all the typical features of our

novel and beautiful environment, but 1913 was the period of ``intensive

cultivation'' and we would have gladly forgone much of it. Divine

service was usually held on Sunday mornings, but in place of it we

sometimes sang hymns during the evening, or arranged a programme of

sacred selections on the gramophone. There was a great loss in our

singing volume after the previous year, which Hodgeman endeavoured

to remedy by striking up an accompaniment on the organ.

Cooking reached its acme, according to our standard, and each man

became remarkable for some particular dish. Bage was the exponent of

steam puddings of every variety, and Madigan could always be relied

upon for an unfailing batch of puff-pastry. Bickerton once started

out with the object of cooking a ginger pudding, and in an unguarded

moment used mixed spices instead of ginger. The result was rather

appetizing, and ``mixed-spice pudding'' was added to an original list.

McLean specialized in yeast waffles, having acquired the art of

tossing pancakes. Jeffryes had come on the scene with a limited

experience, but his first milk scones gained him a reputation which he

managed to make good. Hodgeman fell back on the cookery book before

embarking on the task of preparing dinner, but the end-product, so to

speak, which might be invariably expected for ``sweets'' was tapioca

pudding. Penguin meat had always been in favour. Now special care

was devoted to seal meat, and, after a while, mainly owing to the

rather copious use of onion powder, no one could say for certain

which was which.

During the previous year, yeast had been cultivated successfully from

Russian stout. The experiments were continued, and all available

information was gathered from cookery books and the Encyclopaedia.

Russian stout, barley wine, apple rings, sugar, flour and mould from

potatoes were used in several mixtures and eventually fermentation was

started. Bread-making was the next difficulty, and various instructions

were tried in succession. The method of ``trial and error'' was at last

responsible for the first light spongy loaf, and then every night-

watchman cultivated the art and baked for the ensuing day.

On April 8 the snow had gathered deeply everywhere and we had some

exercise on skis. Several of the morainic areas were no longer

visible, and it was possible to run between the rocks for a

considerable distance. A fresh breeze came up during the afternoon

and provided a splendid impetus for some good slides. During the

short calm, twenty-six seals landed on the harbour-ice.

On the morning of the same day Mary gave birth to five pups in the

Transit House. The place was full of cracks, through which snow and

wind were always driving, and so we were not surprised when four of

them were found to have died. The survivor was named ``Hoyle'' (a

cognomen for our old friend Hurley) and his doings gave us a new fund

of entertainment.

The other dogs had been penned in the veranda and in tolerable weather

were brought outside to be fed. Carrying an axe, Madigan usually

went down to the boat harbour, followed by the expectant pack, to

where there were several seal carcases. These lay immovably frozen

to the ice, and were cut about and hacked so that the meat in section

reminded one of the grain of a log of red gum, and it was certainly

quite as hard. When Madigan commenced to chop, the dogs would range

themselves on the lee side and ``field'' the flying chips.

On April 16 the last penguin was seen on a ledge overhanging an icy

cove to the east. Apparently its moulting time had not expired, but

it was certainly a very miserable bird, smothered in small icicles and

snow and partly exposed to a sixty-five mile wind with the temperature

close to -10 degrees F. Petrels were often seen flying along the

foreshores and no wind appeared to daunt them. It was certainly a

remarkable thing to witness a snow-petrel, small, light and fragile,

making headway over the sea in the face of an eighty-mile hurricane,

fluttering down through the spindrift to pick up a morsel of food which

it had detected. Close to the western cliffs there was a trail of

brash-ice where many birds were often observed feeding on Euphausia

(crustaceans) in weather when it scarcely seemed possible for any

living creature to be abroad.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

The meteorological chart for April 12, 1913, compiled by the

Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau

Mr. Hunt appends the following explanation:

``A very intense cyclone passing south of Macquarie Island, where the

barometer fell on the 11th from 29.49 at 9 A.M. to 29.13 at 6 P.M., and

the next day to 28.34 at 9 A.M. and 27.91 at 6 P.M. At Adelie Land the

barometer was not greatly affected, but rose in sympathy with the

passage of the `low' from 28.70 to 28.90 during the twenty-four hours.

The influence of this cyclone was very wide and probably embraced both

Adelie Land and Tasmania.''

Throughout April news by wireless came in slowly and spasmodically,

and Jeffryes was becoming resigned to the eccentricities of the place.

As an example of the unfavourable conditions which sometimes

prevailed: on April 14 the wind was steady, in the nineties, with

light drift and, at times, the aurora would illumine the north-west

sky. Still, during ``quiet'' intervals, two messages came through

and were acknowledged.

A coded weather report, which had priority over all other messages,

was sent out each night, and it is surprising how often Jeffryes

managed to transmit this important intelligence. On evenings when

receiving was an impossibility, owing to a continual stream of St.

Elmo's fire, the three code words for the barometric reading, the

velocity and direction of the wind were signalled repeatedly and, on

the following night, perhaps, Macquarie Island would acknowledge them.

Of course we had to use new signs for the higher wind velocities, as

no provision had been made for them in our meteorological code-book.

The reports from Macquarie Island and Adelie Land were communicated to

Mr. Hunt of the Commonwealth Weather Bureau and to Mr. Bates of the

Dominion Meteorological Office, who plotted them out for their daily

weather forecasts.

It was very gratifying to learn that the Macquarie Island party to a

man had consented to remain at their lonely post and from Ainsworth,

their leader, I received a brief report of the work which had been

accomplished by each member. We all could appreciate the sacrifice

they were making. Then, too, an account was received of the great

sledging efforts which had been made by Wild and his men to the west.

But it was not till the end of the year that their adventurous story

was related to us in detail.

On the 23rd Lassie, one of the dogs, was badly wounded in a fight and

had to be shot. Quarrels amongst the dogs had to be quelled immediately,

otherwise they would probably mean the death of some unfortunate animal

which happened to be thrown down amongst the pack. Whenever a dog was

down, it was the way of these brutes to attack him irrespective of

whether they were friends or foes.

Among our dogs there were several groups whose members always

consorted together. Thus, George and Lassie were friends and, when

the latter was killed, George, who was naturally a miserable,

downtrodden creature, became a kind of pariah, morose and solitary

and at war with all except Peary and Fix, with whom he and Lassie had

been associated in fights against the rest. The other dogs lived

together in some kind of harmony, Jack and Amundsen standing out as

particular chums, while the ``pups,'' as we called them--D'Urville,

Ross and Wilkes (``Monkey'')--were a trio born in Adelie Land and,

therefore, comrades in misfortune. Hoyle, as a pup, was treated

benevolently by all the others, and entered the fellowship of the

other three when he grew up. Among the rest, Mikkel stood out as a

good fighter, Colonel as the biggest dog and ringleader against the

Peary-Fix faction, Fram as a nervous intractable animal, and Mary as

the sole representative of the sex.

It was remarkable that Peary, Fix and George in their hatred of the

others, who were penned up in the dog shelter during bad weather,

would absent themselves for days on a snow ramp near the Magnetograph

House, where they were partly protected from the wind by rocks. George,

from being a mere associate of Peary and Fix, became more amiable as

the year went by, and at times it was quite pathetic to see his attempts

at friendliness.

We became very fond of the dogs despite their habit of howling at night

and their wolfish ferocity. They always gave one a welcome, in drift or

sunshine, and though ruled by the law of force, they had a few domestic

traits to make them civilized.

May was a dreaded month because it had been the period of worst wind

and drift during 1912. On this occasion the wind velocities over four

weeks were not so high and constant, though the snowfall was just as

persistent. On the 17th and 18th, however, there was an unexpected

``jump'' to the nineties. The average over the first twenty-four hours

was eighty-three, and on the 18th it attained 93.7 miles per hour.

One terrific rise between 6.30 and 7.30 on the night of the 17th was

shown as one hundred and three miles on the anemometer--the record up

to that time.

Madigan was thrown over and had a hard fall on his arm, smashing a

bottle of the special ink which was used for the anemograph pen. Bage

related how he had sailed across the Magnetic Flat by sitting down

and raising his arms in the air. He was accompanied by Fix, Peary

and George, who were blown along the slippery surface for yards.

McLean had a ``lively time'' cutting ice and bringing in the big

blocks. Often he would slide away with a large piece, and ``pull up''

on a snow patch twenty yards to leeward.

On the 22nd there were hours of gusts which came down like thunderbolts,

making us apprehensive for the safety of the wireless masts; we had

grown to trust the stability of the Hut. Every one who went outside

came back with a few experiences. Jeffryes was roughly handled through

not wearing crampons, and several cases of kerosene, firmly stacked on

the break-wind, were dislodged and thrown several yards.

Empire Day was celebrated in Adelie Land with a small display. At 2.30

P.M. the Union Jack was hoisted to the topmast and three cheers were

given for the King. The wind blew at fifty miles an hour with light

drift, temperature -3 degrees F. Empire greetings were sent to the

Colonial Secretary, London, and to Mr Fisher, Prime Minister of Australia.

These were warmly reciprocated a few days afterwards.

Preceded by a day of whirlies on the 7th and random gusts on the same

evening, the wind made a determined attack next morning and carried

away the top and part of the middle section of the main wireless mast.

It was a very unexpected event, lulled as we were into security by the

fact that May, the worst month, had passed. On examination it was found

that two of the topmast wire stays had chafed through, whilst another

had parted. At first it seemed a hopeless task to re-erect the mast,

but gradually ways and means were discussed, and we waited for the first

calm day to put the theories into execution.

Meanwhile, it was suggested that if a heavy kite were made and induced

to fly in the continuous winds, the aerial thus provided would be

sufficient to receive wireless messages. To this end, Bage and Bickerton

set to work, and the first invention was a Venesta-box kite which was

tried in a steady seventy-mile wind. Despite its weight,--at least ten

pounds --the kite rose immediately, steadied by guys on either side,

and then suddenly descended with a crash on to the glacier ice. After

the third fall the kite was too battered to be of any further use.

Another device, in which an empty carbide tin was employed, and still

another, making use of an old propeller, shared the same fate.

On the evening of the 19th a perfect coloured corona, three degrees in

diameter, was observed encircling the moon in a sky which lit up at

intervals with dancing auroral curtains. Coronae or ``glories,'' which

closely invest the luminary, are due to diffraction owing to immense

numbers of very minute water or ice particles floating in the air

between the observer and the source of light. The larger the particles

the smaller the corona, so that by a measurement of the diameter of a

corona the size of the particles can be calculated. Earlier in the year,

a double corona had been seen when the moon was shining through cirro-

cumulus clouds. Haloes, on the other hand, are wide circles (or arcs

of circles) in the sky surrounding the sun or moon, and arising from

light-refraction in myriads of tiny ice-crystals suspended in the

atmosphere. They were very commonly noted in Adelie Land where the

conditions were so ideal for their production.

Midwinter's Day 1913! we had reached a turning-point in the season.

The Astronomer Royal told us that at eight o'clock on June 22 the sun

commenced to return, and every one took note of the fact. The sky

was overcast, the air surcharged with drifting snow, and the wind was

forty miles an hour--a representative day as far as the climate was

concerned. The cook made a special effort and the menu bore the

following foreword:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer....

On July 6 the wind moderated, and we set about repairing once more

the fortunes of the ``wireless.'' The shattered topmast used to sway

about in the heavy winds, threatening to bring down the rest of the

mast. Bickerton, therefore, climbed up with a saw and cut it almost

through above the doubling. All hands then pulled hard, and the upper

part cracked off, the lower section being easily removed from the

cross-trees. The mast now looked ``shipshape'' and ready for future

improvements.

It was decided to use as a topmast the mast which had been formerly

employed to support the northern half of the aerial. So on the 29th

this was lowered and removed to the veranda to be fitted for erection.

Almost a fortnight now elapsed, during which the weather was

``impossible.'' In fact, the wind was frightful throughout the whole

month of July, surpassing all its previous records and wearing out our

much-tried patience. All that one could do was to work on and try

grimly to ignore it. On July 2 we noted: ``Thick as a wall outside

with an eighty-five miler.'' And so it commenced and continued for a

day, subsiding slowly through the seventies to the fifties and then

suddenly redoubling in strength, rose to a climax about midnight on

the 5th--one hundred and sixteen miles an hour! For eight hours it

maintained an average of one hundred and seven miles an hour, and the

timbers of the Hut seemed to be jarred and wrenched as the wind

throbbed in its mightier gusts. These were the highest wind-velocities

recorded during our two years' residence in Adelie Land and are probably

the highest sustained velocities ever reported from a meteorological

station.

With the exception of a few Antarctic and snow petrels flying over the

sea on the calmer days, no life had been seen round the Hut during

June. So it was with some surprise that we sighted a Weddell seal on

July 9 attempting to land on the harbour-ice in a seventy-five-mile

wind. Several times it clambered over the edge and on turning

broadside to the wind was actually tumbled back into the water.

Eventually it struggled into the lee of some icy hummocks, but only

remained there for a few minutes, deciding that the water was much

warmer.

On the 11th there was an exceptionally low barometer at 27.794

inches. At the same time the wind ran riot once more--two hundred and

ninety-eight miles in three hours. The highest barometric reading was

recorded on September 3, 30.4 inches, and the comparison indicates a

wide range for a station at sea-level.

To show how quickly conditions would change, it was almost calm next

morning, and all hands were in readiness to advance the wireless mast

another stage. Previously there had been three masts, one high one

in three lengths, and two smaller ones of one length each, between

which the aerial stretched; the ``lead-in'' wires being connected to

the middle of the aerial. This is known as an ``umbrella aerial.''

Since we were without one short mast it was resolved to erect a

``directive'' [capital gamma gjc]-shaped aerial. The mainmast was

to be in two instead of three lengths, and we wondered if the aerial

would be high enough. In any case, it was so calm early on the 11th

that we ventured to erect the topmast and had hauled it half-way, when

the wind swooped down from the plateau, and there was just time to make

fast the stays and the hauling rope and to leave things ``snug'' for the

next spell of bad weather.

In eight days another opportunity came, and this time the topmast was

hoisted, wedged and securely stayed. Bickerton had fixed a long bolt

through the middle of the topmast and just above it three additional

wire stays were to be placed. Another fine day and we reckoned to

finish the work.

From July 26 onwards the sky was cloudless for a week, and each day

the northern sun would rise a fraction of a degree higher. The wind

was very constant and of high velocity.

It was a grand sight to witness the sea in a hurricane on a driftless,

clear day. Crouched under a rock on Azimuth Hill, and looking across

to the west along the curving brink of the cliffs, one could watch the

water close inshore blacken under the lash of the wind, whiten into

foam farther off, and then disappear into the hurrying clouds of spray

and sea-smoke. Over the Mackellar Islets and the ``Pianoforte Berg''

columns of spray would shoot up like geysers, and fly away in the

mad race to the north.

Early in July Jeffryes became ill, and for some weeks his symptoms

were such as to give every one much anxiety. His work on the

wireless had been assiduous at all times, and there is no doubt that

the continual and acute strain of sending and receiving messages under

unprecedented conditions was such that he eventually had a ``nervous

breakdown.'' Unfortunately the weather was so atrocious, and the

conditions under which we were placed so peculiarly difficult, that

nothing could be done to brighten his prospects. McLean considered

that as the spring returned and it became possible to take more exercise

outside, the nervous exhaustion would pass off. In the meantime

Jeffryes took a complete rest, and slowly improved as the months went

by, and our hopes of relief came nearer. It was a great misfortune

for our comrade, especially as it was his first experience of such a

climate, and he had applied himself to work with enthusiasm and perhaps

in an over-conscientious spirit.

July concluded its stormy career with the astonishing wind-average

of 63.6 miles an hour. We were all relieved to see Friday, August 1,

appear on the modest calendar, which it was the particular pleasure of

each night-watchman to change. More light filtered day by day

through the ice on the kitchen window, midwinter lay behind, and we

were ready to hail the first signs of returning spring.

CHAPTER XXIV NEARING THE END

Seven men from all the world, back to town again,

Seven men from out of hell.

Kipling

It is wonderful how quickly the weeks seemed to pass. Situated as we

were, Time became quite an object of study to us and its imperceptible

drift was almost a reality, considering that each day was another step

towards liberty--freedom from the tyranny of the wind. In a sense, the

endless surge of the blizzard was a slow form of torture, and the

subtle effect it had on the mind was measurable in the delight with

which one greeted a calm, fine morning, or noted some insignificant

fact which bespoke the approach of a milder season. Thus in August,

although the weather was colder, there were the merest signs of thawing

along the edges of the snow packed against the rocky faces which looked

towards the sun; Weddell seals came back to the land, and the petrels

would at times appear in large flocks; all of which are very commonplace

events which any one might have expected, but at the time they had more

than their face value.

August 5 was undoubtedly a great day from our very provincial point

of view. On the 4th there had been a dense drift, during which the

Hut was buttressed round with soft snow which rose above the eaves and

half filled the entrance-veranda. The only way in which the night-

watchman could keep the hourly observations was to dig his way out

frequently with a shovel. In the early morning hours of the

5th the wind abated and veered right round from south through east to

north-east, from which quarter it remained as a fresh breeze with

falling snow. By 7 A.M. the air was still, and outside there was a

dead world of whiteness; flocculent heaps of down rolling up to where

glimpses of rock streaked black near the skyline of the ridges,

striated masses of livid cloud overhead, and to the horizon the dark

berg-strewn sea, over which the snow birds fluttered.

We did not linger over the scenery, but set to work to hoist to the

head of the mainmast the aerial, which had been hurriedly put together.

The job occupied till lunch-time, and then a jury-mast was fixed to the

southern supporting mast, and by dusk the aerial hung in position.

Bickerton was the leading spirit in the work and subsequently steadied

the mainmast with eighteen wire stays, in the determination to make it

stable enough to weather the worst hurricane. The attempt was so

successful that in an ordinary fifty-mile ``blow'' the mast vibrated

slightly, and in higher winds exhibited the smallest degree of movement.

At eight o'clock that night, Jeffryes, who felt so benefited by his

rest that he was eager to commence operating once more, had soon

``attuned'' his instrument to Macquarie Island, and in a few minutes

communication was reestablished.

We learned from the Governor-General, Lord Denman, that her Majesty

the Queen was ``graciously pleased to consent to the name `Queen

Mary Land' being given to newly discovered land.'' The message

referred to the tract of Antarctic coast which had been discovered

and mapped by Wild and his party to the west.

On August 6 Macquarie Island signalled that they had run short of

provisions. The message was rather a paradox: `` Food done, but

otherwise all right.'' However, on August 11, we were reassured to

hear that the `Tutanekai', a New Zealand Government steamer, had been

commissioned to relieve the party, and that Sawyer through ill-health

had been obliged to return to Australia. A sealing-ship, the `Rachel

Cohen', after battling for almost the whole month of July against gales,

in an endeavour to reach the island, with stores for our party and the

sealers, had returned damaged to port.

Marvellous to relate we had two calm days in succession, and on the

6th the snow lay so deeply round the Hut that progression without

skis was a laborious flounder. The dogs plunged about in great glee,

rolling in the snow and ``playing off'' their surplus energy after

being penned for a long spell in the shelter.

On skis one could push up the first slopes of the glacier for a long

distance. Soft snow had settled two feet thick even on the steep icy

downfalls. The sea to the north was frozen into large cakes between

which ran a network of dark water ``leads.'' With glasses we could

make out in the near distance five seals and two tall solitary figures

which were doubtless Emperor penguins. During the whole day nimbus

clouds had hung heavily from the sky, and snow had fallen in grains

and star-like crystals. Gradually the nimbus lightened, a rift appeared

overhead, and,the edges of the billowy cumulus were burnished in the

light of the low sun. The sea-horizon came sharply into sight through

fading mist. Bergs and islands, from being ghostly images, rose into

sharp-featured reality. The masts and Hut, with a dark riband of

smoke floating from the chimney, lay just below, and two of the men

were walking out to the harbour-ice where a seal had just landed,

while round them scampered the dogs in high spirits. That was

sufficient to set us sliding downhill, ploughing deep furrows through

the soft drift and reaching the Hut in quick time.

During August we were able to do more work outside, thus enlarging our

sphere of interest. Bage, who had been busy up till August 8 with

his daily magnetograph records, ran short of bromide papers and now

had to be contented with taking ``quick runs'' at intervals, especially

when the aurora was active. His astronomical observations had been

very disappointing owing to the continuous wind and drift. Still, in

September, which was marked by periods of fine weather, a few good star

observations were possible. Shafts were sunk in the sea-ice and up on

the glacier, just above the zone where the ice was loaded with stones

and debris--the lower moraine. The glacier shaft was dug to a depth

of twenty-four feet, and several erratics were met with embedded in

the ice. In this particular part the crystalline structure of the ice

resembled that of a gneiss, showing that it had flowed under pressure.

I was able to make measurements of ablation on the glacier, to take

observations of the temperature and salinity of the sea-water, and to

estimate the forward movement of the seaward cliffs of the ice-cap.

Geological collecting now became quite a popular diversion. With a

slight smattering of ``gneiss,'' ``felspar,'' ``weathered limestone,''

``garnets,'' and ``glacial markings'' the amateurs went off and made

many finds on the moraines, and the specimens were cached in heaps,

to be later brought home by the dogs, some of which were receiving

their first lessons in sledge-pulling.

Rather belated, but none the less welcome, our midwinter wireless

greetings arrived on August 17 from many friends who could only

imagine how much they were appreciated, and from various members of

the Expedition who had spent the previous year in Adelie Land and who

knew the meaning of an Antarctic winter. A few evenings later,

Macquarie Islanders had their reward in the arrival of the `Tutanekai'

from New Zealand with supplies of food, and, piecing together a few

fragments of evidence ``dropped in the ether,'' we judged that they

were having a night of revelry.

The wind was in a fierce humour on the morning of August 16, mounting

to one hundred and five miles per hour between 9 and 10 A.M., and

carrying with it a very dense drift.

We were now in a position to sit down and generalize about the wind.

It is a tiresome thing to have it as the recurring insistent theme of

our story, but to have had it as the continual obstacle to our activity,

the opposing barrier to the simplest task, was even more tedious.

A river, rather a torrent, of air rushes from the hinterland northward

year after year, replenished from a source which never fails. We had

reason to believe that it was local in character, as apparently a

gulf of open water about one hundred miles in width--the D'Urville

Sea--exists to the north of Adelie Land. Thus, far back in the

interior--back to the South Geographical Pole itself--across one

thousand six hundred miles of lofty plateau--is a zone of high

barometric pressure, while to the north lies the D'Urville Sea and

beyond it the Southern Ocean--a zone of low pressure. As if through

a contracted outlet, thereby increasing the velocity of the flow, the

wind sweeps down over Adelie Land to equalize the great air-pressure

system. And so, in winter, the chilling of the plateau leads to the

development of a higher barometric pressure and, as the open water to

the north persists, to higher winds. In summer the suns shines on the

Pole for six months, the uplands of the continent are warmed and the

northern zone of low pressure pushes southward. So, in Adelie Land,

short spells of calm weather may be expected over a period of barely

three months around the summer solstice. This explanation is

intentionally popular. The meteorological problem is one which can

only be fully discussed when all the manifold observations have been

gathered together, from other contemporary Antarctic expeditions,

from our two stations on the Antarctic continent, and from Macquarie

Island; all taken in conjunction with weather conditions around

Australia and New Zealand. Then, when all the evidence is arrayed

and compared, some general truths of particular value to science and,

maybe, to commerce, should emerge.

Of one thing we were certain, and that was that Adelie Land was the

windiest place in the world. To state the fact more accurately: such

wind-velocities as prevail at sea-level in Adelie Land are known in

other parts of the world only at great elevations in the atmosphere.

The average wind-velocity for our first year proved to be approximately

fifty miles per hour. The bare figures convey more when they are

compared with the following average annual wind-velocities quoted from

a book of reference: Europe, 10.3 miles per hour; United States, 9.5

miles per hour; Southern Asia, 6.5 miles per hour; West Indies, 6.2

miles per hour.

Reference has already been made to the fact that often the high winds

ceased abruptly for a short interval. Many times during 1913 we had

opportunities of judging this phenomenon and, as an example, may be

quoted September 6.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

A diagrammatic sketch illustrating the meteorological conditions at

the main base, noon, September 6, 1913

On that day a south-by-east hurricane fell off and the drift cleared

suddenly from about the Hut at 11.20 A.M. On the hills to the south

there was a dense grey wall of flying snow. Whirlies tracked about

at intervals and overhead a fine cumulus cloud formed, revolving

rapidly. Over the recently frozen sea there was an easterly breeze,

while about the Hut itself there were light northerly airs. Later in

the day the zone of southern wind and drift crept down and once more

overwhelmed us. Evidently the ``eye'' of a cyclonic storm had passed

over.

During September the sea was frozen over for more than two weeks, and

the meteorological conditions varied from their normal phase. It

appeared as if we were situated on the battlefield, so to speak, of

opposing forces. The pacific influence of the ``north'' would hold

sway for a few hours, a whole day, or even for a few days. Then the

vast energies of the ``south'' would rise to bursting-point and a

``through blizzard'' would be the result.

On September 11, although there was a wind of seventy miles per hour,

the sea-ice which had become very solid during a few days of low

temperature was not dispersed. Next day we found it possible to walk

in safety to the Mackellar Islets. On the way rushes of southerly

wind accompanied by a misty drift followed behind us. Then a calm

intervened, and the sun momentarily appeared and shone warmly.

Suddenly from the north-west came breezy puffs which settled into a

light wind as we went north. On the way home we could not see the

mainland for clouds of drift, and, when approaching the mouth of the

boat-harbour, these clouds were observed to roll down the lower slopes

of the glacier and, reaching the shore, rise into the air in columns.

They then sailed away northward at a higher altitude, almost obscuring

the sun with a fine fog. On the same night the ``south'' had gained

the mastery, and the wind blew with its accustomed strength.

Again, on September 24, McLean had a unique experience. He was

digging ice in a fifty-mile wind with moderate drift close to the Hut

and, on finishing his work, walked down to the harbour-ice to see if

there were any birds about. He was suddenly surprised to leave the

wind and drift behind and to walk out into an area of calm. The water

lapped alongside the ice-foot, blue in the brilliant sunlight. Away

to the west a few miles distant a fierce wind was blowing snow like

fine spume over the brink of the cliffs. Towards the north-west one

could plainly see the junction between calm water and foam-crested

waves. To the south the drift drove off the hills, passed the Hut,

and then gyrated upwards and thinned away seawards at an altitude of

several hundred feet.

The wind average for September was 36.8 miles per hour, as against

53.7 for September of the previous year. There were nine ``pleasant''

days, that is, days on which it was possible to walk about outside and

enjoy oneself. On the 27th there was a very severe blizzard. The

wind was from the south-east: the first occasion on which it had blown

from any direction but south-by-east at a high velocity. The drift

was extremely dense, the roof of the Hut being invisible at a distance

of six feet. Enormous ramps of snow formed in the vicinity, burying

most of the cases and the air-tractor sledge completely. The anemograph

screen was blown over and smashed beyond all repair. So said the

Meteorological Notes in the October number of the `Adelie Blizzard'.

Speaking of temperature in general, it was found that the mean-

temperature for the first year was just above zero; a very low

temperature for a station situated near the Circle. The continual

flow of cold air from the elevated interior of the continent accounts

for this. If Adelie Land were a region of calms or of northerly

winds, the average temperature would be very much higher. On the

other hand, the temperature at sea-level was never depressed below

-28 degrees F., though with a high wind we found that uncomfortable

enough, even in burberrys. During the spring sledging in 1912 the

lowest temperature recorded was -35 degrees F. and it was hard to keep

warm in sleeping-bags. The wind made all the difference to one's

resistance.

There was an unusually heavy snowfall during 1913. When the air was

heavily charged with moisture, as in midsummer, the falls would consist

of small (sago) or larger (tapioca) rounded pellets. Occasionally one

would see beautiful complicated patterns in the form of hexagonal

flakes. When low temperatures were the rule, small, plain, hexagonal

stars or spicules fell. Often throughout a single snowfall many types

would be precipitated. Thus, in September, in one instance, the fall

commenced with fluffy balls and then passed to tapioca snow, sago snow,

six-rayed stars and spicules.

Wireless communication was still maintained, though September was found

to be such a ``disturbed'' month--possibly owing to the brilliant aurorae

--that not a great many messages were exchanged. Jeffryes was not in

the best of health, so that Bickerton took over the operating work.

Though at first signals could only be received slowly, Bickerton

gradually improved with practice and was able to ``keep up his end''

until November 20, when daylight became continuous. One great advantage,

which by itself justified the existence of the wireless plant, was the

fact that time-signals were successfully received from Melbourne

Observatory by way of Macquarie Island, and Bage was thus able to

improve on his earlier determinations and to establish a fundamental

longitude.

During this same happy month of September, whose first day marked

the event of ``One hundred days to the coming of the Ship'' there was

a great revival in biological work. Hodgeman made several varieties

of bag-traps which were lowered over the edge of the harbour-ice, and

many large ``worms'' and crustaceans were caught and preserved.

On September 14 Bickerton started to construct a hand-dredge, which was

ready for use by the next evening. It was a lovely, cloudless day

on the 16th and the sea-ice, after more than two weeks, still spread

to the north in a firm, unbroken sheet. We went out on skis to

reconnoitre, and found that the nearest ``lead'' was too far away to

make dredging a safe proposition. So we were contented to kill a seal

and bring it home before lunch, continuing to sink the ice-shaft above

the moraine for the rest of the day.

The wind rose to the ``seventies'' on September 17, and the sea-ice

was scattered to the north. On the 19th--a fine day--there were many

detached pieces of floe which drifted in with a northerly breeze, and

on one of these, floating in an ice-girt cove to the west, a sea-leopard

was observed sunning himself. He was a big, vicious-looking brute,

and we determined to secure him if possible. The first thing was to

dispatch him before he escaped from the floe. This Madigan did in

three shots from a Winchester rifle. A long steel-shod sledge was then

dragged from the Hut and used to bridge the interval between the ice-

foot and the floe. After the specimen had been flayed, the skin and

a good supply of dogs' meat were hauled across and sledged home. On

the 30th another sea-leopard came swimming in near the harbour's

entrance, apparently on the look-out for seals or penguins. Including

the one seen during 1912, only three of these animals were observed

during our two years' sojourn in Adelie Land.

Dredgings in depths up to five fathoms were done inside the boat

harbour and just off its entrance on five separate occasions between

September 22 and the end of the month. Many ``worms,'' crustaceans,

pteropods, asteroids, gastropods and hydroids were obtained, and

McLean and I had many interesting hours classifying the specimens.

The former preserved and labelled them, establishing a small

laboratory in the loft above the ``dining-room.'' The only

disadvantage of this arrangement was that various ``foreign bodies''

would occasionally come tumbling through the interspaces between the

flooring boards of the loft while a meal was in progress.

Some Antarctic petrels were shot and examined for external and

internal parasites. Fish were caught in two traps made by Hodgeman

and myself in October, but unfortunately the larger of the two was

lost during a blizzard. However, on October 11 a haul of fifty-two

fish was made with hand-lines off the boat harbour, and we had a

pleasant change in the menu for dinner. They were of the type known

as Notothenia, to which reference has already been made.

By October 13, when a stray silver-grey petrel appeared, every one

was on the qui vive for the coming of the penguins. In 1912 they

had arrived on October 12, and as there was much floating ice on the

northern horizon, we wondered if their migration to land had been

impeded.

The winds were very high for the ensuing two days, and on the 17th

the horizon was clearer and more ``water sky'' was visible. Before

lunch on that day there was not a living thing along the steep,

overhanging ice-foot, but by the late afternoon thirteen birds had

effected a landing, and those who were not resting after their long

swim were hopping about making a survey of the nearest rookeries.

One always has a ``soft spot'' for these game little creatures--there

is something irresistibly human about them--and, situated as we were,

the wind seemed of little account now that the foreshores were to be

populated by the penguins--our harbingers of summer and the good times

to be. Three days later, at the call of the season, a skua gull came

flapping over the Hut.

It was rather a singular circumstance that on the evening of the 17th,

coincident with the disappearance of the ice on the horizon, wireless

signals suddenly came through very strongly in the twilight at 9.30

P.M., and for many succeeding nights continued at the same intensity.

On the other hand, during September, when the sea was either firmly

frozen or strewn thickly with floe-ice, communication was very

fitful and uncertain. The fact is therefore suggested that wireless

waves are for some reason more readily transmitted across a surface

of water than across ice.

The weather during the rest of October and for the first weeks of

November took on a phase of heavy snowfalls which we knew were

inevitable before summer could be really established. The winds were

very often in the ``eighties'' and every four or five days a calm

might be expected.

The penguins had a tempestuous time building their nests, and resuming

once more the quaint routine of their rookery life. In the hurricanes

they usually ceased work and crouched behind rocks until the worst was

over. A great number of birds were observed to have small wounds on

the body which had bled and discoloured their feathers. In one case

a penguin had escaped, presumably from a sea-leopard, with several

serious wounds, and had staggered up to a rookery, dying there from

loss of blood. Almost immediately the frozen carcase was mutilated

and torn by skua gulls.

On October 31 the good news was received that the `Aurora' would leave

Australia on November 15. There were a great number of things to be

packed, including the lathe, the motor and dynamos, the air-tractor

engine, the wireless ``set'' and magnetic and meteorological

instruments. Outside the Hut, many cases of kerosene and provisions,

which might be required for the Ship, had been buried to a depth of

twelve feet in places during the southeast hurricane in September.

So we set to work in great spirits to prepare for the future.

McLean was busy collecting biological specimens, managing to secure a

large number of parasites from penguins, skua gulls, giant petrels,

snow petrels, Wilson petrels, seals and an Emperor penguin, which came

up on the harbour-ice. On several beautiful days, with a sea-breeze

wafting in from the north, large purple and brown jelly-fish came

floating to the ice-foot. Many were caught in a hand-net and

preserved in formalin. In his shooting excursions McLean happened on

a small rocky ravine to the east where, hovering among nests of snow

and Wilson petrels, a small bluish-grey bird,* not unlike Prion

Banksii, was discovered. Four specimens were shot, and, later,

several old nests were found containing the unhatched eggs of previous

years.

** On arrival in Australia this bird proved to be new to science.

On the highest point of Azimuth Hill, overlooking the sea, a Memorial

Cross was raised to our two lost comrades.

A calm evening in November! At ten o'clock a natural picture in

shining colours is painted on the canvas of sea and sky. The northern

dome is a blush of rose deepening to a warm terra-cotta along the

horizon, and the water reflects it upward to the gaze. Tiny Wilson

petrels flit by like swallows; seals shove their dark forms above

the placid surface; the shore is lined with penguins squatting in

grotesque repose. The south is pallid with light--the circling sun.

Adelie Land is at peace!

For some time Madigan, Hodgeman and I had been prepared to set out on

a short sledging journey to visit Mount Murchison and to recover if

possible the instruments cached by the Eastern Coastal and the

Southern Parties. It was not until November 23 that the weather

``broke'' definitely, and we started up the old glacier ``trail''

assisted by a good team of dogs.

Aladdin's Cave was much the same as we had left it in the previous

February, except that a fine crop of delicate ice-crystals had formed

on its walls. We carried with us a small home-made wireless receiving

set, and arrangements were made with Bickerton and Bage to call at

certain hours. As an ``aerial'' a couple of lengths of copper wire

were run out on the surface of the ice. At the first ``call'' Madigan

heard the signals strongly and distinctly, but beyond five and a half

miles nothing more was received.

Resuming the journey on the following day, we made a direct course

for Madigan Nunatak and then steered southeast for Mount Murchison,

pitching camp at its summit on the night of November 28.

On the 29th Madigan and Hodgeman made a descent into the valley, on

whose southern side rose Aurora Peak. The former slid away on skis

and had a fine run to the bottom, while Hodgeman followed on the

sledge drawn by Monkey and D'Urville, braking with an ice-axe driven

into the snow between the cross-bars. Their object was to find the

depot of instruments and rocks which the Eastern Coastal Party were

forced to abandon when fifty-three miles from home. They were

unsuccessful in the search, as an enormous amount of snow had fallen

on the old surface during the interval of almost a year. Indeed, on

the knoll crowning Mount Murchison, where a ten-foot flagpole had been

left, snow had accumulated so that less than a foot of the top of the

pole was showing. Nine feet of hard compressed snow scarcely marked

by one's footsteps--the contribution of one year! To such a high

isolated spot drift-snow would not reach, so that the annual snowfall

must greatly exceed the residuum found by us, for the effect of the

prevailing winds would be to reduce it greatly.

On the third day after leaving Mount Murchison for the Southern Party's

depot, sixty-seven miles south of Winter Quarters, driving snow

commenced, and a blizzard kept us in camp for seven days. When the

drift at last moderated we were forced to make direct for the Hut,

as the time when the Ship was expected to arrive had passed.

Descending the long blue slopes of the glacier just before midnight on

December 12, we became aware of a faint black bar on the seaward

horizon. Soon a black speck had moved to the windward side of the

bar--and it could be nothing but the smoke of the `Aurora'. The moment

of which we had dreamt for months had assuredly come. The Ship was

in sight!

There were wild cheers down at the Hut when they heard the news.

They could not believe us and immediately rushed up with glasses to

the nearest ridge to get the evidence of their own senses. The masts,

the funnel and the staunch hull rose out of the ocean as we watched on

the hills through the early hours of a superb morning. The sun was

streaming warmly over the plateau and a cool land breeze had sprung

up from the south, as the `Aurora' rounded the Mackellar Islets and

steamed up to her old anchorage. We picked out familiar figures on

the bridge and poop, and made a bonfire of kerosene, benzine and

lubricating oil in a rocky crevice in their honour.

The indescribable moment was when Davis came ashore in the whale-boat,

manned by two of the Macquarie Islanders (Hamilton and Blake), Hurley

and Hunter. They rushed into the Hut, and we tried to tell the story

of a year in a few minutes.

On the Ship we greeted Gillies, Gray, de la Motte, Ainsworth, Sandell

and Correll. It was splendid to know that the world contained so many

people, and to see these men who had stuck to the Expedition through

``thick and thin.'' Then came the fusillade of letters, magazines and

``mysterious'' parcels and boxes. At dinner we sat down reunited in

the freshly painted ward-room, striving to collect our bewildered

thoughts at the sight of a white tablecloth, Australian mutton, fresh

vegetables, fruit and cigars.

The two long years were over--for the moment they were to be effaced

in the glorious present. We were to live in a land where drift and

wind were unknown, where rain fell in mild, refreshing showers, where

the sky was blue for long weeks, and where the memories of the past

were to fade into a dream--a nightmare?

CHAPTER XXV LIFE ON MACQUARIE ISLAND

By G. F. Ainsworth

Left on an island in mid-ocean!

It suggests the romances of youthful days-- Crusoe, Sindbad and all

their glorious company. Still, when this narrative is completed,

imagination will be seen to have played a small part. In fact, it is

a plain tale of our experiences, descriptive of a place where we spent

nearly two years and of the work accomplished during our stay.

The island was discovered in 1810 by Captain Hasselborough of the ship

`Perseverance', which had been dispatched by Campbell and Sons, of

Sydney, under his command to look for islands inhabited by fur seals.

Macquarie Islands, named by Hasselborough after the Governor of New

South Wales, were found to be swarming with these valuable animals,

and for two years after their discovery was made known, many vessels

visited the place, landing gangs of men to procure skins and returning

at frequent intervals to carry the proceeds of their labours to the

markets of the world.

The slaughter of the seals was so great that the animals were almost

exterminated within a few years. One ship is known to have left

Macquarie Island with a cargo of 35,000 skins during the first year of

operations. High prices were obtained for them in London and China,

and many American, British and Sydney firms were engaged in the

enterprise.

The value of a skin is determined by the condition of the fur, which

is often damaged by the animals fighting amongst themselves.

Furthermore, at a certain season of the year, the seals moult, and if

taken within a certain time of this natural process, the skin is

almost valueless. These facts were ignored by the sealers, who

killed without discrimination.

Again, both male and female, old and young were ruthlessly slaughtered,

with the obvious result--the extermination of the species. If

supervision had been exercised and restrictions imposed, there is

no doubt that the island would still have been used by the fur seal

as a breeding-ground. During our stay none were seen, but Mr. Bauer,

who acts as sealing herdsman and who had visited the island in that

capacity each summer for eleven years, stated that he had seen odd

ones at infrequent intervals.

Associated as the island has been since the year 1812 with sealing and

oil ventures, it follows that a history has been gradually developed;

somewhat traditional, though many occurrences to which we shall refer

are well authenticated.

It might be supposed from the foregoing, that a good deal is known

about the place, but such is not the case, except in a general sense.

Several scientific men from New Zealand, recognizing the importance of

the island as a link between Australasia and Antarctica, visited it at

different times within the past twenty years, only remaining long

enough to make a cursory examination of the eastern side. They had

to depend on the courtesy of the sealing ships' captains for a

passage, and the stormy conditions which are ever prevalent made

their stay too brief for any exhaustive work.

A Russian Antarctic expedition, under Bellingshausen's command, called

there in 1821 and stayed for two days, collecting a few bird and

animal specimens. They referred to the island as being ``half-cooled

down,'' in a short but interesting account of their visit, and remarked

upon the large number of sea-elephants lying on the shores.

In 1840 the ship `Peacock', one of the exploring vessels of the American

Expedition under Wilkes, landed several men after much difficulty on the

south-west of the island, but they remained only a few hours, returning

to their ship after securing some specimens of birds. Expressing

astonishment at the ``myriad of birds'', they remarked, ``Macquarie

Islands offer no inducement for a visit, and as far as our examination

showed, have no suitable place for landing with a boat.''

The next call of an Antarctic expedition was made by Captain Scott in

the `Discovery' in November 1901. He, with several naturalists, landed

on the eastern side to collect specimens, but remained only a few hours.

He refers to the penguins, kelp-weed and tussock grass; certainly three

characteristic features.

Captain Davis, during his search for charted sub-antarctic islands, when

connected with Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition, called there in the

`Nimrod' in 1909. He landed a party of men who secured several sea-

elephants and some penguins.

It will thus be seen that very little had been done which was

scientifically important or generally interesting. Sealers came and

went as a matter of business, and probably the arduous nature of their

work and the rugged topography of the island combined to prevent the

more curious from exploring far afield.

Captain Scott was desirous of establishing a base on Macquarie Island

in 1910, but circumstances compelled him to abandon the idea. And so

it came that we five men of Dr. Mawson's Expedition were landed on

December 22, 1911, with a programme of work outlined by our leader.

H. Hamilton was biologist, L. R. Blake surveyor and geologist, C. A.

Sandell and A. J. Sawyer were wireless operators, the former being

also a mechanic, and I was appointed meteorologist and leader of the

party.

We stood on the beach in the dusk, watching the boat's party struggle

back to the `Aurora', which lay at anchor one and a half miles from the

north-west shore. Having received a soaking landing in the surf and

being tired out with the exertions of the day, we started back to our

temporary shelter. We had not gone very far when a mysterious sound,

followed by a shaking of the earth, made us glance at each other and

exclaim, ``An earthquake!'' The occurrence gave rise to a discussion

which carried us to bed.

Seeing that we were to spend a long time on the island, the question

of building a hut was the first consideration. Through the kindness

of Mr. Bauer, who had just left the island in the s.s. `Toroa', we

were able to live for the time being in the sealers' hut.

It was urgent to get the wireless station into working order as soon

as possible. The masts and operating-hut had been erected during the

stay of the `Aurora', but there yet remained the building of the

engine-hut and the installation of the machinery and instruments, as

well as the construction and erection of the aerial. Accordingly we

proceeded with the living-hut and the job on Wireless Hill at the same

time, working on the hill most of the day and at the hut in the

evening.

Wireless Hill rose to three hundred and fifty feet in height, and

formed part of a peninsula running in a northeasterly direction from

the main island. It had been chosen by Mr. Hannam of the Adelie

Land party because of its open northerly aspect, and because ``wireless''

waves would probably have a good ``set-off,'' southward to the Main

Base in Antarctica.

Just a few yards from the base of the hill on its southwestern side

was a huge rock, upon the easterly side of which we decided to build

our dwelling. The timbers for the hut had been cut and fitted in

Hobart, so all that remained for us was to put them together.

After working at high pressure until December 30, we were able to

establish ourselves in a home. The doorway faced to the east, and

the rock protected the small place from the strong westerly weather

which is invariable in these latitudes. The dimensions were twenty

feet by thirteen feet, the front wall being nine feet six inches high,

sloping to seven feet six inches at the back. All the timbers were of

oregon and deal, and particular attention was paid to bracing and

strengthening the building, which rested on piles just clear of the

sandy surface. The inside was lined and ceiled, and the roof of

galvanized iron was set flush with the front wall, fascia boards along

the front and sides being designed to keep the fine snow from blowing

under the corrugations and lodging on the ceiling. ``George V Villa''

was fixed upon as the name, but the hut was never at any time referred

to as the villa, and in future will always be known as the Shack.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Plan of Hut--Macquarie Island

Twelve live sheep had been landed, and these had been driven on to

Wireless Hill so as to be accessible. We decided to kill one for

Christmas, so on December 24 Sandell and I, leaving the others at work

on the Shack, started out.

The hillsides are deeply ravined and the slopes covered with a dense

growth of tussock, which renders progress uncertain and laborious.

Our experience was a foretaste of many to come. We found the sheep

huddled together in a deep gully on the eastern side, and drove them

round to the front of the hill, where one was caught, killed and

dressed.

Christmas Day dawned fine and sunny, and we decided to make some

attempt at a dinner. Blake produced a plum pudding, and this,

together with roast mutton and several kinds of vegetables, washed

down with a little claret, constituted our first Christmas dinner.

The sealing schooner, Clyde, had been wrecked without loss of life on

November 14, 1911, on the east coast, and was now lying on the beach

nearly half a mile away. A two-hundred-gallon tank had been saved

from the wreck and we managed on Christmas morning, after two hours of

carrying and trundling, to place it at the end of the Shack. This was

a valuable find, ensuring in the future a constant, convenient supply

of rain water. Further, we made use of the timber of the wreck for

building, and the broken pieces strewn about were stored up as

firewood.

On the 26th we all went to the wireless station, and, as Sandell had

the aerial made, we pulled it into position. In the afternoon I

unpacked all my instruments and started them off so as to make sure

that all were working correctly. I did not intend to record any

observations till January 1, 1912, and therefore did not erect the

meteorological screen until the 28th.

On moving into our abode domestic arrangements were made. With regard

to cooking, each man took duty for a week, during which he was able

to write up his work and to wash and mend clothes. To Hamilton and

Sandell, who had had previous experience, frequent appeals were made

as to methods of cooking various dishes, but by degrees each one

asserted his independence. There were several cookery books for

reference and each week saw the appearance of some new pudding, in

each instance prefaced by the boast: ``This is going to be the best

pudding ever turned out on the island!'' The promise was not always

made good.

We had a good deal of difficulty at first in making bread and several

batches were very ``heavy'' failures. This difficulty, however, was

soon overcome and, after the first few months, the cooking standard

was high and well maintained. Our stove was very small and only two

loaves of bread could be cooked at once. It frequently happened,

therefore, that the others, which would go on rising in the tins,

overflowed; a matter which could only be set right by experience.

On New Year's Day, 1912, we carried timber in relays from the wreck to

the top of Wireless Hill, so that the building of the engine-hut could

be started. The next few days were occupied in getting food-stuffs,

medicines, stationery, clothing and other necessaries over to the

Shack from the landing-place on the beach. Blake and Hamilton

unpacked their instruments and appliances, fitting up a small

laboratory and photographic dark-room in one corner of the hut.

Some kind Hobart friend had sent four fowls to me on the day of

sailing, requesting me to take them to Macquarie island. They were

housed in one of the meteorological screens, but on the third day

from Hobart a heavy sea broke on board, upset the temporary

fowl-house and crushed the rooster's head. The three hens were landed

safely and appeared to be thoroughly reconciled to their strange

surroundings, though the presence of so many large birds soaring

about overhead had a terrifying effect on them for several days. They

did not appear to pick up much food amongst the grass, but scratched

away industriously all the same. I must say that they were very

friendly and gave the place quite a homely aspect. One of them was

christened ``Ma'' on account of her maternal and somewhat fussy

disposition.

On the first Sunday in the new year all except myself went along the

coast towards West Point. The party reported immense numbers of

sea-elephants, especially young ones. They also saw many wekas and

three ducks, shooting nine of the former for the kitchen.

The wekas or Maori hens are small, flightless birds, averaging when

full grown about two and three-quarter pounds. They were introduced

twenty-five years ago by Mr. Elder, of New Zealand, a former lessee

of the island, and multiplied so fast that they are now very

numerous. They live among the tussocks, and subsist for the most

part upon the larvae of the kelp-fly, small fish and other marine

life which they catch under the stones along the rocky shores at low

tide. They are exceedingly inquisitive and pugnacious and may

easily be caught by hand.

Usually, when disturbed, they will pop under a rock, and on being

seized immediately commence to squeak. This is sufficient to bring

every weka within a quarter of a mile hurrying to the spot, and, in

a few minutes, heads may be seen poking out of the grass in every

direction. The man holding the bird then crouches down, preferably

just on the border of the tussock, holding the protesting bird in one

hand. Soon there will be a rustle, then a rush, and another furious

weka will attack the decoy. The newcomer is grabbed and, if the birds

are plentiful, five or six of them may be taken in one spot.

Their call is peculiarly plaintive and wild and may be heard night

and day. Though we saw and caught innumerable young ones of all

sizes, we were never able to find the nests of these Maori hens.

A depot of stores had been laid by the `Aurora' at Caroline Cove,

twenty miles from the Shack at the south end of the island, and it

was deemed advisable to lay several more intermediate food-depots

along the east coast.

The sealers had a motor-launch which they kindly placed at our disposal,

and a supply of stores was put on board for transport. At 8 A.M.,

January 9, Sandell, Blake, Sawyer and Hamilton started out accompanied

by two sealers who offered to point out the positions of several old

huts along the coast. These huts had been built by sealing gangs many

years ago and were in a sad state of disrepair.

The first call was made at Sandy Bay, about five miles from the

Shack. Stores were landed and placed in the hut, and the party

proceeded to Lusitania Bay, eleven miles farther on, where they

stayed for the night. At this place (named after an old sealing

craft, the `Lusitania') there were two huts, one being a work-hut

and the other a living-hut. They had not been used for sixteen years

and, as a result, were found to be much dilapidated. In the locality

is a large King penguin rookery, the only one on the island, and two

dozen eggs were obtained on this visit, some fresh and some otherwise.

As the next morning was squally, it was decided that the stores should

be deposited in the hut at the south end; a distance of five miles

across country. Through bog and tussock it took the party four hours

to accomplish this journey. The hut was found in the same condition

as the others and a rather miserable night was spent. A short

distance from this spot is situated the largest penguin rookery on

the island. On returning to the launch, the six men had a quick run

of three hours back to the north end.

During the absence of the party I had been busy erecting a stand for

the anemo-biagraph. Ordinarily, such an instrument is kept in a

house, the upper section only being exposed through the roof. The

Shack was in a position too sheltered for my purpose, so I built a

place for the anemo-biagraph behind a low rock well out on the

isthmus.

Sandell and Sawyer reported on the 16th that the wireless station was

ready for testing. Therefore, on the following day, the three of us

erected a small set on the farthest point of the peninsula--North Head.

The set had been made in order to test the large station. Sawyer then

returned to the operating-hut and received signals sent from North Head

by Sandell, who in return received Sawyer's signals, thus showing that

so far everything was satisfactory. It was thought, after the tests,

that the ``earth'' was not by any means good and Sawyer erected a

counterpoise, which, however, failed to give anything like the ``earth''

results. More ``earths'' (connexions by wire with the ground) were

now put in from day to day, and on the 27th Sawyer noted an improvement.

Successful tests were again made on the 30th. The wireless men now

expected communication with Australia.

Blake and Hamilton were soon making inroads, each on his own particular

sphere of work. On the 17th a baseline was laid down on the plateau,

and Blake was able to commence his survey of the island. He had already

made some geological investigations in the vicinity of North Head and

West Point, as well as for a short distance along the east coast.

Hamilton had visited nearly all the penguin rookeries in the vicinity,

and already had several fine specimens. Marine collecting occupied

part of his time and plant life promised to provide an interesting field.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

The north end of Macquarie Island

From the intermediate position that Macquarie Island occupies relative

to Australasia and the Antarctic continent, it was highly important

that its biology should be fully determined. Investigation of the

marine and terrestrial fauna and flora shows several facts indicating

the part this island has played in the supposed connexion of the great

land masses of the southern hemispheres. It is an established fact

that the flora of New Zealand has strong sub-antarctic and South

American affinities and the problem is to account for this distribution.

Many forms of plant and animal life are circumaustral, being found in

all suitable sub-antarctic situations. To account for this fact two

theories have been advanced, namely, the Relict theory (Dahl, Schenck

and others) and the Antarctic theory.

The first theory supposes that the inhabitants of the sub-antarctic

islands are the remnants of groups of animals developed in some northern

land-mass, and driven south by more highly developed forms. Again,

that these sub-antarctic islands have always been separated from

continents, and that the distribution of life on the former must have

proceeded over wide stretches of sea.

The Antarctic theory accounts for the distribution and similarity of

sub-antarctic fauna and flora by establishing a connexion between the

sub-antarctic islands and the Antarctic continent. At the same

period, the Antarctic continent was assumed to be connected by land

with South America, South Africa and Australia, and the similar life

forms now found in these continents were driven northward by a

subsequent colder period. This theory is strengthened by several

facts, chief of which are, (1) the existence of an Antarctic continent,

and (2) the comparatively shallow waters between it, South Africa,

Australia and South America.

Whichever theory is adopted, it is evident that our scientific

opportunities were unique.

On the 28th, Sandell, Sawyer and I decided to climb on to the main

ridge or plateau of the island. We had already discovered that the

easiest way to get on to the hills was to follow up one of the many

ravines or gullies which run down to the sea. This necessitates

walking in water most of the way, but one soon gets accustomed to wet

feet on Macquarie Island.

The slopes rise in a series of terraces which are generally soggy

and covered with tussock (pleurophyllum) and with scattered cushions

of Azorella. The summit of the ridge is a barren waste, over which

loose rocks are scattered in every direction, while a wavy effect

due to the action of wind is plainly visible over the surface of the

ground. The steep, descending sides are very soft and sodden,

supporting a scanty growth of vegetation, including the small burr

known as the ``biddy-bid.''

Hundreds of tarns and lakes are visible along the plateau-like ridge

which extends throughout the length of the island. Several of the

lakes are half a mile long and very deep. The tarns are, for the most

part, shallow with hard stony bottoms. The water is beautifully fresh

and apparently contains no life.

Skua gulls were plentiful and washed themselves, with a great flapping

of wings, in the shallow waters at the edge of the lakes. They paid

particular attention to our dog ``Mac,'' swooping down and attempting

to strike her with their wings. A yelp at intervals came from Mac if

they were successful, though the former, if she were quick enough,

would spring at the bird and retaliate by getting a mouthful of

feathers.

We eventually came out on to a point about seven hundred feet high,

overlooking the west coast, and it could be seen that the space

between the base of the hills and the ocean was occupied by a plain

which sloped very gradually to the beach. Here and there across its

surface were huge mounds of earth and rock and, occasionally, a small

lakelet fringed with a dense growth of tussock and Maori cabbage.

A descent was made to explore the place. A fairly large volume of

water flowed rapidly downward by several deep gullies and, coming to

the terrace, cut narrow, sinuous channels which were soon lost to view

in the tussocks. Examination of the watercourses revealed that this

tract was simply a raised beach covered with sodden peat and carrying

a rather coarse vegetation. The ground was decidedly springy and

shook to our tread; moreover, one sank down over the ankles at each

step. Occasionally a more insecure area was encountered, where one

of us would go down to the thighs in the boggy ground.

As the shore approached we came to thick tussock and Maori cabbage,

and the travelling became much rougher. A group of earthy mounds and

rock was sighted some distance away and we decided to reach them and

have our lunch. A nearer view showed us a large opening in one of

these prominences and we scrambled up to examine it.

Inside there was a small cave, high in front but sloping sharply

towards the back for a distance of thirty-five feet. The roof and

walls were blackened by smoke, and spikes and nails driven into

crevices were evidences that the place had once been occupied.

Eagle Cave it is called and its story was afterwards related to us.

Between thirty and forty years ago the schooner `Eagle', in attempting

to make the island, had been caught in a gale and wrecked on the

rock-bound western coast. As far as can be learned, there were nine

men and a woman on board, all of whom were saved. They lived in this

cave for almost two years, subsisting upon what they could catch.

Decayed tussock grass, a foot in depth, now covers the floor, showing

that some attempt had been made to improve the comfort of the place,

while bones lying strewn about in all directions indicate that gulls,

penguins and cormorants must have supplied a good deal of their food.

It is presumed that some of them made a journey to North Head

periodically to look out for relief, as a well-defined track to that

point is still visible in places.

The tale, however, has its tragic side, for the woman died on the very

day when the rescuing ship called at the island. She was buried on

the isthmus, not far from our Shack. One would think that death was

rather a relief from such an existence as this unfortunate woman must

have endured, but, at the same time, it seems hard that she did not

live to participate in the joy of deliverance.

We ate our lunch and had a smoke, after which we decided to walk

homewards along ``Feather Bed'' terrace. A few minutes after leaving

the cave, Sawyer and Sandell caught three young ducks, which they

carried back, intending to rear them, but they died several days

later. A weary tramp brought us, thoroughly tired, to the Shack,

where Hamilton had an excellent meal awaiting us.

The weather during January was rather trying. Precipitation in the

form of either rain, hail, sleet or snow occurred on twenty-six days,

sometimes all forms being experienced on the same day. As a result,

the supply of water was well maintained; in fact, the amount caught

exceeded the consumption and we finished the month with the tank almost

full. Gales were experienced on eight days, the maximum wind-force

being forty-two miles an hour. The sky was mostly heavily clouded or

absolutely overcast and on many days the sun was not seen. Fog hung

about the hills almost continuously, and driving mist accompanied the

northerly winds.

January 24 was a glorious day, calm and sunny, with a maximum temperature

of 51.3 degrees F. The habit of former days induced Sandell and

myself to have a dip in the surf, but as the temperature of the water

was about 42 degrees F., we stayed in as many seconds. The mean

temperature for the month was 44.9 degrees F.; the minimum being

35.5 degrees F.

My first view of the island when the `Aurora' arrived in December 1911

left rather an agreeable impression. The day of our approach was

marked by fine calm weather and the dark-green tussock-clad hillsides

were rather attractive. On the other hand, one was immediately

struck with the entire absence of trees, the steep precipices, cliffs

and the exceedingly rugged nature of the coastline.

Closer scrutiny shows that the tussock grass radiates closely from a

semi-decayed mass of leaf-sheaths, with the blades of grass shooting

upwards and outwards as high as three or four feet. Scattered through

it are patches of Stilbocarpa polaris, locally known as Maori cabbage.

It is of a more vivid green than the tussock and is edible, though

somewhat stringy and insipid. Our sheep ate it readily, even nibbling

the roots after the plant had been cropped down.

There were several Victoria penguin colonies round about the rocky

faces of the hills in the vicinity of the Shack, and their hubbub and

cackling uproar were something to remember. The rearing of the young

appeared to be rather a busy process. The young ones look like

bundles of down and seem to grow at a remarkable rate, while the

attempt of the parent to shelter the usual two chicks is a very

ludicrous thing to watch.

The material for the nest made by these birds seems to depend almost

entirely on its immediate surroundings. The rookery is established

on a broken rocky face close to the water's edge and the nests are

made under rocks, in niches and passages, as well as amongst the

tussock growing on the rocks. Those under the rocks are constructed

of small stones and a few blades of grass, while those in the passages

and fissures are usually depressions in soft mud. Amongst the

tussock a hole is first made in the soft earth and then neatly lined

with blades of grass.

The birds lay two or three eggs of a white or greenish-white colour,

but I have never seen three chicks hatched. The eggs are edible, and

we used many dozens of them during our stay.

The period of incubation is about five weeks, and male and female take

turns at sitting. A young one is fed by placing its beak within that

of the parent bird where the food--mainly crustaceans--is taken as it

regurgitates from the stomach of the latter.

Although the smallest species on the island, the Victoria penguins are

the most spiteful, and a scramble through the rookery invites many

pecks and much disturbance. They have a black head and back, white

breast and yellow crest, the feathers of which spread out laterally.

During the moulting season they sit in the rookery or perched on

surrounding rocks, living apparently on their fat, which is found to

have disappeared when at last they take to the sea. They come and

go with remarkable regularity, being first seen about the middle of

October, and leaving during the first week of May. The same rookeries

are occupied year after year, and the departure of the birds adds to

the general desolation during the winter months.

Their destination on leaving the land is still a mystery. Although

they are never seen, it is conjectured that they spend the winter at

sea. Their natural enemy in the waters round Macquarie Island is the

sea-leopard, and the stomachs of all specimens of this animal taken by

us during the penguin season contained feathers.

The presence of numerous bones just at the rear of the Shack pointed

to the fact that here must have been at one time the site of a King

penguin rookery. As many of our potatoes and onions were sprouting

in the bags, I determined to dig a portion of this area and plant the

most ``progressive'' of these vegetables. The sandy soil did not

appear to contain much nutriment, but I thought that something might

be gained by giving it a trial.

On the night of February 2, Sawyer reported that he had heard the

Wellington wireless operator calling Suva station, but, as no further

signals were heard from anywhere, he was inclined to the idea that it

was the experience of a ``freak night.'' In explanation of this term,

I may say that it is used in reference to nights on which the

atmospheric conditions are abnormally favourable for wireless work.

The news was particularly encouraging, and for the next few days we

were on the tip-toe of expectation.

In the early morning of the 5th a howling gale sprang up and,

increasing in force as the day wore on, rendered work impossible. A

tremendous sea worked up, and the ocean for a distance of a mile from

shore was simply a seething boil of foam. Huge waves dashed on shore,

running yards beyond the usual marks, and threatening to sweep

across the isthmus. Masses of tangled kelp, torn from the outlying

rocks, washed backwards and forwards in the surf or were carried high

up among the tussocks. The configuration of the shingly beach

changed while one looked at it. The tops of the waves could be seen

flying over Anchor Rock, seventy feet high, and spray was blowing

right across the isthmus.

On the advice of the sealers we had shifted our stores farther back

from the beach and it was just as well we did so, as the waves reached

to within a few feet of the nearest box. Meanwhile I began to wonder

how our benzine and lubricating oil were faring. Both had been

stacked in cases among the tussock and rocks, well back from the

waters of Aerial Cove on the western side of Wireless Hill.

Accordingly, Hamilton, Sandell and I went round in that direction the

following morning, while Sawyer made his way up to the wireless

station to see if there were any damages there. We worked along

round the cliff-front through a cave rejoicing in the name of ``Catch

Me,'' from the fact that the waves rushed into it, frequently catching

and thoroughly wetting any unfortunate taken off his guard. A

massive rock, evidently broken from the roof, lay right across its

centre, while on either side of the obstruction were masses of greasy

decaying kelp. We were ``caught'' and floundered about in the kelp

while the water surged around us. Arriving at the Cove, we found that

several cases were missing. One was discovered buried in kelp, and a

little later we came upon a tin battered almost out of recognition.

The loss was not serious, but the precaution was taken to shift the

oil still farther back.

While we were engaged on this task, Sawyer appeared on the front of

the hill above and signalled to us that the aerial had been blown

down. The three-inch rope keeping the aerial taut had broken off

close to the bridle and torn the halyard with it. It meant that some

one would have to climb the mast to pass a rope through the block,

and the wind was at this time too strong for anything to be done.

On February 7, Blake and Hamilton, who had been making preparations

for several days past, set out for Sandy Bay, intending to do some

work in that locality. Their blankets, sleeping-bag, instruments and

other gear made rather heavy swags, but they shouldered them in true

Murrumbidgee style and tramped away.

Sandell, Sawyer and I went up Wireless Hill to fix the aerial.

Sandell, the lightest of the three, was being hoisted up the first

section of the mast with some one-and-a-half-inch rope when the

hauling-line gave way. Fortunately, he had a strap securing him to

the mast, otherwise his fall would have been from twenty feet. This

was the only rope we had, so we had to think of some other means of

reaching the top. After a short discussion, I suggested that decking-

spikes should be secured from the wreck of the Clyde and driven into

the mast at intervals. The idea was followed with great success,

and Sandell was able to run the halyard through the block at the top

(ninety feet). The aerial was then hauled into position, the stay-

wires were tightened, an extra ``dead man'' was put in and the station

was once more ready for work.

Hamilton returned from Sandy Bay on the 11th laden with botanical

trophies and four specimens of a small land bird which we had never

before seen. He and Blake, who remained behind, had fixed up the hut

there so that it afforded decent shelter.

On the night of the 13th what we had long expected happened. Wireless

communication was established for the first time, with a ship--s.s.

`Ulimaroa'. Sandell and Sawyer were complimented on their success.

On the following night communication was held with Sydney, s.s.

`Westralia', s.s. `Ulimaroa' and H.M.S. `Drake'; the latter very

courteously sending us time-signals. We heard that a wireless

station had just been established in Melbourne, and that the Hobart

station would be working in about one month. It was with the latter

station that we expected to do most of our business. There was great

joy in the camp now that this stage of practical efficiency was

reached and because we were no longer isolated from the world.

Blake came back from Sandy Bay on the 16th with news that he had

almost finished the survey of that section. Foggy or misty weather

gave him a good deal of trouble in getting sights with the theodolite,

and it became part of his future programme to devote the ``impossible''

days to plotting data, writing up field-notes, and making geological

collections.

The afternoon of the 17th was fine, and I went along the beach towards

West Point and found it very rough travelling. Hundreds of sea

elephants, mostly of the season's young, lay about in the tussock or

amongst the rocks. The young, silver-grey in colour, looked very

sleek and fat. The adults consorted in groups of from eight to ten,

packed closely and fast asleep. They seemed to fairly luxuriate in a

soft, swampy place and were packed like sardines in some of the wallows.

Large numbers of skua gulls, creating a dreadful din, drew my attention

to a spot amongst the rocks, and, on nearing it, I found them squabbling

around the carcase of a xiphoid whale, about sixteen feet long, which

had been cast up apparently only a few hours before.

The skuas, as they are commonly called, are large brown birds which

resort to the island in great numbers for the purpose of breeding.

They stay longer than any other migrant, being absent only three

months during the depth of winter. Returning early in August, they

do not start nesting until the beginning of October. The nests,

nicely made of grass and plant leaves, are generally built on the

terraces and slopes amongst the hills. The ideal site, however, is a

pleurophyllum flat adjoining a penguin rookery. Two or three eggs of

a brown or greenish-brown colour with darker spots or blotches are

laid about the end of October, and, from this time till the chicks are

reared, the parent exhibits much annoyance at the presence of any

person in the vicinity. They utter shrill cries and swoop down

continuously in an attempt to strike the invader with their wings.

Several of our party received black eyes as a result of attacks by

skuas.

The young grow rather quickly, and not much time elapses before they

leave the nest to stagger round and hide amongst the vegetation. The

parents fly down and disgorge food, which is immediately devoured by

the young ones. The skuas are bare-faced robbers and most rapacious,

harassing the penguins in particular. They steal the eggs and young

of the latter and devour a great number of prions--small birds which

live in holes in the ground. The skuas are web-footed, but are very

rarely seen in the water.

Towards the end of the month, Blake spent two days at Sandy Bay and

then returned to work up his results.

Hamilton, in order to get into close touch with another species of

penguin, stayed several days at ``The Nuggets,'' two and a half miles

down the eastern coast. A creek flows into the sea at this point, and

many Royal penguin rookeries are established along its course.

Meanwhile, many improvements had been effected in the interior of the

Shack. Shelves lined the walls wherever it was convenient to have

them, and many perishable foodstuffs had been brought inside.

Comfort, after all, is but a relative matter, and, as far as we were

concerned, it was sufficient.

Our clothing was all that could be desired, with the exception,

perhaps, of the boots. In the equipment were included one pair of

sea-boots, one pair of raw hide kneeboots and two pairs of rawhide

hunting boots. The latter were not heavy enough, and soon showed the

effect of travelling from a water-logged surface to one of rock and

vice versa. In fact, our boots were very rarely dry on Macquarie

Island.

An event of some moment occurred on the 28th. The fowls, in order to

justify our confidence in them and as a return for our constant care,

commenced to lay and, strange to say, all began to lay at the same

time. Ma, who was greatly concerned during the turn of affairs,

suffered from prolonged attacks of cackling.

During the opening days of March, Blake and Hamilton were engaged in

field work down the island. They went as far as ``The Brothers,'' a

rocky promontory about two miles south of Sandy Bay. Wekas were so

plentiful that they lived almost entirely on them. Blake, on

returning to the Shack, had a badly blistered heel which kept him

indoors for a few days. Hamilton, who had secured a goodly number of

specimens, had to attend immediately to their preservation.

There were many rats on the island and we frequently heard them

scuttling about on the ceiling of the Shack and slithering down

between the lining and the wall. Hitherto they had contented

themselves by doing this, but on the night of the 7th several of them

flopped one after another into the hut, awakening the inmates. On

getting out to investigate I found a hole through the lining, about

seven feet from the floor, and two or three were rustling about on

the shelves. After much shifting of boxes and searching behind tins,

the intruders were killed.

On March 10 our station held communication with Suva at a distance of

two thousand four hundred miles; a remarkable performance for a

one-and-a-half-kilowatt wireless set.

Hamilton and I set out for West Point and Eagle Cave on the 11th with

the object of examining the flora of the locality and, incidentally,

to shoot ducks which frequent the pools on the ``Feather Bed'' terrace.

The weather was dull and misty and the walk very uncomfortable. We

made our way across this treacherous tract, often sinking kneedeep.

As we neared the first pool a duck rose and immediately paid the penalty.

Although we saw at least two hundred, only one was shot, owing to the

fact that there is no cover about and the ducks are too easily scared.

Close to Eagle Cave Hamilton gathered some plant specimens and, after

lunching, we set off home. Light, steady rain set in about 3 P.M.

and wet us thoroughly. We travelled back along the coast, finding it

fearfully rough but not so tiring as walking on the terrace.

Heavy snow fell during the night of the 11th. Among other things we

learnt by wireless that Amundsen had returned to Hobart with the news

that he had reached the South Pole.

Blake had just recovered from his blistered heel when he had the

misfortune to meet with a slight accident. He and Hamilton were

engaged cutting a track through the tussock from the Shack to the

beach, when the spade wielded by Hamilton struck Blake's foot,

cutting through the boot and inflicting a wound on the great toe.

It was treated antiseptically and bound up; Blake being laid up for

a few days.

Cooking was still on the up grade. Everybody, as his turn arrived,

embarked on something new. Blake turned out a magnificent meat

pudding during his week, and Sawyer manufactured a salmon kedgeree.

Sandell's treacle pudding and Hamilton's soda rolls and date pudding

were all equally good, while I fairly surpassed myself with a

roly-poly and some pancakes.

Hitherto, Sawyer and Sandell had been coming down to the Shack each

night after finishing the wireless work, but on account of the bad

weather they determined to sleep up there and, with that end in view,

each built a bunk for himself; Sawyer, in the operating-hut, had

ample room for the improvement, but Sandell had more difficulty in

the engine-hut, finding it necessary to add a small structure to the

original one.

Good wireless work was now being done, and almost every ship trading

to eastern Australian ports gave us a ``call up.'' Much difficulty was

experienced with the mast's stays, which frequently required

tightening on account of the ``deadmen'' working loose in the yielding

peaty soil. There were seven stays required for each mast, and

Sandell spent much time in attending to them.

Hamilton had found, some weeks previously, several nests of the sooty

albatross along the cliff-front on the eastern side of Wireless Hill,

and on the 21st he visited them for the purpose of photographing the

young in the nest. They were still in the downy stage, and vomited

vigorously on being approached.

These birds build their nests on ledges along the face of a steep

cliff and always betray the whereabouts of their nesting-place by

wheeling and soaring around the vicinity. When sitting, the bird

utters piercing calls for its mate and is thereby easily located.

They make a nest of grass, generally at the root of a tussock

growing on the cliff-front, and when the building is in progress the

two birds sit side by side entwining their necks, rubbing beaks and

at intervals uttering their harsh cries. One can approach and catch

them quite easily, either at this time or when sitting. The female

lays one large white egg, which has a peculiar and rather disagreeable

odour. They have beautiful slaty or bluish-gray plumage with a

dark soot-black head, while encircling the eye is a white ring which

stands out conspicuously from the dark feathers surrounding it. Like

most other sea-birds they have the rather revolting habit of vomiting

quantities of partly digested food and fluid when an attempt is made

to get close to them. In this respect old and young are alike. Their

food is procured at sea, and consists of the small forms of marine

life.

Sandell and Hamilton went round to Aerial Cove on the 25th to collect

shells and to search for the missing lubricating oil. When coming

home, after a successful day, they discovered a cave quite close to

Catch Me. A lantern was secured from the Shack and they went back to

examine it. It penetrated for a considerable distance and opened out

on the hill side about eighty feet above sea-level. Many rocks hung

down from overhead, and altogether it appeared a very unsafe place.

Blake went along later and collected specimens from its floor.

We built a kind of annex to the Shack out of the cases of provisions;

each case being numbered and a list being drawn out setting forth the

contents of the case. This list was nailed on to the wall inside, and

besides being convenient for procuring the provisions, gave the cook,

in a coup-d'oeil, exact information and afforded him a glorious scope.

With regard to the coal-supply, our allowance at Macquarie Island had

been reduced by one-half, on account of the large amount of wreckage

lying on the beach. The weekly cook limited himself to three briquettes,

and these he supplemented with sea elephant blubber and wood, which he

gathered and cut up for use.

Each man commenced his cooking week on Saturday morning, and continued

until the following Friday night, when, after having cleared up, washed

the towels and cleaned the stove, he retired. The incoming cook, who

for half an hour had been prowling about keenly observant of

``overlooked'' dirty ``things'' and betraying every sign of impatience

to make a start, proceeded at once to set a batch of bread, sufficient

for one week, which was baked early on Saturday morning. Five loaves

had to be baked, and as only two could be dealt with at a time, the

chance of producing at least one doughy loaf was reasonably high until

every one became a master baker.

For a time we had been rather hard put to it in the matter of having

baths, but the disability had been overcome by means of sawing a

cask in two; an expedient which answered very well. The bath was

also used as a wash-tub, each man taking charge as his cooking week

came round. The clothes were dried inside the Shack along a number of

strings arranged at the back of the stove. Darning and mending took a

little time, and our experiences in this direction were such as to

demonstrate the wisdom of putting in ``a stitch in time.''

In going over to the meteorological screen one morning I saw a giant

petrel flapping about in the tussock, gorged to such an extent that it

could not rise. I killed the loathsome bird with the rib-bone of a

sea elephant, and Hamilton made a fine specimen of it later on.

These birds, properly called giant petrels, are usually known as

``nellies'' or ``stinkers''; the latter title being thoroughly

justified on account of the disagreeable smell which comes from them.

As may be inferred from the name, they are the largest of all the

petrels, and measure about seven feet from tip to tip when on the

wing. The colour ranges through various shades from almost pure white

to a dark greyish-brown; some even appearing almost black. Very

large and ungainly when on the ground, they become most graceful

when in the air, and soar about without the slightest effort even on

the stormiest days. I have seen them flying into a forty-mile wind

with absolute ease, never moving a wing, but occasionally adjusting

their balance. They are gross scavengers, and eat apparently for

the sake of eating. A carcase on the rocks or beach attracts them

in large numbers, and very soon they can be seen pulling and tearing

at it until thoroughly gorged, when they waddle away into the water

and sit there wholly unable to rise till digestion takes place. If

disturbed, they immediately disgorge and fly off. They nest on

the ground and lay one large white egg. When sitting, they are

reluctant to leave the nest and will squat there, vomiting

evil-smelling, partly digested food and fluid at any intruder. The

young, even in the downy stage, have the same habit.

When mating they go on with a queer kind of performance, which

consists of running around each other on the shore with wings

outspread as if displaying their charms, finally flying off or

waddling into the water.

The persistently windy weather during March had an effect on

everything exposed to its force. Sandell discovered on the 29th that

the rope holding the wireless aerial had cut through, leaving only

one strand, which now bore all the strain. It was just a matter of

days before it would part, and, with a view to preventing a repetition

of February's happening, we went up to lower the aerial, but the

frayed portion of the rope would not pass through the block, so we had

to leave it as it was and wait for the inevitable.

Exceptionally low tides at the end of the month gave Hamilton a fine

opportunity of collecting marine specimens, and he secured amongst

many other things some striking anemones. Some difficulty was

experienced in preserving them, as they lost colour and shrivelled

up. But a special line of treatment was attended by fairly

successful results. They were put in shallow dishes into which

sea-water was poured. Very soon they attached themselves to the

bottom and began to expand, finally opening out to the fullest

extent. With a view to narcotizing them while in this condition,

menthol was applied to the water but did not seem to have much effect.

Chloral hydrate was found to give the best results. It killed them

all, but, before dying, they elongated and detached themselves from

the bottom of the dish; after which they were taken out and placed in

formalin for preservation.

Blake had very little opportunity of doing much survey work during

the month, as he was hampered by a sore foot and the weather was

wretched. He therefore spent most of his time plotting data, making

geological investigations and collecting and naming specimens.

He and Hamilton had so far confined their attention to the northern

half of the island, and had resolved to complete the study of this

area before tackling the southern half.

The weather throughout the month was rather severe, and only two days

were really appreciated. Precipitation occurred on twenty-five days,

but the worst feature was the continuity of strong winds, which

however did not reach gale-force on more than three occasions. Much

snow and hail fell, the former accompanying winds with a southerly

component, while with the north-westers came the depressing mist or

misty rain which is such a characteristic of the place. Temperatures,

as might have been expected, were beginning to go down, and we

experienced several very cold days. The average temperature for March

was 41.8 degrees, while the highest was 46.9 degrees and the lowest

35.3 degrees F. on the 24th.

At 10 P.M. on April 1 the rope supporting the aerial parted. Sawyer

and Sandell were on duty at the time, but of course suspended

operations immediately. As before, the halyard also carried away and

Sandell henceforth resolved to shackle one end of the aerial to the

mast, using a short length of chain instead of the rope. The wreck of

the Clyde was once more our standby, providing a suitable length of

chain and four shackles. After completing this job, they had very

little subsequent trouble with the aerial.

Hamilton and Sawyer caught several three-pound fish on April 2, and

Sandell served them in good style. They were good eating, but,

unfortunately, were very much worm-infested. These parasitical worms

are about an inch and a half long and taper to a point at each end.

They penetrate right through the flesh and are plainly noticeable

after the fish is cooked. One has to dodge the worms as the meal

proceeds: either that or persuade oneself that they do not matter.

The flowing contours of the land in the vicinity of ``The Nuggets''

suggested glacial action to Blake, and on the 4th, while making

geological investigations in that locality, he lit upon a well-defined

basal moraine. Needless to say he was very interested in the

discovery, and brought home a number of polished, striated boulders as

convincing evidence of his theory.

It was rather disappointing to find that the vegetables we had

planted were making little progress. They would shoot up at first

very strongly, like the ``seed which fell on stony ground,'' but, as

soon as a gale arose, the tops turned black and shortly afterwards

withered away. It was apparently an effect of the salt spray which,

in rough weather, used to blow across the isthmus. Hamilton planted

some willows and other cuttings, which shared the same fate.

The winter had now arrived in real earnest, and the months which

followed were punctuated by a succession of gales, while we came to

recognize that it was an exceptional day when the hills were not

shrouded in mist. The on]y thing to do was to brace oneself up for

the ordeal and to put a good foot forward.

CHAPTER XXVI A LAND OF STORM AND MIST

by G. F. Ainsworth

A Heavy north-west gale was experienced on April 12, the wind

attaining a force of over fifty miles an hour.

As usual, a tremendous sea worked up very quickly, and sheets of

spray shredded across the isthmus. About 2 P.M. the wind shifted

to west and later to south-west; these changes being accompanied by

fierce hail and squalls of snow. During the night the wind moderated,

heavy snow fell and, when morning dawned, all the pools were frozen

over and the island was draped in white. It was the heaviest fall we

had so far experienced.

On the 15th Hamilton and I shot several gulls for specimens.

The Dominican or black-backed gulls are very numerous and remain on

the island all the year round. They are rather pretty, being snow-white,

except on the upper part of the wings and back. Ordinarily their food

is obtained from the water, but at Macquarie Island they live almost

entirely upon the carcases left by the sealers, and are usually seen

defending their rights against skuas and giant petrels. They build

nests of tussock on rocks close to the water or maybe on the ground.

Three eggs, much like those of the skua in colour, but with a greener

tint and smaller, are laid, but generally only two are hatched. The

young leave the nest early and hide amongst the rocks, whither the old

ones come to feed them.

We now considered it advisable to prepare for the winter, and with that

end in view papered the inside of the Shack in various places. As the

cold winds were particularly searching, all faulty joints in the lining

were pasted over with any kind of paper we could find. A leak down the

outside of the stove-pipe was remedied, after a good deal of trouble,

by soldering a collar round the pipe where it passed through the roof.

Firing was an important consideration, so each man now brought home

several loads of driftwood every day, until we had enough to keep us

going for some months. There was a complete boot-mending outfit which

was put to a good deal of use, for the weathered rocks cut the soles of

our boots and knocked out the hobnails. Our supply of the last-named

did not last long, and several of the party used strips of hoop-iron

in their stead.

Blake found it necessary to make a kind of work-desk in his section,

and accordingly had a thorough rearrangement. He shifted his bunk up

to a height of about five and a half feet, very close to the ceiling;

a fact which necessitated some wriggling and squirming on his part to

get into the sleeping-bag. There was a fine open space left underneath,

and he managed to fix up his table very neatly.

Although they had intended to leave the work on the southern half of

the island until the spring, Hamilton and Blake set out for Lusitania

Bay on April 28 to make a short reconnoitring trip. It was thought

advisable to spend a few days down there, to improve the hut and

generally speaking to have a look-round. Both men had already

visited the place and depoted some provisions there. At 8 A.M. they

started off, carrying their blankets, sleeping-bags and a few other

articles. Their proposal was to go along the coast as far as Sandy

Bay and from thence along the hill-tops for the remaining ten miles.

Hail and snow-squalls succeeded each other at frequent intervals,

and by the time they reached Sandy Bay, all hope of proceeding along

the hill-tops was dissipated. They therefore kept near the coast.

The going was frightfully rough and the weather was very bad, so on

making Green Valley they camped in a small cave for the night. The

floor was covered with tussock, and, by searching amongst the rocks,

enough pieces of wreckage were found to keep the fire going. On the

whole they passed a fairly comfortable night. Mac proved a bit

troublesome by persisting in her attempts to curl up on or between

the sleeping-bags, and by finally eating the jam which had been

saved for breakfast. The weather was quite as bad next morning, but,

after a meal of dry biscuit and cocoa, they pushed on, taking four

and a half hours to do the six miles. The next day was spent making

the hut weather-proof and fixing up a couple of bunks. The provisions

which had been cached were in good order and abundance of firewood lay

around, in the shape of old barrel-staves. Just close to the living-

hut was a works-hut containing boilers and digestors which years ago

had been used for procuring penguin oil, while there was a rookery a

few yards away from which the victims had come.

This rookery was the resort of King penguins, the largest of the four

species which are to be found on the island. They are magnificently

coloured birds, being bluish-grey on the back while the head is greenish-

black and on each side of the neck there is a brilliant yellow band,

shading to a greenish-yellow on the upper part of the breast, and

gradually merging into the glossy white of the lower part of the body.

They attain to a height of about three feet and weigh thirty pounds

approximately. The site of their rookery is a stony flat about a

hundred yards from the water, and here are collected between five

and six thousand--all that remain on the island.

They make no nest, the single egg laid being supported on the feet,

and kept in position and incubated in a kind of skin pouch which

conceals it from view. One would never guess the egg was there, for,

on being disturbed, the bird shuffles along, carrying it in the manner

described. The egg is large, tapering very much at one end and

resembling a pear in shape. They lay during December and January,

and the young are hatched in about six weeks. A peculiar feature

about the young birds is that the parents feed them for two seasons.

They are covered with a coarse, greyish-brown furry growth, and a

year-old chick looks bigger than the old bird. This furry growth is

lost during the second year and the adult plumage replaces it. The

young utter a peculiar sound, something between a squeak and a

whistle. It is probable that the King penguins were never so numerous

as the Royal or Victoria penguins, but the fact remains that they

have not yet recovered from the wholesale slaughter to which they

must have been subjected over sixteen years ago.

Down on a strip of shingly beach the birds parade, when not in the

rookery or at sea getting food. Their proceedings strike one as

being extraordinarily human, while the dignity and gravity of the

participants are beyond description. On one occasion, a large number

marching along the beach were seen to halt suddenly and talk

excitedly. Three birds then left the main body, consulted together

for a short time, and then separated. The other birds immediately

separated into three companies, and each company stood behind one of

the three already mentioned, who were now some distance apart. The

individuals of each party then talked among themselves for several

minutes, after which two parties joined forces and marched off,

leaving the third party staring after them.

I have lost myself for the time being amongst the penguins and shall

now return to Blake and Hamilton, who climbed on to the hill-tops the

following morning to spy out the land. The island is generally

speaking higher, and all the more elevated peaks are on the southern

half.

They saw numerous rabbits, of which many were black, and Mac had the

day of her life amongst them. These animals were introduced to the

island about twenty-five years ago, and have gradually withdrawn to

the lonelier southern part, though occasionally odd ones are seen

about the northern end. They are very tame and live in holes amongst

the rocks or make burrows in the gully banks and broken hill sides.

Many lakes, frozen over, were seen, several of which were fairly

large. Altogether, the topography is similar to that of the northern

end.

In an endeavour to improve the evening fare, a sweet broth consisting

of biscuit, milk, jam and sugar was tried but it was not a success;

Hamilton remarking that ``even Blake had only one helping.'' On the

following morning they started for the Shack and chose the route on

the hilltops, as the ground was frozen hard; and, though there were

frequent snow-drifts into which they floundered occasionally, the

surface for travelling was much better than along the coast.

Hamilton slipped and hurt his ankle on the trip, and the boots of both

were just about worn out. They apprehended no difficulty in completing

their prospective work. Blake pointed out that the chart of the island

shows Lusitania Bay as being rather a large indentation, whereas in

reality it is almost a straight stretch of coast.

An earthquake shock was felt at 9.15 P.M. on the 27th. I was sitting

in the Shack writing up records at the time, and it seemed as if

somebody had struck the south-west end of the place a severe blow

with a bag of sand. Immediately afterwards a crashing sound,

apparently some distance away on the eastern side, indicated that

some rocks on the cliff-front had been dislodged.

Much rough weather was experienced during the month, and it rained,

hailed and snowed on twenty-five days. The wind attained moderate to

fresh gale-force on six days, and fog and mist were almost invariable.

The lowest temperature recorded was 32.7 degrees F.

The average relative humidity for the four months ending April 30 was

93 per cent., leading to copious condensation on the instruments

exposed to the air. It was necessary, therefore, constantly to

attend and frequently clean the thermographs, hygrometers and the

wireless plant. In the case of the latter, loss of power occurred in

the form of ``brush discharge,'' and Sawyer had to take great care in

order to guard against this accident. He shellacked the condensers and

other exposed parts and found the proceeding rather effective. I

noticed that the drifting snow and misty rain managed to get down the

opening leading to the liquid surface of the anemobiagraph, thus

altering the zero of the recording apparatus. When this happened the

instrument had to be dismantled and set right.

We found it necessary to use sea elephant blubber in the stove in

order to warm the Shack, and a very small piece put on the fire at

intervals always ensured a good heat. Sea elephants had become

scarce, so, in order to lay in a supply of fuel for the next few

weeks, we went round to Aerial Cove on the 3rd and killed the largest

animal we could find, afterwards carrying the blubber round to the

Shack. We came through Catch Me and had the same old experience.

Hamilton examined the contents of the stomach of the sea elephant and

found gravel, stones, cuttlefish, beaks and ``worms'' in abundance.

A violent north-west gale during the early morning hours of the 4th

reached a maximum velocity of fifty-two miles an hour at 5.20 A.M.,

but at 8 A.M. it began to weaken rapidly and an hour later had

shifted to west-south-west, coming from that point as a moderate gale

for the rest of the day. As was usual with winds having any southerly

component, snow and squalls of soft hail were experienced. With the

exception of the wind-vane, which was blown a few yards into the

tussock, nothing was damaged.

In the afternoon Blake and I had a trip down to the moraine which he

had found a few days previously. After a heavy one and a half hours'

walk, the last half-mile of which was along a creek bed, with water

ankle-deep all the way, we reached the spot: the site of one of the

large penguin rookeries up on the hills at the back of ``The Nuggets.''

The sun showed between squalls, and Blake took some interesting

photographs of rocks showing striae and other glacial characteristics.

We battled with one enormous boulder for some time before getting it

into a suitable position for the camera, and afterwards walked right

through the glacial area. The U-shaped character of the valleys was

very pronounced, while boulder-clay obtruded itself everywhere on our

notice.

Hobart wireless station was by this time in working order, a fact

which greatly facilitated wireless business. Sandell took the engine

to pieces early in the month and gave it, as well as the fittings, a

thorough overhaul and cleaning. We received a message on the 7th,

saying that the `Aurora' was leaving Hobart on the 13th for a sub-

antarctic cruise and would call at the island. At the same time I

was requested to send a list of articles required. I found, after

going through the stock and consulting each member, that we needed

nothing but strong boots, cartridges, dungaree trousers, coarse salt,

cigarettes and fresh vegetables.

A persistent area of high pressure affected the weather conditions of

the island to the extent of shrouding us in fog from the 6th to the

10th inclusive, and we did not catch a glimpse of the sun during that

period. The average daily temperature-range during this time was

only 2.3 degrees. Such conditions have a rather depressing effect on

the spirits, but the cheering news we received on the 7th made some

amends for the lack of sunshine.

The sun appeared at last on the 11th and shone strongly, so Blake and

I went up to Wireless Hill to take some ``shots'' with the theodolite.

I noticed four of our sheep on the front of the hill, and, as there

should have been nine, Sandell and I, after finishing with Blake,

walked out to North Head to see if the others were all right. We

found them on the north-east side of the hill and drove them up to

the rest of the flock.

From the hill-top we could see Hamilton engaged in skinning a large

sea leopard on the coast, so we climbed down to render any necessary

assistance. It was a beautifully marked animal, about eleven feet long,

and made a fine specimen.

Sea leopards frequent Macquarie Island in great numbers from the late

winter to the early summer, and may be seen lying about, sleeping

close to the water and apparently always very tired. They do not

give birth to the young there, and from observations I concluded that

they were born at sea. We had taken female specimens on several

occasions, apparently within a few hours of parturition, and as none

had been seen with newly born young, and no islands lay within

several hundred miles, it was presumed that the birth took place in

the water. Until the young one is weaned, its habitat is evidently

in the water as we never saw an adult suckling its offspring.

Sea leopards--long, lithe creatures with a reptilian cast of head--are

remarkably quick in the water. If one is disturbed on shore it opens

its mouth very wide, revealing a wicked-looking row of teeth in each

jaw; the canine teeth or tusks being very long and slightly curved.

Unlike sea elephants and seals they are solitary animals, and should

several of them be found on a small gravelly patch of beach they are

seen to be as far as possible from one another. We have never seen

them attempt to fight on the shore, but the gaping wounds and scars

with which they are frequently covered indicate that they treat

each other very severely in the water. They live on penguins,

gulls, shags and fish.

I saw several shags on one occasion very busy fishing, and between

diving intervals they would sit on the water. Suddenly one

disappeared under the water and the rest flew off; but in a few

seconds the one which had disappeared was thrown into the air and

caught by a sea leopard, who played in this fashion with the maimed

bird for several minutes before devouring it.

A few days previously we had received a request from Mr. D. C. Bates,

the New Zealand Meteorologist, for a daily weather report, and from

the 12th onwards a message was sent nightly to Wellington, a distance

of about eleven hundred miles. In acknowledging these reports,

subsequently, the office referred to their immediate value in the issue

of daily forecasts, and expressed indebtedness to the Expedition.

The two species of penguins which leave the island during the winter

months had disappeared, and silence now reigned where formerly were

busy, noisy colonies. The departure of the migrants made the place

seem lonelier and, during the depths of winter when snow covers the

ground and the birds and animals are few in number, a more dreary

spot would be difficult to find.

The weather conditions were now rather severe, and as Sawyer and

Sandell worked from 8 P.M. till 2 or 3 A.M. every night and slept

at the wireless station, they were exempted from the necessity of

coming down to get breakfast during their cooking weeks. They now

rested till about noon, and arrived at the Shack every day in time

for lunch. Hamilton, Blake and I, each outside his own cooking week,

took it in turns to prepare breakfast.

Blake's fieldwork at the north end, more particularly in the vicinity

of West Point and North Head, was just about finished. West Point

proved to be an area of gabbro, a coarse-grained eruptive rock

representative of basic rocks, while North Head was composed of basic

agglomerate, and volcanic bombs were numerous.

Hamilton had got together a good collection of bird specimens, and was

now in quest of skeletons.

On the night of the 13th we witnessed a rather pretty auroral

manifestation. It assumed the appearance of a Noah's ark cloud, that

is, stretching from opposite points on the horizon and appearing to

converge at each one of these points. The light was a pale yellow, no

other tint being visible. In addition, a nebulous glow appeared at

intervals in the south.

We heard on the 16th that the `Aurora' had sailed on that day from

Hobart and would arrive at Macquarie Island in about three weeks;

oceanographical work being carried out on the trip down. This was

indeed cheerful news, and we began to look forward to her arrival.

A fresh west-south-west gale during the early morning hours of the 17th

was accompanied by soft hail and snow-squalls, and the temperature at

9 A.M. was 31.2 degrees F. The ground was covered with snow and all

the pools were frozen over, but at 9 P.M. there was a rapid shift of

the wind to the north-west and the snow almost disappeared. Soft hail,

generally a little larger than tapioca and of the same shape, frequently

fell. These little pellets are formed of compressed snow and are

commonly supposed to be frozen cloud-particles mixed with raindrops

compacted by a high wind.

On the following night, Blake and I went up to wireless Hill to take

star observations. It was very dark and the hill-front was slippery,

frequent falls being the rule. Just after setting up the instrument,

the wind freshened to such an extent that it was impossible to do

anything, so we descended very wet and muddy to the Shack, having

had a rough passage. The reason for this was that I fell on the

lantern and extinguished the light.

We were supplied with two hurricane lamps which do not by any means

deserve their title as they blow out in even a moderately strong wind.

Sandell made a lantern for his own use, declaring that it was impossible

for any wind to blow it out. I firmly believed him, as it was a little

binnacle lamp placed inside a small oatmeal tin into which a cleaned

photographic plate had been fixed and with holes punched in the bottom

and top of the tin for ventilation. It was thus a lamp with two covers,

and frequent demonstrations of its ability to survive heavy blows were

made by the inventor.

During the next three days a forty-mile wind accompanied by snow,

hail and sleet was experienced and the maximum temperature on the 25th

did not reach freezing-point, the ground being firmly frozen and snow-

covered. During the evening of the last-named date the wind shifted

to north-west, and by noon on the 26th no snow remained, except on the

hills.

In anticipation of the `Aurora's arrival, Blake and Hamilton collected

some stores together in the hope that Captain Davis would transport

them down to Lusitania Bay, thus obviating the necessity of carrying

them down on foot. As Blake reckoned that he would remain there fully

three months and Hamilton about two months, it was thought that such

another opportunity might not present itself.

Through the courtesy of the naval officials, H.M.S. Drake sent us

time-signals twice a week, and though we had so far heard no sound

from Adelie Land, there was a possibility that they could receive

messages from us. Sawyer therefore sent out time-signals as a matter

of routine.

Hamilton made a trip to the west coast on the 28th and returned with

thirteen wekas. Sawyer did not care for these birds, but each of the

others could account for one at a meal. They seem to be better

eating if plucked like a fowl and roasted, but the plucking takes too

long and we generally skinned and boiled them. It is advisable to

hang them for several days before cooking as it certainly makes them

tender.

Rough, stormy weather prevailed during the greater part of the month

and the wind reached the force of a gale on nine days. Much snow,

soft hail and sleet fell and some very cold days were experienced.

The average temperature was 40 degrees, the maximum being 44.7 degrees

and the minimum 27.8 degrees F.

A heavy snowfall occurred during the early morning hours of June 3,

and the temperature was below freezing-point all day. In the afternoon

we had rather an enjoyable time tobogganing down a steep talus-slope

on the east coast. A considerable struggle was necessary in order to

get the sledge to the top, but the lightning slide to the bottom more

than compensated for the labour.

We made wireless inquiries concerning the `Aurora' at night, and were

informed by Hobart that a search for the Royal Company Islands was

included in her programme. It was therefore presumed that she was

engaged in prosecuting this search and would probably not reach us for

some days.

Hamilton killed a very fine sea leopard on the 5th and the skin,

apart from being unscarred, was handsomely marked. It should make a

splendid specimen. The stomach contained more than the usual number

of worms and one specimen of tape-worm, seven inches long and three-

eighths of an inch wide, was preserved.

Everything was going along in the usual placid manner on the 7th,

when, as we were just taking our seats for lunch, some one rushed in

with the information that the `Aurora' was in sight. There was a

scramble to various points of vantage and she was soon observed coming

up the east coast very slowly. At 2.30 P.M. she dropped anchor in

North-East Bay, but, as it was blowing strongly and a nasty sea was

running, no boat was launched, though one may imagine how anxiously

we watched for some movement in that direction. As soon as it became

dark a message was ``Morsed'' to us to the effect that a boat would

bring mails and goods ashore in the morning if the weather moderated,

and with that we had to be content. Needless to say, business ashore

was for the time being paralysed, but a message was sent to the

Secretary in Hobart advising him of the Ship's arrival.

True to his intimation of the previous night, Captain Davis brought a

boat ashore at 9.30 A.M. and with him came several visitors who were

to be our guests for some days. They were Mr. E. R. Waite, Curator of

the Canterbury Museum and his taxidermist, and Mr. Primmer, a

cinematographer. Conspicuous in the boat was a well-laden mail bag

and no time was lost in distributing the contents. Letters, papers,

and magazines were received by every member of the party, and all the

news was ``good.'' Some stores were brought along and, after getting

these ashore, we took the visitors across to the Shack and invited

them to make themselves at home.

Captain Davis also came along to the Shack and afterwards looked over

the wireless station. He returned to the ship just after lunch, and

Sandell, Sawyer and Blake took the opportunity of going on board.

Hamilton, in the meantime, piloted the visitors on a short trip round

to Aerial Cove, introducing them to Catch Me, where they were duly

baptized. They afterwards climbed up Wireless Hill and had a look at

the station, returning to the Shack much impressed with the rough

nature of the country.

Blake went off to the ship again, taking the stores which had been got

ready for transport to Lusitania Bay, as the captain had agreed to

land them when he visited there in a few days' time.

Amongst the cases which were landed was one containing the recording

apparatus for the tide-gauge. The other parts of this instrument had

been left on the island in December, but for some reason the clock and

charts had gone astray and were not found till the vessel was being

unloaded in Adelie Land. Some thermometers and a Robinson anemometer

had also been overcarried and, when they came to light, the latter

was immediately placed in commission.

Captain Davis sent a boat ashore on the morning of the 12th with an

invitation to come on board and lunch. I accordingly went out to the

vessel and, after lunching, had a thorough look over her, mentally

contrasting her spick-and-span appearance at the time with what it had

been when I left her in December. I went ashore again in the afternoon

and assisted the visitors to get their loads down to the boat, as they

were returning to the ship, which was leaving next morning on a sounding

trip down the island.

On the 14th we started to carry the stores across to the Shack on our

backs. We soon realized that seventy or eighty pounds was not a

light load over a half-mile stretch of rough, shingly beach, but

succeeded in transporting the onions, apples and potatoes before

finishing for the night. The other articles were brought over during

the next two afternoons.

The tide-gauge pipe, weighing about six hundredweights, and the box

for the housing of the recording gear had been landed in December

round in Aerial Cove, where a site had been chosen for the erection of

the gauge. Experience showed me that the place was unsuitable, so I

took Hamilton, Sandell and Sawyer round to the cove on the 15th and we

decided, as we had no boat, that it was impossible to carry the pipe

round to the east coast.

I had been making some tidal observations on an upright, fixed in a

comparatively quiet spot on the east coast, and it was here that I

contemplated erecting the gauge. Two snow-gauges, eight inches each

in diameter, were amongst the meteorological equipment and it appeared

that if these two were soldered together a suitable pipe could be

made. Further, the pipe was to be protected from the violence of the

seas by planks fixed round it. Sandell agreed with the idea and

forthwith set about soldering the two together and making a suitable

float, the one supplied being too wide. All that now remained was to

erect the gauge.

The two following afternoons were devoted to stowing the new stores.

We carried everything across and stacked them at the south-west end of

the Shack. Unfortunately, the boots which we had ordered did not

come, but Captain Davis let us have five pairs of light bluchers out

of the ship's stores, and we reckoned that these with extra soles and

a few hobnails would hold out till August or September, when a sealing

vessel was expected.

The `Aurora' returned from the south of the island on the 19th and

reported having had a rough experience in the north-east to south gale

which blew on the two previous days. The wind came out of the north-

east very suddenly on the 17th, and some very strong squalls were

experienced. A calm prevailed for several hours in the evening,

but a south-east gale then sprang up and blew all day on the 18th,

gradually working into the south and dying away during the night.

Early on the 20th the `Aurora' steamed out of the bay, bound north as

we thought, but she returned again in the evening, and we signalled to

know if anything were wrong. They replied, ``All well, but weather

very bad outside.'' She lay at anchor in the bay all next day as it

was snowing and blowing very hard from the south-west, but at 8.45

A.M. on the 22nd she disappeared in the north and we did not see her

again for some months. A few hours after her departure the wind

increased in force, and a continuous gale raged for the next five

days.

Sandell and I now made a start at erecting the tide-gauge, and after

the lapse of five days got the instrument into position. We could

work on it only at low tide, for much rock had to be chipped away

and numerous wire stays fixed. The work was therefore of a

disagreeable character. Its appearance when finished did not by any

means suggest the amount of trouble we experienced in setting it up,

but the fact that it stood the heavy seas for the following eighteen

months without suffering material damage was a sufficient guarantee

that the work had been well done.

A tremendous sea was running on the 25th as a result of the previous

two days' ``blow'' and a heavy gale still persisting. Spray was

scudding across the isthmus, and the sea for a mile from the shore was

just a seething cauldron. The wind moderated somewhat on the 26th,

but strong squalls were experienced at intervals throughout the day,

and on the 27th a strong wind from the south-west brought rather heavy

snow.

On the following day a westerly gale sprang up which shifted

suddenly to south-south-west and south-west in the evening and was

accompanied by fierce hail and snow-squalls throughout the night.

Without moderating to any extent the gale continued to blow on the

29th and passed through west to west-north-west, finally lasting till

the end of the month.

Something in the nature of a ``tidal'' wave occurred during the night

of the 28th, for, on rising the following morning, I was considerably

astonished to see that the sea-water had been almost across the

isthmus. To effect this, a rise of twenty or twenty-five feet above

mean sea-level must have taken place and such a rise appeared abnormally

high. Our coal heap, which we had hitherto regarded as perfectly safe

from the sea, was submerged, as shown by the kelp and sand lying on top

of it, and the fact that seven or eight briquettes were found fifteen

feet away from the heap.

Nothing at the wireless station was damaged and work went on as usual.

The wind used to make a terrific noise in the aerial wires, but this

did not affect the transmission of messages. The howling of the wind

round the operating-hut interfered with the receiving, at times making

it extremely difficult to hear signals; particularly on nights not

favourable for wireless work.

Hamilton was at this time concentrating his attention on shags or

cormorants. This species of cormorant is peculiar to the island,

being found nowhere else. They are blue-black, with a white breast,

and on the head they have a small black crest. At the top of the

beak are golden lobes, while the skin immediately round the eye is

pale blue. They remain on the shores of the island all the year and

nest on the rocks in or very close to the water. They form rookeries

and build nests of grass, laying three eggs about the end of November.

The period of incubation is six weeks. They live entirely on fish,

and, on that account, neither the birds nor the eggs are palatable.

They are very stupid, staring curiously till one gets almost within

reach of them, when they flap heavily into the water. They are easily

caught when sitting on the nest, but a shag rookery, like most other

rookeries, is by no means a pleasant place in which to linger.

I had the satisfaction of getting the first record from the tide-gauge

on the first day of July, but the clock worked erratically, requiring

some attention.

Hamilton had a lobster-pot set some distance from the shore and

anchored to a float, but unfortunately the pot was lost in the rough

seas at the end of June. He had a couple of fish-traps also, but, in

view of this disaster, he decided to set these in Aerial Cove, where

the water was quieter. Having a couple of sea leopard heads which

required macerating, he baited the trap with them and lowered it into

the water, securing it to the rock with a steel wire.

Taking advantage of a bright sun on the following day, Blake and

Hamilton went to ``The Nuggets'' and took some geological and

biological photographs, which on being developed turned out well.

They had occasion to enter one of the unoccupied huts down there and

found a wild cat a little more than half grown, which they caught and

carried home with them. He was of the usual tabby colour and by no

means fierce, quickly yielding to the coaxing treatment of his

captors. He made himself quite at home in the Shack, and we looked

forward to a display of his prowess as a rat-catcher.

A bright display of the aurora occurred on the night of July 4, the

ribbons and streamers of light being well defined and occasionally

slightly coloured. We could establish no connexion between this

extraordinary outburst and the fact that it occurred on American

Independence night, but it was certainly the most energetic

manifestation of the phenomenon we had so far witnessed. Many

``glows'' had been seen, and also a few displays of the arch-shaped

form, but none had shown much activity or rapid movement.

The operator was requested by the Pennant Hills high-power wireless

station at Sydney to listen for signals tapped out during the

daytime, and Sawyer spent a couple of hours on certain mornings

assisting in these tests, which were attended with some success.

We occasionally received press news from land stations or from ships

passing across the Tasman Sea, but it was only a brief summary of the

cable news: enough to whet one's curiosity, rarely ever satisfying it.

Very cold, rough weather was experienced on the 6th and 7th and a

temperature of 26 degrees F. occurred on the latter date, while the

maximum did not reach freezing-point. Much snow and soft hail fell,

and the ground set hard. The weather interfered to some extent with

the tide-gauge clock, and it became so unsatisfactory that I took it

to pieces on the 9th and gave it a thorough cleaning, after which it

had a new lease of life.

We received a message on the 11th saying that the `Aurora' had arrived

in Dunedin, ``all well,'' but had experienced a very rough voyage

which greatly interfered with the dredging and sounding programme.

Our tank water gave out for the first time on the 12th. The

precipitation for a fortnight had been in the form of dry powdery

snow and soft hail, the wind blowing it off the roof before it had a

chance to thaw, thus robbing us of our usual water-supply. For a

while we had to use swamp water, which contained a good many insects

of various kinds and had a distinctly peaty flavour. Finding good

water running from the hill-tops down a deep gully on the east coast,

three-quarters of a mile away, we carried drinking water from there,

using the other for washing up.

The 13th was a most delightful day--bright sun, very little wind and

fresh exhilarating air. Blake and Hamilton went out early on a

photographing excursion, and, later on, the latter shot and skinned

a white giant petrel.

During the third week of July a very low tide exposed rocks, ordinarily

submerged, and Hamilton was occupied all the week in collecting marine

organisms, worms and plants and then preserving, bottling and labelling

them.

A most peculiar sight was witnessed on the 17th. Aerial Cove is a

favourite nesting-place for shags, and they may be seen in twos and

threes flying round in that direction almost any time during the day;

but on this particular day a kind of wholesale exodus from the cove took

place, and large flocks of them followed each other for a couple of hours.

They congregated on the rocks along the east coast, or settled in the

water in scores; the latter fact suggesting that the probable reason for

this extraordinary behaviour was the presence of unusual shoals of fish.

We used to relax and have a game of cards occasionally, while our small

organ became a medium of much enjoyment. All the members except one

played well enough to enjoy themselves and to give pleasure to the

others. There was a distinct predilection in favour of ``ragtime''

and I must say I liked to hear that music at frequent intervals.

Any one who plays a musical instrument knows that the mood of the

player is generally reflected in the character of the music,

particularly when he sits down and plays in a casual way.

The pursuit and killing of a sheep had now become something in the

nature of an experience, and when Sandell and I went hunting for one

on the 20th, we realized it before we reached home. The flock was

very timid, and when disturbed on North Head invariably came past

the wireless station close to the engine-hut. Sandell concealed

himself there with a gun, while I went out to startle the animals.

They did not fail to do their part, but Sandell missed and the shot

frightened them. He then rushed out and fired another shot as they

were running, managing to hit one, which immediately dropped behind

and ran to the edge of the cliff. We did not want to shoot the sheep

at this moment, as it would have fallen about two hundred feet, so we

cautiously approached to drive it away. The poor creature simply

took a leap out into space and landed on the talus below, down which

it rolled to the water's edge. We scrambled down and skinned it,

having to carry the carcase along the rocks at the base of the

cliffs, and getting many duckings on the way.

On July 26 I went round to Aerial Cove with Hamilton to have a look

at the fish-trap, but it had disappeared, the wire having broken,

apparently through the continual friction against rock. He had

previously caught some fish in it, and it was rather a misfortune

to lose it so soon.

During the last week of the month we all had our hair cut. On arrival

at the island, several of us had it shorn very closely with the

clippers and had not trimmed it since then, growth being very slow.

We had a proper hair-cutting outfit and either Blake, Hamilton or

Sandell acted as barber.

Blake was an expert with the needle and did some really neat mending,

while with the aid of some woollen thread and a mug he darned holes in

his socks most artistically. He was the authority on how, when and

where to place a patch or on the only method of washing clothes. The

appearance of his articles when washed, compared with mine, made me

wonder.

Hamilton was busy, about this time, dredging in swamp pools and

securing specimens of the rockhopper or gentoo penguin.

The small gentoo penguins, like the King penguins, do not migrate and

are few in numbers. They form diminutive colonies, which are always

established on mounds amongst the tussock, or on the hill sides not

far from the water. Their eggs, which are globular in shape, are

about the best of the penguin eggs for eating, and if their nests are

robbed the birds will generally lay again, although I think they

could not lay more than four eggs. They build their nests of grass

and plant leaves, and occasionally have been known to establish a

fresh rookery after their first one has been robbed. They are more

timid than any other species of penguin, and leave the nests in a

body when one ventures into the rookery. The skuas take advantage of

this peculiarity to the length of waiting about till a chance presents

itself, when they swoop down, pick up an egg with their beak and fly

off. The penguin makes a great fuss on returning to find that the

eggs are gone, but generally finishes up by sitting on the empty nest.

We have frequently put ten or a dozen eggs into one nest and watched

the proprietress on her return look about very doubtfully and then

squat down and try to tuck the whole lot under herself with her beak.

Weather conditions were rough enough during July, but occasionally a

fairly quiet day would occur. High winds were experienced on ten days,

the greatest hourly average for any twenty-four hours being thirty-two

miles, but no day averaged less than ten miles. Precipitation occurred

on twenty-one days, mostly in the form of snow and soft hail. The mean

temperature was 37.7 degrees, with extremes of 43.3 degrees and 26 degrees

F. The average percentage of cloud was 78; somewhat less than usual and

due to the greater frequency of south-west winds, which almost always

bring a broken sky.

Now that our life was one of smooth routine I devoted a good deal of

time to reducing the meteorological observations. Hourly pressure

and temperature readings as well as descriptive remarks, averages and

other details required to be summarized, and this occupied a considerable

amount of time, so I made a practice of spending a couple of hours each

day on the work, whenever possible, hoping thereby to pick up the

``leeway.'' I did not take too kindly to inactive writing in the Shack,

but the weather conditions were such that I was glad to stay indoors,

though that meant enduring the inevitable cold feet. The floor of the

Shack was never warm, and of course there were no carpets.

Mac developed a great animosity against the rats and thoroughly

enjoyed rooting them out on all occasions. The only explanation of

their presence on the island is that they had arrived in the ships

which were wrecked along the coasts. They got into the Shack several

times, and we simply brought in Mac and shifted things about till she

caught them.

Rough weather occurred during the first week of August, and with

occasional temporary weakenings a gale blew throughout, reaching fifty

miles an hour at different times. Snow, hail and sleet fell every day,

and on the 3rd the temperature was below freezing-point all day. The

Shack, which always shook a little in exceptionally heavy gales, now

vibrated a good deal in a forty-mile wind, no doubt feeling the effects

of the beating it had undergone.

Blake found a cave running through North Head and went round, on the 5th,

to examine it. He proved it to be about sixty yards from opening to

opening, and to widen out very much inside; the roof being about fifteen

feet above the floor.

Hamilton and Sandell went along the coast on the 6th and brought home

a dozen Maori hens for the pot. Hamilton secured some spiders,

parasites on birds and many beetles under the moss and stones on the

site of a penguin rookery, besides shooting a few terns.

The tern is a very pretty bird with light grey plumage, a black head

and red beak and feet. We found no nests on the island, though the

fact that the birds remain throughout the year implies that they breed

there. They fly very fast while not appearing to do so, but their

movements are by no means graceful. They flit about over the water

close to the shore, every now and then dipping down picking up morsels

and keeping up a constant, shrill squeaking.

The sea was so high on the 7th that it reached the weight of the

tide-gauge and, lifting it up, unshipped the recording gear, as the

steel wire flew off the wheel before the latter could take up the

slack. I deemed it advisable to use stout cord instead of wire in the

future and made a protective slot for the weight. I had blocked up

the seaward side of the pipe with rocks, but found that these caused

a deposit of silt so I had to get into the water at low tide and shift

them all out again to clean away the accumulation of sand.

Very heavy snow fell during the afternoon, the flakes being the size

of half a crown. A fresh north-north-west wind dropped to a calm at

4 P.M. and almost immediately it began to snow, the island being quite

white by 5.30 P.M.

Bright sunny intervals alternated with light snow-squalls on the 10th,

and the temperature was below freezing-point all day. It was pleasant

to be out of doors, and I walked along to the west coast to see if there

were any signs of activity amongst the sea elephants.

An unmistakable sign of the near approach of the breeding season was

the presence of an enormous old bull, almost too fat to move, lying on

the beach. Very few small ones were seen, as, on the arrival of the

adult males and females for the breeding season, the young ones leave

for a while, presumably in order to get fat for the moulting period,

or because they are afraid of the bulls, who are particularly savage

at this time. The full-grown bulls attain to a length of twenty

feet, and have a fleshy proboscis about eight or ten inches in length

hanging over the mouth, suggesting the trunk of an elephant. It is

from this fact that they derive the name of sea elephant.

There is a considerable disparity in size between the adult male and

female, the latter very rarely exceeding eleven feet, though we have

seen a few twelve and thirteen feet long. The females have no snout

development and some of them facially very much resemble a bull

terrier. The adults are called bulls and cows, while, curiously

enough, in the sealers' phrase, the offspring are referred to as

pups. The places where large numbers of them gather together during

the breeding season are known as rookeries! ``Rookery '' appears to

me to be inapplicable to a herd of sea elephants, though ``pup'

supplies a more apt description of the young.

The pups, born during September or early October, are covered with

a long, black, wavy fur, which they lose when about two months old,

and in its place comes a growth of silver-grey hair, which changes

later into the ordinary brown colour of the full-grown animal.

The old males and females leave the island about the end of January,

and are not seen again (except a few stray ones) till August in the

case of the males, and until September in the case of the females.

The fact that the bulls arrive first leads one to the conclusion that

their feeding-grounds must lie at a considerable distance and, in the

journey therefrom, the males, being the stronger, should arrive before

the females, who are heavy with young and probably make a somewhat

leisurely progress, feeding by the way.

The rookeries vary in size, containing from half a dozen to four or

five hundred cows; in the last case, of course, being an aggregation

of smaller rookeries, each with its proprietor, in the shape of an old

bull, lying in or somewhere near the centre. The normal rookery, as

far as I could judge, seemed to be one that contained about forty

cows, but once the nucleus was formed, it was hard to say how many

cows would be there before the season ended, as females keep arriving

for a period of about three weeks.

The young vary in length from three and a half to four and a half

feet, are born within a few days of arrival and suckled for about a

month, becoming enormously fat. The cow, who has not eaten during

the whole of this time and has become very thin, then leaves the pup,

but remains in the rookery for about two days, after which she

escapes to sea, remaining there till the beginning of January, when

she returns to the island to moult. The pups when weaned get such

rough usage in the rookery that they soon make off into the tussock

and sleep for about a month, living on their fat and acquiring a new

coat. The noise in one of the large rookeries is something to

remember--the barking of the pups, the whimpering and yelping of the

mothers and the roaring of the bulls.

Another feature in connexion with the rookery is the presence of what

may be called unattached bulls, which lie around at a little distance

from the cows, and well apart, forming a regular ring through which

any cow wishing to desert her pup or leave the rookery before the

proper time has very little chance of passing, as one of these grips

her firmly with his powerful flipper and stays her progress. The

lord of the harem, in the meantime, hastens to the scene of the

disturbance, whereupon the other bull decamps.

The sea immediately in the vicinity of a large rookery is generally

swarming with unattached bulls, who may be seen with their heads out

of the water eyeing each other and keeping a bright look out for

escaping cows. Now and again one may see a bull in the water gripping

a cow with his flipper, despite her struggles, and roaring at a couple

of others who show up menacingly quite close to him.

It may be remarked that towards the end of the season changes in the

proprietorship of a rookery are rather rapid, as continuous raids are

made by individuals from the outside. The need of continuous

vigilance and the results of many encounters eventually lead to the

defeat and discomfiture of the once proud proprietor.

I have never seen two bulls fight without first indulging in the usual

preliminaries, that is, roaring and advancing a few yards and repeating

the performance till within striking distance. Then both animals rear

high up, supporting themselves on the lower part of the body, and lunge

savagely with their whole weight each at his opponent's head or neck,

tearing the thick skin with their teeth and causing the blood to flow

copiously. Several lunges of this kind generally finish the battle,

whereupon the beaten one drops to his flippers and makes all haste

towards the water, glancing fearfully behind him on the way. We have

seen bulls with their snouts partly torn off and otherwise injured,

but worse injuries must occur in the rare, desperate battles which

sometimes take place between two very much enraged animals.

When a bull in the centre of a rookery has occasion to rush at an

interloper, he does so without regard to anything in his way, going

over cows and pups alike and very often crushing some of the latter

to death. Again, it seems as if all the outlying bulls recognize the

noise of the rookery bull, because each time he roars they all lift

up their heads and take notice, whereas others who have just been

roaring have not the slightest regard paid to them, except perhaps by

one immediately concerned.

The bull, during the breeding season, will on provocation attack a

man, and it is surprising how quickly the former covers the ground.

But on the whole he is an inoffensive animal. It is, of course,

impossible to venture into a rookery, as the cows are very savage

when they have the pups with them, but one can approach within a few

yards of its outskirts without danger. Their food consists of

cuttlefish, crabs and fish, and it is probable that they frequent the

ocean where this food is plentiful, when they are absent from the

island.

It has been stated that these animals are nearly extinct, but a visit

to Macquarie Island during the breeding season would be enough to

convince anybody to the contrary. There are thousands of them, and

though about seven hundred are killed during a season, the increase

in numbers each year, on Macquarie Island alone, must be very great.

The skuas were now returning to the island and their numbers and

corresponding clamour were daily increasing. They were the noisiest

and most quarrelsome birds we had, but their advent, we hoped, marked

the return of less rigorous weather.

Blake left for Lusitania Bay on the 17th, intending to spend several

months there in order to survey and geologically examine the southern

end, so we gave him a send-off dinner. He had a very rough trip to

the place, having to spend two nights in a cave about six miles from

his destination, as a result of getting lost in a dense fog.

Hamilton made a wire fish-trap to replace the one which he had lost,

and succeeded in getting a few fish on lowering it for the first time.

He discovered parasitical mites all over them on the outside, and the

flesh contained many worms.

A heavy north-north-west gale was experienced on the 26th, but the

weather during the last three days of August was very quiet, either

calms or light winds prevailing, and we took the opportunity to do some

work on Wireless Hill. All the wire stays were tightened, and various

ropes which appeared to require attention were renewed, while, as a

final improvement, the aerial was hauled as tight as we could make it.

We heard on July 31 that the `Rachel Cohen', a sealing-vessel, had

sailed for Macquarie Island and was bringing a few articles for us,

so there was something to which we could look forward in the immediate

future.

The most remarkable feature of the month's weather was the wind, as

gales blew on eleven days, and on seven other days the velocity reached

twenty-five miles per hour. Precipitation occurred on twenty-seven days,

and the average percentage of cloud was eighty-four. The mean

temperature was 38.1 degrees with extremes of 45.3 degrees and 26 degrees

F. A prolonged display of auroral light occurred on the night of the

17th, though no colours other than the light lemon-yellow of the arch

and streamers could be seen.

Bull elephants were now arriving in great numbers, and these monsters

could be seen lying everywhere on the isthmus, both up in the tussock,

on the beaches, and among the heaps of kelp. Now and again one would

lazily lift a flipper to scratch itself or heave its great bulk into

a more comfortable position.

The island is the habitat of two kinds of night-birds, one kind--a

species of petrel (Lesson's)--being much larger than the other, both

living in holes in the ground. They fly about in the darkness, their

cries resembling those made by a beaten puppy. The smaller bird

(apparently indigenous and a new species) was occasionally seen

flying over the water during the day, but the larger ones come out

almost exclusively at night. A light attracts them and Hamilton,

with the aid of a lantern and a butterfly-net, tried to catch some.

Others swooped about, well out of range, shrieking the while in an

uncanny way. Numbers of them were secured afterwards by being dug

out of their holes, Mac being just as keen to locate them as Hamilton

was to secure them. They cannot see well during the day, and seem to

have almost lost the use of their feet. They lay two small, white,

thin-shelled eggs at the end of their burrow; and in certain parts of

the island, where the burrows are numerous, the sound made by hundreds

of them at once, during the nesting season, somewhat resembles that

made by a high-power Marconi wireless set at close range.

Before Blake left Lusitania Bay, I promised to see that the hut on

Sandy Bay was re-stocked with provisions by the middle of the

month, so, on the 8th, Hamilton, Sandell and I carried a supply of

stores down there, leaving a note which informed him that we expected

the `Rachel Cohen' to arrive any day, and asking him to return to the

Shack. On the way down we came upon a vast quantity of wreckage

piled up on the beach, midway between ``The Nuggets'' and Sandy Bay.

This was all that remained of the sealing schooner, `Jessie Nichol',

which had been wrecked on December 21, 1910. Three men were drowned,

their bodies being interred among the tussock, each marked by a life

belt and a small board on which the name was roughly carved.

On our homeward trip we caught some wekas for the pot and duly

arrived at the Shack, tired, wet and hungry.

Next day, while sitting in the Shack reducing records, I heard a yell

from Hamilton to the effect that the `Rachel Cohen' was in sight, and

about an hour later she dropped anchor in North-East Bay.

The sea was fairly smooth and no time was lost in bringing a boat

ashore with the mails, of which each man received a share. A gang of

sealers was landed with a view to obtaining sea elephant and penguin

oil. I had wirelessed asking for a dinghy to be sent down, which

would enable Hamilton to do more marine work; and it now came to hand.

Further, we received an additional supply of photographic material and

some rubber tubing for the anemometer, but the much needed boots did not

arrive.

On the 18th a strong southerly gale sprang up and compelled the `Rachel

Cohen' to seek safety in flight; so she slipped her cable and put to sea.

She had not yet landed all the sealers' stores and was forced to hang

about the island till the weather moderated sufficiently for her to

return to an anchorage.

The gentoo penguins, which had been observed at the beginning of the

month building their nests, commenced to lay, and the first ten eggs

were collected by us on September 18. Many sea elephant rookeries

were now well-formed as the cows began to arrive about the 11th and were

soon landing in large numbers. The first pups were heard on the 20th,

and Bauer and I walked along to the rookery from which the barking

came and had a look at the newcomers. There were only four, none of

which was more than a few hours old, but they yapped their displeasure,

and the mothers made frantic lunges at us when we approached to get a

close view of them.

The sealers always gave the animals time to form their rookeries and

then killed the bulls for oil. A well-conditioned full-grown animal

yields about half a tun of oil, and as the commodity when refined has

a market value of from L20 to L25 per tun, it will be seen that the

industry is a profitable one. The cows being small never have a very

thick coating of blubber, but I have seen bulls with blubber to a

depth of eight inches, and some of them yield nearly two thousand

pounds, though I should estimate the average yield at about one

thousand one hundred pounds. The sealers in the early days used to

obtain the oil by cutting the blubber up into very small pieces and

melting it down in ``try '' pots. These pots, many of which may be

still seen about the island, were made of very thick iron and the

fuel used was the refuse taken from the pot itself. In the present

method steam digestors are used, and the oil from the melted blubber

is drawn off, after steam has been passing for twelve hours. Coal is

brought down by the sealing-vessel to be used as fuel. The ``elephant

season'' lasts only about three months, and within about four weeks of

its conclusion, the ``penguin season'' begins; the same gang of men

being employed as a rule. The most difficult operation in connexion

with both of these industries is undoubtedly the loading and unloading

of the vessel. If auxiliary power were used, the ship could then steam

to within half a mile of the shore, but as it is, a sailing-vessel has

to anchor about two miles off and the oil is towed in rafts over that

distance.

We heard sounds from Adelie Land wireless station for the first time

on September 25, 1912, but the signals were very faint and all that

we could receive was: ``Please inform Pennant Hills.'' Sawyer called

them repeatedly for several hours, but heard no acknowledgment.

Every effort was made to get in touch with them from this time

forward, Sawyer remaining at the instrument until daylight every

morning.

The Royal penguins returned to the island on the 27th and immediately

commenced to make their way to the rookeries. They had been absent

since April and were very fat after their long migration.

On the 28th Blake and Hamilton started out in the dinghy for Lusitania

Bay. They had already made a step and sprit, and, with a calico sail

hoisted, the frail craft ran before a light breeze. Having a fair wind

they made good headway along the coast, dropping in at a gentoo penguin

rookery en route, and collecting about two hundred and twenty eggs.

Mac was a passenger and was a very sick dog all the trip.

Shortly after their departure, the `Rachel Cohen', which had been blown

away on the 18th, reappeared and again anchored. The captain reported

having seen numerous icebergs, some of which were very large, about

thirty miles to the eastward of the island. The sealers immediately

commenced to get away the rest of their stores and coal and also to put

some oil aboard the vessel, but on the following day the wind increased

to such an extent that, in attempting to reach the ship with a raft of

oil, they were blown down the coast and had to beach the boat several

miles away.

On the night of the 29th Adelie Land wireless station was again heard

tapping out a message apparently with the hope that some station

would receive it. All we got was: ``Having a hell of a time waiting

for calm weather to put up more masts.'' Sawyer again repeatedly

called, but they evidently could not hear him as no reply was

received, and the above message was repeated time after time.

The weather during September was not quite so rough as that of the

previous two or three months, but misty days were very frequent.

Gales were experienced on six days and strong winds on nine days, but

several quiet periods occurred. The average temperature was 38.6

degrees, with extremes of 44.7 degrees and 26 degrees F.

October was ushered in by a strong gale and rather heavy rain-squalls.

The `Rachel Cohen' had a severe buffeting, though she was lying on the

lee side of the island.

Just about three-quarters of a mile to the west of the Shack were two

large sea elephant rookeries, very close to each other, and on the

3rd Sandell and I went along to see what was happening there. We

found about two hundred and fifty cows in the nearer one, and, as

closely as we could count, about five hundred in the adjacent colony.

The babel of sounds made one feel thankful that these noisy creatures

were some distance from the Shack. Nearly all the cows had pups,

some of which had reached a fair size, while others were only a few

hours old. We saw several dead ones, crushed out almost flat, and

some skuas were busily engaged gorging themselves on the carcases.

These birds are indeed professional plunderers, and will venture

almost anywhere in pursuit of food.

During the evening we again heard Adelie Land station working, and

the burden of their message to an apparently chance audience was:

``We do not seem able to get Macquarie Island, all is well, though

bad weather has so far prevented any attempt at sledging.''

Sawyer again called them at regular intervals for the rest of the

night, but, as before, got no response.

Hamilton and Blake were busy at Lusitania Bay during the first two

weeks of October securing sea elephant specimens and collecting eggs.

They visited Caroline Cove where is established a giant petrel

rookery containing about four hundred birds, and gathered a large

number of eggs--purely specimens, as they are no use otherwise.

The `Rachel Cohen' finally left us on the 8th, expecting to pay

another visit in December for the purpose of taking off the sea

elephant oil procured by the sealers. Sandell and I visited the

gentoo penguin colony in Aerial Cove during the afternoon, for the

purpose of getting a few eggs. We found plenty there and collected

as many as we required. On returning to the empty nests, the birds

would first of all peer round to assure themselves that the eggs were

really missing, and then throw their heads back, swaying them from

side to side to the accompaniment of loud, discordant cries.

Several of us started out on the 10th to visit the west coast for the

purpose of getting some wekas and, incidentally, to make any

observations possible. We saw thousands of sea elephants along the

coast and passed many rookeries of various sizes. There were a large

number of wekas about, but after shooting fourteen we were satisfied

with our bag.

A westerly gale during the night proved too much for the aerial, and

down it came. Blake and Hamilton were away, so Sawyer, Sandell and I

went up, and after much battling and frequent use of the ``handy

billy'' succeeded in fixing things. We also re-tightened the wire

stays and thoroughly overhauled the ropes. Snow and sleet fell all

the time, making the task most disagreeable.

About the middle of the month the Royal penguins commenced to lay, and

on the 17th Sandell and I went to their rookeries at ``The Nuggets''

and collected about fifteen dozen eggs, which we buried in a hole in the

bank of the creek for preservation. This species of penguin is the one

which is killed for oil, not because it is any fatter than the others,

but because it lives in such large colonies. There is one rookery of

these birds on the south end of the island which covers an area of

sixteen and a half acres, whilst at ``The Nuggets'' there are numbers

of them scattered along the banks of a creek which reaches the sea,

aggregating ten acres. At the latter place are situated the oil works

belonging to the sealers.

From careful observation I should say that the number of birds killed

during the season would not total one hundred and fifty thousand.

The method of killing--by blows from a heavy club--is about as humane

as any that could be adopted, and the yearly increase in numbers in

the only rookeries that are being worked is certainly greater than

the decrease due to the depredations of the sealers. Apart from this,

there are acres of rookeries on the island from which not a single

bird is taken, and they go on year after year adding thousands upon

thousands to their already vast numbers.

This species resembles the others in habits, and I shall not describe

them at any length. They are of the same colour as the Victoria

penguins, but have a more orderly crest. Their rookeries are always

on or very close to a running stream which forms the highway along

which they travel to and fro. There is no policeman on duty, but a

well-ordered procession is somehow arranged whereby those going up

keep to one side and those coming down keep to the other. Once they

are in the rookery, however, different conditions obtain. Here are

fights, squabbles and riots, arising from various causes, the chief of

which appears to be a disposition on the part of some birds to loiter

about. During the nesting time much disorder prevails, and fights, in

which beaks and flippers are energetically used, may be seen in

progress at various places throughout the rookery. The nests are made

of small stones, and occasionally, a bone or two from the skeleton of

some long-dead relative forms part of the bulwarks. The attempt on the

part of some birds to steal stones from surrounding nests is about the

most fruitful cause of a riot, and the thief generally gets soundly

thrashed, besides which all have a peck at him as he makes his way with

as much haste as possible from the danger-zone. As the season advances,

these rookeries become covered with filthy slush, but it seems to make

no difference to the eggs, as the chicks appear in due course. When

the moulting process is in full swing the rookeries are very crowded,

and feathers and slush then become mixed together, making the place

anything but fragrant.

A fifty-four mile gale from the west-north-west blew down on us on the

20th, but shortly after noon it weakened, and, towards evening, with

the shifting of the wind to southwest, came squalls of sleet and snow

and a drop in temperature. Hamilton returned from Lusitania Bay in

the dinghy on the 21st, but Blake stopped there as he had not yet

finished his work in that locality. The dinghy was well laden with

specimens of various kinds and, on the way up, some wood and pickets

were left at Green Valley for future requirements.

On the 25th Sandell and I visited the west coast, but, instead of

going the usual way, we walked down the east coast and went up the

creek at ``The Nuggets'' with a view to having a look at the penguin

colonies along its course, finally crossing over the hills and

getting into another creek, which we followed all the way down to the

west coast. Along this creek were numerous waterfalls, one of which

was quite sixty feet in height with wind-blown spray frozen white on

the rocks on either side. We came across several giant petrel

rookeries, and were treated to a display of the ``stinker's'' ability

to make himself objectionable. A pair of sooty albatrosses were seen

nesting on the front of a rocky steep, but on climbing up we found

that they had not yet laid. After catching some wekas and taking a

few photographs we returned to the Shack.

On the last day of the month several of us crossed the hills to the

west coast in search of plants and birds' eggs. We secured a number

of plant specimens--a further sign of the arrival of spring--including

two which bore a very small flower, and were most successful in

obtaining skuas', giant petrels' and sooty albatrosses' eggs.

During the evening I received a message from Captain Davis stating

that the `Aurora' would visit us in about three weeks' time and

inquiring if we needed any supplies. This was entirely unexpected,

as we thought that no more would be seen of the Ship until she came

to take us home at the end of March 1913.

Earthquake shocks were felt at 1.55 A.M. and 9.35 A.M. on October

28, but did no damage other than to bring down some loose rock.

Auroral displays were rather frequent but not very pronounced,

and in most cases could only be classed as ``glows.''

A bright sunny morning on the 3rd induced Hamilton and me to make a

photographic excursion along the coast. Hitherto only still-life

photos had been taken, but with the sunlight we were then having, any

work was possible, so we determined to have some ``shots'' at the sea

elephants. They were rather difficult subjects, strange to say, but

we spent some time amongst them and did famously, till a snow-squall

made us suspend operations.

We heard the discordant but mournful cry of a sooty albatross coming

from the cliff-front, so Hamilton climbed up and, after scrambling

about for a while, succeeded in finding a nest, which contained one

egg. This led him to look along the cliffs fronting the east coast,

and on the following morning he found several nests and caught two

birds, both of which were taken by hand while on the nest. They had

beautiful plumage and made very fine specimens.

Blake returned from Lusitania Bay during the afternoon of the 4th and

reported that he required only four or five days to complete the

survey. The configuration of the island at the southern end is vastly

different to that shown in the published charts, and this became more

apparent as Blake's figures were plotted.

The news that Piastre had won the Melbourne Cup was flashed about all

over the southern ocean during the evening, and we picked it up; but

as this was the first we had heard of the animal, nobody seemed much

interested. It certainly gave a turn to the conversation, and quite

a sporting tone permeated the discussions of the ensuing two or three

days.

The subjects of discussion were usually those of environment, and

most of our talk centred round sea elephants, sea-leopards, penguins,

temperatures,wind, wireless telegraphy, fish, aurorae, exploration,

ships, Queensland and New Zealand. Sea elephants and penguins do

offer scope for a considerable amount of conversation, as one observes

them under such different circumstances, and they are so odd that

something remarkable is always associated with the sight of them. The

weather, being practically the bete noire of our existence, came in

for a good deal of abuse. Wireless telegraphy is a mighty interesting

subject at all times, and we passed many hours of our stay in discussing

its future. All the members were, allegedly, fishermen of some calibre,

and when I have said that, anybody with a knowledge of the man who

claims ability as an angler will know what all the others, in turn, had

to receive with restrained and respectful admiration. The advantages

of settlement in Queensland were so apparent to at least one member of

the party that he simply could not understand why thousands were not

annually killed in the rush to get to this, ``the greatest of all the

Australian States.'' Good old silky oak !

The scenery of New Zealand was almost as well known to us as to

anybody who has lived in the country all his life, and three of us

had never been there. We have sat round the Shack sometimes and only

the roar of a sea elephant outside reminded us that we were not, as we

imagined, at a Maori ``tangi.'' The wages to be earned there, the

delights of travelling, the legislators, Rotorua, kauri pine, and the

moon they've got in Auckland--we've heard of all these and marvelled at

them. ``Kapai te Maori!''

Blake and Hamilton went to Sandy Bay in the dinghy on the 6th in order

to complete some work. They improved the hut there, to the extent of

making a fire-place and laying barrel-staves on the floor, afterwards

bringing a boat-load of timber from the `Jessie Nichol' wreck and rigging

up a board bunk sufficiently large to accommodate both of them.

While walking down to the `Clyde' wreck for some wood on the 7th I saw

a strange bird on the beach, and, returning to the Shack for the gun,

I got him at the second shot. He was a land bird and had evidently

been blown out of his course, as none of his kind had been seen before

on the island.

On getting up on the following morning I found poor old Ma lying dead,

and the feathers which lay about indicated that she had been the

victim of a savage assault, but whether at the teeth of a dog or the

beak of a skua I was unable to determine. This was most unfortunate,

as the hens had all started to lay again two days previously; but

apart from this she was a funny old creature and one could almost

hold a conversation with her, so we regretted her loss. However, to

make amends for this disaster the Victoria penguins started to lay on

the same day, and as several of their rookeries were only a few

minutes' walk from the Shack, the position was much the same as if we

owned a poultry farm.

Hamilton returned from Sandy Bay on the 17th and immediately set about

collecting shags' eggs. He visited Aerial Cove for the purpose but

did not get enough, and was compelled to go to West Point, where he

gathered twenty-four dozen for specimens. He now had a collection

of eggs of all birds which nest on the island, with the exception of

the weka and the tern.

At 6.B0 P.M. on November 22 the `Aurora' steamed into North-East Bay

and dropped anchor. Hamilton, Blake and Sawyer launched the dinghy

and pulled out to receive the mails, which they brought ashore for

distribution. All on board were well and Captain Davis sent word to

say he would land in the morning, bringing our goods and some visitors

--Professor Flynn of Hobart and Mr. Denny.

The `Aurora' next day steamed round North Head and took a series of

soundings between the main island and the Judge and Clerk. These

latter islets lie about eight miles to the north of North Head, and

are merely rocks about eighty feet high upon which thousands of shags

and other birds have established rookeries. On the following morning

we said good-bye to the Ship, which weighed anchor and steamed away,

leaving us once more to our own devices.

All the flowering plants were now showing their extremely modest blooms,

and the tussock looked like a field of wheat, each stem having a decided

ear. The gentoo penguins, as well as the giant petrels, had hatched

their eggs, and the parent birds were shouldering full responsibilities.

Blake and Hamilton were now prepared for another visit to the southern

end. Blake had almost completed the chart of the island, and the

difference between it and the published chart was very striking.

In the latter case the south end was shown as being six miles wide,

whereas it is in reality only a little more than two miles across,

and the width of the island is nowhere more than three and a half

miles. About twenty miles from the southern end lie two islets known

as the Bishop and Clerk. The former, which is the larger, is covered

with a growth of tussock, while the latter is mainly bare rock.

A distinct rise in temperature was noticeable during November and the

mean worked out at 41.6 degrees, while the extremes were 49 degrees

and 82 degrees F. Strong winds were recorded on thirteen days and six

short-lived gales occurred. We had less precipitation than during any

previous month, as thirteen dry days were experienced. The average

cloudiness was 93 per cent.; largely due to the frequent foggy or misty

weather.

On December 2, at 10 A.M., Blake and I packed our sleeping-bags and

blankets and started for Sandy Bay. The swags weighed only thirty-five

pounds each and we made a rather quick trip.

After repairing the dilapidated shack, we sallied out for the purpose

of catching our evening meal, and with the aid of Mac soon succeeded

in getting eight wekas. A sea elephant was then killed, and the

blubber, heart and tongue taken; the first-named for use as fuel and

the others for food. We cleaned the wekas and put them in the pot,

cooking the whole lot together, a proceeding which enabled us to forgo

cooking a breakfast in the morning. The beach was swarming with young

sea elephants and many could be seen playing about in a small, shallow

lagoon.

Just south of the hut there is a sandy spit and one of the only

stretches of beach on the island, where thousands of penguins from

the adjacent rookeries were congregated, amongst them being three King

penguins, which were easily distinguishable on account of their great

size.

Feeling a little weary, I sought the hut about 9 P.M. and turned into

the sleeping-bag, which was placed on a board bottom covered with

tussock, which was by no means uncomfortable. The old place smoked

so much that we decided to let the fire die down, and as soon as the

smoke had cleared away, the imperfections of the hut became apparent;

rays of moonlight streaming through countless openings in the walls

and roof.

We rose at 6.30 A.M. While Blake lit the fire, I went out to fill

the billy at a small stream running out of the hills about sixty yards

away. After breakfast we set out for Green Valley, but had not gone

very far when it began to blow very hard from the south, straight in

our faces, and we scrambled on towards our destination amidst squalls

of snow, hail and sleet. Eventually we reached the valley and had a

somewhat meagre lunch in a small cave. The title ``cave'' rather

dignifies this hole in the rock, but it was the only friendly spot

in a most inhospitable locality, and we were inclined to be generous,

On the whole, the length of coast we had traversed was found to be as

rough as any on the island. There is not a stretch of one hundred

yards anywhere that can be termed ``good going.'' In many places we

found that the steep cliffs approached very close to the water, and

the mournful cry of the sooty albatross could be heard coming from

points high on the face of the cliffs, while the wekas were so tame

that one could almost walk up and catch them.

A large creek whose banks are overhung with a coarse growth of fern

makes its way out of the hills and runs into Sandy Bay. Just a

little to the south of this creek Blake discovered a terminal moraine

about two hundred yards in length and fifty feet wide. It rests on

sandstone about fifteen feet above the present sea-level and the

boulders consist of polished and sub-angular blocks of sandstone and

porphyry of various sizes. It evidently belongs to the valley or

to a later stage of glaciation. The rocks along the coast are all a

volcanic series, and basic dykes are visible in many places.

We arose at 7 A.M. next day and breakfasted on porridge, weka, fried

heart, ``hard-tack'' and cocoa. Leaving the hut shortly afterwards

we climbed on to the hills and travelled south for several miles in

order to fix the position of some lakes and creeks. There was one

lake in the vicinity about half a mile long and to all appearances

very deep. It lay between two steep hills, and the grassy bank at

one end and the small sloping approach at the other gave it an

artificial appearance, while the water was beautifully clear and

perfectly fresh. At the sloping end, dozens of skuas were busily

engaged washing themselves and the flapping of their wings in the

water made a remarkable noise, audible at a considerable distance on

the hill-tops. On returning to the hut at Sandy Bay several rabbits

secured by Mac were cleaned and put on to boil.

Next morning a dense mist shrouded the island till about 11 A.M., but

the weather becoming fine and bright, we started for the west coast

about noon. During our progress along the bed of a creek, Blake

discovered what was believed to be a glacial deposit containing fossil

bones, and considerable time was spent in examining this and attempting

to extract whole specimens, thereby making it too late to proceed to the

west. On returning to the hut we decided to pack the swags. We reached

home just in time for tea, finding that nothing unusual had occurred

during our four days' absence.

Hamilton and Blake went out fishing in the dinghy on the 9th and made

a remarkable haul of fish, sixty in number, ranging in size from a

few ounces to twelve and a half pounds. They were all of the same

species, somewhat resembling rock cod, but as usual they were covered

with external parasites, and their flesh was full of worm-cysts.

Hamilton preserved a number of them and the rest were cooked, but we

did not relish them very much and the one meal was enough.

On December 11 we had a hard gale all day, the anemometer recording

``bursts'' of over fifty miles an hour frequently, while the average

exceeded forty miles an hour throughout. Twelve months ago on that

day we had made our first landing on the island from the `Aurora', but

vastly different weather conditions prevailed at the time.

Christmas Day was now very close at hand, and as Blake and Hamilton

were going to celebrate at the other end of the island, whence they

had gone on the 10th, Sawyer, Sandell and I arranged a little ``spread''

for ourselves. Sawyer produced a cake which he had received in the

recent mail, and some friend had forwarded a plum pudding to Sandell,

so on Christmas Day these, with a boiled ham, some walnuts, mince

rolls and a bottle of stout were spread on the table, which had been

decorated with tussock stuck in sea elephants' tusks. The highest

temperature registered on the island during our stay--51.8 degrees F.--

was recorded on Christmas Day, and the sun seemed so warm that Sandell

and I ventured into the sea for a dip, but the temperature of the water

was not high enough to make it an agreeable experience.

During the evening of the 26th we received a message saying that the

`Aurora' had left Hobart on her trip south to bring back the two parties

from Antarctica, but no mention of picking us up on the return journey

was made.

The King penguins and ``night birds'' had laid by this time, and

Hamilton added more eggs to his collection. He found for the first

time a colony of mutton birds near the south end. He also came upon

a mollymawk rookery on the south-western point of the island, and

managed to take one of the birds by hand.

Blake and he had an accident in the dinghy on the 29th, fortunately

attended by no serious results. They had gone from Lusitania Bay

to the south end, and, while attempting to land through the surf, the

boat struck a rock and capsized, throwing them into the water. They

had many things in the boat but lost only two billies, two pannikins,

a sounding line and Hamilton's hat, knife and pipe. Their blankets

floated ashore in a few minutes, and the oars came floating in later

in the day. After the capsize Hamilton managed to reach the boat and

turn her over, and Blake made for a kelp-hung rock, but, after pulling

himself up on to it, was immediately washed off and had to swim ashore.

The boat was afterwards found to be stove-in in two places, though the

breaks were easily patched up subsequently.

New Year's Eve came and with keen anticipations we welcomed the advent

of 1913.

CHAPTER XXVII THROUGH ANOTHER YEAR

by G. F. Ainsworth

We had now thrown a year behind and the work we set out to

accomplish was almost finished; so it was with pleasurable feelings

that we took up the burden of completion, looking forward to the

arrival of April 1913 which should bring us final relief and the

prospects of civilisation. I shall deal with the first three months

of the year as one period, since almost all the field-work, except

photography, had been done, and, after the return of Blake and

Hamilton from Lusitania Bay on January 8, our life was one of

routine; much time being devoted to packing and labelling specimens

in anticipation of departure.

The first business of the year was to overhaul the wireless station,

and on the 6th, Sawyer, Sandell and I spent the day laying in a

supply of benzine from Aerial Cove, changing worn ropes, tightening

stay-wires, straightening the southern masts and finally hauling the

aerial taut. These duties necessitated much use of the ``handy billy,''

and one has but to form an acquaintance with this desirable ``person''

to thoroughly appreciate his value.

Blake and Hamilton returned on January 8 and reported that their work

was finished at the southern end. Thenceforth they intended to devote

their time to finishing what remained to be done at the northern end

and in adding to their collections. Blake, for instance, resolved to

finish his chart of the island, and, if time permitted, to make a

topographical survey of the locality, as it was of great geological

interest. Hamilton made the discovery that a number of bird specimens

he had packed away were mildewed, and as a result he was compelled to

overhaul the whole lot and attend to them. He found another colony of

mutton birds on North Head, the existence of which was quite unexpected

till he dug one out of a burrow thought to contain ``night-birds.''

About the middle of January I endeavoured to do a little meteorological

work with the aid of some box-kites nanufactured by Sandell. But

though a number of them were induced to fly, we had no success in

getting them up with the instruments attached. They all had a habit of

suddenly losing equilibrium and then indulging in a series of rapid

dives and plunges which usually ended in total wreckage.

The `Rachel Cohen' again visited the island on January 26, but this

time she anchored off ``The Nuggets,'' whither the sealers had gone to

live during the penguin season. We could see the ship lying about a

mile offshore, and walked down to get our mails and anything else she

had brought along for us. I received a letter from the Secretary of

the Expedition saying that he had made arrangements for us to return

by the `Rachel Cohen' early in April, and the news caused a little

excitement, being the only definite information we had had concerning

relief.

The end of the first month found Blake and Hamilton both very busy

in making suitable boxes for specimens. Many of the larger birds

could not be packed in ordinary cases, so Hamilton had to make

specially large ones to accommodate them, and Blake's rock specimens

being very heavy, extra strong boxes had to be made, always keeping

in view the fact that each was to weigh not more than eighty pounds,

so as to ensure convenient handling.

After a silence of about four months, we again heard Adelie Land on

February 3, but the same old trouble existed, that is, they could

not hear us. Sawyer called them again and again, getting no reply,

but we reckoned that conditions would improve in a few weeks, as the

hours of darkness increased.

Hamilton and I made a trip to the hill-tops on the 4th for the purpose

of taking a series of plant and earth temperatures which were of

interest biologically, and while there I took the opportunity of

obtaining temperatures in all the lakes we saw. Hamilton also took

some panoramic photographs from the various eminences and all of them

turned out well.

During the evening Adelie Land sent out a message saying that Dr.

Mawson had not yet returned to the Base from his sledging trip and

Sawyer received it without difficulty, but though he ``pounded away''

in return for a considerable time, he was not heard, as no reply or

acknowledgment was made.

The `Rachel Cohen' remained till the 5th, when a northerly gale arose

and drove her away. As she had a good cargo of oil on board no one

expected her to return. We had sent our mail on board several days

previously as experience had shown us that the sailing date of ships

visiting the island was very uncertain.

Sandell met with a slight though painful accident on the 7th. He was

starting the engine, when it ``backfired'' and the handle flying off

with great force struck him on the face, inflicting a couple of nasty

cuts, loosening several teeth, and lacerating the inside of his cheek.

A black eye appeared in a day or two and his face swelled considerably,

but nothing serious supervened. In a few days the swelling had subsided

and any anxiety we felt was at an end.

We now had only two sheep left, and on the 8th Blake and I went to

kill one. Mac accompanied us. Seeing the sheep running away, she

immediately set off after them, notwithstanding our threats, yells

and curses. They disappeared over a spur, but shortly afterwards

Mac returned, and, being severely thrashed, immediately left for

home. We looked for the sheep during the rest of the day but could

find no trace of them, and though we searched for many days it was

not till five weeks had elapsed that we discovered them on a small

``landing'' about half-way down the face of the cliff. They had

apparently rushed over the edge and, rolling down, had finally come

to a stop on the ledge where they were found later, alive and well.

On the 8th Adelie Land was heard by us calling the `Aurora' to return

at once and pick up the rest of the party, stating also that Lieutenant

Ninnis and Dr. Mertz were dead. All of us were shocked at the grievous

intelligence and every effort was made by Sawyer to call up Adelie Land,

but without success.

On the following day we received news from Australia of the disaster

to Captain Scott's party.

Blake, who was now geologizing and doing topographical work,

discovered several lignite seams in the hills on the east coast; he

had finished his chart of the island. The mainland is simply a range

of mountains which have been at some remote period partly submerged.

The land meets the sea in steep cliffs and bold headlands, whose

general height is from five hundred to seven hundred feet, with many

peaks ranging from nine hundred and fifty to one thousand four

hundred and twenty feet, the latter being the height of Mount

Hamilton, which rears up just at the back of Lusitania Bay. Evidence

of extreme glaciation is everywhere apparent, and numerous tarns and

lakes are scattered amongst the hills, the tops of which are barren,

wind-swept and weather-worn. The hill sides are deeply scored by

ravines, down which tumble small streams, forming cascades at

intervals on their hurried journey towards the ocean. Some of these

streams do not reach the sea immediately, but disappear in the loose

shingly beaches of peaty swamps. The west coast is particularly

rugged, and throughout its length is strewn wreckage of various kinds,

some of which is now one hundred yards from the water's edge. Very

few stretches of what may be called ``beach'' occur on the island;

the foreshores consisting for the most part of huge water-worn boulders

or loose gravel and shingle, across which progress is slow and difficult.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

A Section across Macquarie Island through Mt. Elder

Apparently the ground shelves very rapidly under the water, as a

sounding of over two thousand fathoms was obtained by the `Aurora'

at a distance of eight miles from the east coast. The trend of the

island is about eleven degrees from true north; the axis lying north

by east to south by west. At either end are the island-groups already

referred to, and their connexion with the mainland may be traced by the

sunken rocks indicated by the breaking seas on the line of reef.

A very severe storm about the middle of the month worked up a tremendous

sea, which was responsible for piling hundreds of tons of kelp on the

shore, and for several days tangled masses could be seen drifting about

like small floating islands.

On the 20th an event occurred to which we had long looked forward,

and which was now eagerly welcomed. Communication was established

with the Main Base in Adelie Land by wireless! A message was received

from Dr. Mawson confirming the deaths of Ninnis and Mertz, and stating

that the `Aurora' had not picked up the whole party. Sawyer had a short

talk with Jeffryes, the Adelie Land operator, and among other scraps of

news told him we were all well.

Hamilton killed a sea elephant on the 22nd. The animal was a little

over seventeen feet long and thirteen and a half feet in girth just at

the back of the flippers, while the total weight was more than four

tons. It took Hamilton about a day to complete the skinning, and,

during the process, the huge brute had to be twice turned over, but

such is the value of the nautical handy-billy that two men managed it

rather easily. When the skin had been removed, five of us dragged it

to the sealers' blubber-shed, where it was salted, spread out, and

left to cure.

We had communication with Adelie Land again on the 26th, and messages

were sent and received by both stations. Dr. Mawson wirelessed to

the effect that the `Aurora' would, after picking up Wild's party, make

an attempt to return to Adelie Land if conditions were at all

favourable.

Finding that provisions were running rather short on the last day of

February, we reduced ourselves to an allowance of one pound of sugar

per week each, which was weighed out every Thursday. Altogether

there were only forty-five pounds remaining. Thenceforth it was the

custom for each to bring his sugar-tin to the table every meal. The

arrangement had its drawbacks, inasmuch as no sugar was available for

cooking unless a levy were made. Thus puddings became rareties,

because most of us preferred to use the sugar in tea or coffee.

March came blustering in, accompanied by a sixty-four-mile gale which

did damage to the extent of blowing down our annexe, tearing the

tarpaulin off the stores at the back and ripping the spouting off

the Shack. A high sea arose and the conformation of the beach on the

north-western side of the isthmus was completely changed. Numbers of

sea elephants' tusks and bones were revealed, which had remained

buried in the shingle probably for many years, and heaps of kelp

were piled up where before there had been clean, stony beach. Kelp

is a very tough weed, but after being washed up and exposed to the air

for a few days, begins to decay, giving forth a most disagreeable smell.

At this time we caught numerous small fish amongst the rocks at the

water's edge with a hand line about four feet long. It was simply a

matter of dropping in the line, watching the victim trifle with

destiny and hauling him in at the precise moment.

Wireless business was now being done nightly with Adelie Land, and on

the 7th I received a message from Dr. Mawson saying that the party

would in all probability be down there for another season, and

stating the necessity for keeping Macquarie Island station going till

the end of the year. This message I read out to the men, and gave

them a week in which to view the matter. The alternatives were to

return in April or to remain till the end of the year.

I went through the whole of the stores on the 10th, and found that the

only commodities upon which we would have to draw sparingly were milk,

sugar, kerosene, meats and coal. The flour would last till May, but

the butter allowance would have to be reduced to three pounds per week.

It was on the 12th that we found the lost sheep, but as we had some

wekas, sufficient to last us for several days, I did not kill one till

the 15th. On that day four of us went down towards the ledge where

they were standing, and shot one, which immediately toppled off and

rolled down some distance into the tussock, the other one leaping

after it without hesitation. While Blake and Hamilton skinned the

dead sheep, Sandell and I caught the other and tethered it at the

bottom of the hill amongst a patch of Maori cabbage, as we thought it

would probably get lost if left to roam loose. However, on going to

the spot next day, the sheep was nearly dead, having got tangled up

in the rope. So we let it go free, only to lose the animal a day or

two later, for it fell into a bog and perished.

On March 22 a lunar eclipse occurred, contact lasting a little over

three hours from 9.45 P.M. till within a few minutes of 1 A.M. on

the 23rd. The period of total eclipse was quite a lengthy one, and

during the time it lasted the darkness was intense. Cloud interfered

for a while with our observations in the total stage. No coronal

effect was noted, though a pulsating nebulous area appeared in front

of the moon just before contact.

A message came on the 27th saying that the `Rachel Cohen' was sailing

for Macquarie Island on May 2, and would bring supplies as well as

take back the men who wished to be relieved, and this was forwarded in

turn to Dr. Mawson.

He replied, saying that the `Aurora' would pick us up about the middle

of November and convey us to Antarctica, thence returning to Australia;

but if any member wished to return by the `Rachel Cohen' he could do so,

though notification would have to be given, in order to allow of

substitutes being appointed. All the members of the party elected to

stay, and I asked each man to give an outline of the work he intended

to pursue during the extended period.

During March strong winds were recorded on fourteen days, reaching gale-

force on six occasions. The gale at the beginning of the month was the

strongest we had experienced, the velocity at 5.40 A.M. on the 1st

reaching sixty-four miles per hour. Precipitation occurred on twenty-

six days and the average amount of cloud was 85 per cent. A bright

auroral display took place on the 6th, lasting from 11.20 till 11.45 P.M.

It assumed the usual arch-form stretching from the south-east to south-

west, and streamers and shafts of light could be observed pulsating

upwards towards the zenith.

We now started on what might be called the second stage of our existence

on the island. In the preceding pages I have endeavoured to give some

idea of what happened during what was to have been our full period; but

unforeseen circumstances compelled us to extend our stay for eight months

more, until the `Aurora' came to relieve us in November. As the routine

was similar in a good many respects to that which we had just gone

through, I shall now refer to only the more salient features of our life.

The loyalty of my fellows was undoubted, and though any of them could

have returned if he had felt so inclined, I am proud to say that they

all decided to see it through. When one has looked forward hopefully

to better social conditions, more comfortable surroundings and reunion

with friends, it gives him a slight shock to find that the door has

been slammed, so to speak, for another twelve months. Nevertheless,

we all found that a strain of philosophy smoothed out the rough

realities, and in a short time were facing the situation with composure,

if not actual contentment.

We decided now to effect a few improvements round about our abode, and

all set to work carrying gravel from the beach to put down in front of

the Shack, installing a sink-system to carry any waste water, fixing

the leaking roof and finally closing up the space between the lining

and the wall to keep out the rats.

We expected the `Rachel Cohen' to leave Hobart with our stores on May

2, and reckoned that the voyage would occupy two weeks. Thus, it

would be six weeks before she arrived. I was therefore compelled on

the 10th to reduce the sugar allowance to half a pound per week. We

were now taking it in turns to go once a week and get some wekas, and

it was always possible to secure about a dozen, which provided

sufficient meat for three dinners. Breakfast consisted generally of

fish, which we caught, or sea elephant in some form, whilst we had

tinned fish for lunch.

Sandell installed a telephone service between the Shack and the

wireless station about the middle of April, the parts all being made

by himself; and it was certainly an ingenious and valuable contrivance.

I, in particular, learned to appreciate the convenience of it as time

went on. The buzzer was fixed on the wall close to the head of my bunk

and I could be called any time during the night from the wireless

station, thus rendering it possible to reply to communications

without loss of time. Further, during the winter nights, when auroral

observations had to be made, I could retire if nothing showed during

the early part of the night, leaving it to Sandell, who worked till 2

or 3 A.M. to call me if any manifestation occurred.

We had heavy gales from the 12th to the 17th inclusive, the force of

the wind during the period frequently exceeding fifty miles per

hour, and, on the first-mentioned date, the barometer fell to 27.8

inches. The usual terrific seas accompanied the outburst.

Finding that there were only eight blocks of coal left, I reduced the

weekly allowance to one. We had a good supply of tapioca, but

neither rice nor sago, and as the sealers had some of the latter two,

but none of the former, we made an exchange to the extent of twelve

pounds of tapioca for eight pounds of rice and some sago. Only

fifteen pounds of butter remained on the 20th, and I divided this

equally, as it was now one of the luxuries, and each man could use his

own discretion in eating it. As it was nearing the end of April, and

no further word concerning the movements of the `Rachel Cohen' had been

received, I wirelessed asking to be immediately advised of the exact

date of the vessel's departure. A reply came that the ship would

definitely reach us within two months. I answered, saying we could

wait two months, but certainly no longer.

With a view to varying the menu a little, Blake and I took Mac up on

the hills on April 26 to get some rabbits and, after tramping for

about six hours, we returned with seven. In our wanderings we visited

the penguin rookeries at ``The Nuggets,'' and one solitary bird sat in

the centre of the vast area which had so lately been a scene of much

noise and contention.

On May 1 I took an inventory of the stores and found that they would

last for two months if economically used. Of course, I placed

confidence in the statement that the `Rachel Cohen' would reach the

island within that time.

With the coming of May wintry conditions set in, and at the end of

the first week the migrants had deserted our uninviting island. Life

with us went on much the same as usual, but the weather was rather

more severe than that during the previous year, and we were confined

to the Shack a good deal.

The sealers who were still on the island had shifted back to the Hut

at the north end so that they were very close to us and frequently

came over with their dog in the evenings to have a yarn. The majority

of them were men who had ``knocked about'' the world and had known

many rough, adventurous years. One of them in particular was rather

fluent, and we were often entertained from his endless repertoire of

stories.

On the 23rd, finding that there were seventy-seven and a half pounds

of flour remaining, and ascertaining that the sealers could let us

have twenty-five pounds, if we ran short, I increased the allowance

for bread to twelve and a half pounds per week, and this, when made

up, gave each man two and three-quarter pounds of bread. Our supply

of oatmeal was very low, but in order to make it last we now started

using a mixture of oatmeal and sago for breakfast; of course, without

any milk or sugar.

Just about this time Mac gave birth to six pups and could not help us

in obtaining food. She had done valuable service in this connexion,

and the loss in the foraging strength of the party was severely felt

for several weeks. She was particularly deadly in hunting rabbits

and wekas, and though the first-named were very scarce within a few

miles of the Shack, she always managed to unearth one or two somewhere.

Hut-slippers were made out of the rabbit skins and they were found to

be a great boon, one being able to sit down for a while without his

feet ``going.''

June arrived and with it much rough, cold weather. A boat was

expected to come to our relief, at the very latest, by the 30th.

We had a very chilly period during the middle of the month, and it

was only by hand-feeding the ``jacket'' of the wireless motor that

any work could be done by the station, as the tank outside was almost

frozen solid.

The tide-gauge clock broke down towards the end of the month, and

though I tried for days to get it going I was not successful. One

of the springs had rusted very badly as a result of the frequent

``duckings'' the clock had experienced, and had become practically

useless.

We had ascertained that the `Rachel Cohen' was still in Hobart, so on

the 23rd I wirelessed asking when the boat was to sail. The reply

came that the `Rachel Cohen' was leaving Hobart on Thursday, June 26.

Our supply of kerosene oil was exhausted by the end of the month,

despite the fact that the rule of ``lights out at 1O P.M.'' had been

observed for some time. Thus we were obliged to use sea elephant oil

in slush lamps. At first we simply filled a tin with the oil and

passed a rag through a cork floating on the top, but a little

ingenuity soon resulted in the production of a lamp with three

burners and a handle. This was made by Sandell out of an old tea-pot

and one, two or three burners could be lit as occasion demanded.

During meal times the whole three burners were used, but, as the oil

smoked and smelt somewhat, we generally blew out two as soon as the

meal was finished. This was the ``general'' lamp, but each man had,

as well, one of his own invention. Mine was scornfully referred to

as the ``house-boat,'' since it consisted of a jam tin, which held

the oil, standing in a herring tin which caught the overflow.

At the end of June, Blake and I surveyed all the penguin rookeries

round about ``The Nuggets'' and, allowing a bird to the square foot,

found that there must have been about half a million birds in the

area. The sealers kill birds from these rookeries to the number of

about one hundred and thirty thousand yearly, so that it would seem

reasonable to suppose that, despite this fact, there must be an annual

increase of about one hundred thousand birds.

The end of the month arrived and, on making inquiries, we found that

there was no news of the `Rachel Cohen' having left Hobart. We had

enough flour to last a fortnight, and could not get any from the

sealers as they possessed only three weeks' supply themselves.

However, on July 8, Bauer came across and offered to let us have some

wheatmeal biscuits as they had a couple of hundredweights, so I

readily accepted twenty pounds of them. We now had soup twice a

day, and managed to make it fairly thick by adding sago and a few

lentils. Cornflour and hot water flavoured with cocoa made a

makeshift blanc-mange, and this, with sago and tapioca, constituted

our efforts towards dessert.

On the 12th I received a message stating that the `Rachel Cohen' had

sailed on July 7; news which was joyfully received. We expected her

to appear in ten or twelve days.

On the 18th we used the last ounce of flour in a small batch of bread,

having fully expected the ship to arrive before we had finished it.

Next day Bauer lent us ten pounds of oatmeal and showed us how to

make oatmeal cakes. We tried some and they were a complete success,

though they consisted largely of tapioca, and, according to the

respective amounts used, should rather have been called tapioca cakes.

When the 22nd arrived and no ship showed up, I went across to see what

the sealers thought of the matter, and found that they all were of

opinion that she had been blown away to the eastward of the island,

and might take a considerable time to ``make'' back.

On this date we came to the end of our meats, which I had been dealing

out in a very sparing manner, just to provide a change from sea

elephant and weka. We had now to subsist upon what we managed to

catch. There were still thirty-five tins of soup, of which only two

tins a day were used, so that there was sufficient for a few weeks.

But we found ourselves running short of some commodity each day, and

after the 23rd reckoned to be without bread and biscuit.

At this juncture many heavy blows were experienced, and on the 24th

a fifty-mile gale accompanied by a tremendous sea beat down on us,

giving the `Rachel Cohen' a very poor chance of ``making'' the island.

Our last tin of fruit was eaten; twelve tins having lasted us since

March 31, and I also shared the remaining ten biscuits amongst the men

on the 24th. We were short of bread, flour, biscuits, meats, fish,

jam, sugar and milk, but had twenty tins of French beans, thirty tins

of cornflour, some tapioca, and thirty tins of soup, as well as tea,

coffee and cocoa in abundance. We had not been able to catch any fish

for some days as the weather had been too rough, and, further, they

appeared to leave the coasts during the very cold weather.

Sea elephants were very scarce, and we invariably had to walk some

distance in order to get one; each man taking it in turn to go out

with a companion and carry home enough meat for our requirements. We

were now eating sea elephant meat three times a day (all the penguins

having migrated) and our appetites were very keen. The routine work

was carried on, though a great deal of time was occupied in getting

food.

Bauer very generously offered to share his biscuits with us, but we

fellows, while appreciating the spirit which prompted the offer,

unanimously declined to accept them. We now concluded that something

had happened to the ship, as at the end of July she had been twenty-

four days out.

On August 3 we had a sixty-three-mile gale and between 1 and 2 A.M.

the velocity of the wind frequently exceeded fifty miles per hour.

Needless to say there was a mountainous sea running, and the Rachel

Cohen, if she had been anywhere in the vicinity, would have had a

perilous time.

A message came to me on August 6 from the Secretary of the Expedition,

saying that the `Rachel Cohen' had returned to New Zealand badly damaged,

and that he was endeavouring to send us relief as soon as possible.

I replied, telling him that our food-supply was done, but that otherwise

we were all right and no uneasiness need be felt, though we wished to

be relieved as soon as possible.

Splendid news came along on the 9th to the effect that the New Zealand

Government's steamer `Tutanekai' would tranship our stores from the

`Rachel Cohen' on the 15th and sail direct for the island.

Sawyer now became ill and desired me to make arrangements for his

return. I accordingly wired to the Secretary, who replied asking if

we could manage without an operator. After consulting Sandell, I

answered that Sandell and I together could manage to run the wireless

station.

Everybody now looked forward eagerly to the arrival of the `Tutanekai',

but things went on as before. We found ourselves with nothing but sea

elephant meat and sago, with a pound-tin of French beans once a week

and two ounces of oatmeal every morning.

We heard that the Tutanekai did not leave as expected on the 15th,

but sailed on the afternoon of the 17th, and was coming straight to

Macquarie Island. She was equipped with a wireless telegraphy

outfit, which enabled us on the 18th to get in touch with her;

the operator on board stating that they would reach us early on

the morning of the 20th.

On the evening of the 19th we gave Sawyer a send-off dinner; surely

the poorest thing of its kind, as far as eatables were concerned,

that has ever been tendered to any one. The fare consisted of sea

elephant's tongue ``straight,'' after which a bottle of claret was

cracked and we drank heartily to his future prosperity.

At 7.30 A.M. on the 20th the `Tutanekai' was observed coming up the

east coast, and as we had ``elephanted'' at 6 A.M. we were ready to

face the day. I went across to the sealers' hut and accompanied

Bauer in the launch to the ship, which lay at anchor about a mile

from the shore. We scrambled on board, where I met Captain Bollons.

He received me most courteously, and, after discussing several

matters, suggested landing the stores straight away. I got into the

launch to return to the shore, but the wind had freshened and was soon

blowing a fresh gale. Still, Bauer thought we should have no difficulty

and we pushed off from the ship. The engine of the launch failed after

we had gone a few yards, the boat was blown rapidly down the coast,

and we were eventually thrown out into the surf at ``The Nuggets.''

The Captain, who witnessed our plight, sent his launch in pursuit of us,

but its engines also failed. It now became necessary for the crew of

the whale-boat to go to the assistance of the launch. However, they

could do nothing against the wind, and, in the end, the ship herself

got up anchor, gave the two boats a line and towed them back to the

former anchorage. The work of unloading now commenced, though a

fairly heavy surf was running. But the whaleboat of the `Tutanekai'

was so dexterously handled by the boatswain that most of our stores

were landed during the day.

Sawyer went on board the `Tutanekai' in the afternoon, thus severing

his connexion with the Expedition, after having been with us on the

island since December 1911. On the following morning, some sheep,

coal and flour were landed, and, with a whistled good-bye, the

`Tutanekai' started north on her visit to other islands.

Our short period of stress was over and we all felt glad. From that

time onwards we ate no more elephant meat ``straight.'' A sheep was

killed just as the `Tutanekai' left, and we had roast mutton, scones,

butter, jam, fruit and rice for tea. It was a rare treat.

All the stores were now brought up from the landing-place, and as

I had put up several extra shelves some weeks previously, plenty of

room was found for all the perishable commodities inside the Shack.

The beginning of September found me fairly busy. In addition to the

meteorological work, the results of which were always kept reduced and

entered up, I had to work on Wireless Hill during the evening and make

auroral observations on any night during which there was a display,

attending to the stores and taking the week of cooking as it came

along.

Blake and Hamilton went down the island for several days on September

3, since they had some special observations to make in the vicinity

of Sandy Bay.

The sea elephant season was now in progress, and many rookeries were

well formed by the middle of the month. The skuas had returned, and

on the 19th the advance-guard of the Royal penguins arrived. The

gentoos had established themselves in their old ``claims,'' and since

the 12th we had been using their eggs for cooking.

Early in September time-signals were received from Melbourne, and

these were transmitted through to Adelie Land. This practice was kept

up throughout the month and in many cases the signals were acknowledged.

Blake and Hamilton returned to the Shack on the 24th, but left again

on the 30th, as they had some more photographic work to do in the

vicinity of Green Valley and Sandy Bay.

Blake made a special trip to Sandy Bay on October 30 to bring back

some geological specimens and other things he had left there, but on

reaching the spot found that the old hut had been burned to the

ground, apparently only a few hours before, since it was still

smouldering. Many articles were destroyed, among which were two

sleeping-bags, a sextant, gun, blankets, photographic plates, bird

specimens and articles of clothing. It was presumed that rats had

originated the fire from wax matches which had been left lying on a

small shelf.

On November 9 we heard that the `Aurora' would leave Hobart on the 19th

for Antarctica, picking us up on the way and landing three men on the

island to continue the wireless and meteorological work.

We sighted the `Rachel Cohen' bearing down on the island on November 18,

and at 5.15 P.M. she came to an anchorage in North-East Bay. She

brought down the remainder of our coal and some salt for Hamilton for

the preservation of specimens.

On the next night it was learned that the `Aurora' had left Hobart on

her way South, expecting to reach us about the 28th, as some sounding

and dredging were being done en route.

Everybody now became very busy making preparations for departure.

Time passed very quickly, and November 28 dawned fine and bright.

The `Rachel Cohen', which had been lying in the bay loading oil, had

her full complement on board by 10 A.M., and shortly afterwards we

trooped across to say good-bye to Bauer and the other sealers, who

were all returning to Hobart. It was something of a coincidence that

they took their departure on the very day our ship was to arrive.

Their many acts of kindness towards us will ever be recalled by the

members of the party, and we look upon our harmonious neighbourly

association together with feelings of great pleasure.

A keen look-out was then kept for signs of our own ship, but it was

not until 8 P.M. that Blake, who was up on the hill side, called out,

``Here she comes,'' and we climbed up to take in the goodly sight.

Just visible, away in the north-west, there was a line of thin smoke,

and in about half an hour the `Aurora' dropped anchor in Hasselborough

Bay.

CHAPTER XXVIII THE HOMEWARD CRUISE

We bring no store of ingots,

Of spice or precious stones;

But what we have we gathered

With sweat and aching bones.

KIPLING.

As we sat in the wardroom of the `Aurora' exchanging the news of months

long gone by, we heard from Captain Davis the story of his fair-weather

trip from Hobart. The ship had left Australian waters on November 19,

and, from the outset, the weather was quite ideal. Nothing of note

occurred on the run to Macquarie Island, where a party of three men were

landed and Ainsworth and his loyal comrades picked up. The former party,

sent by the Australian Government, were to maintain wireless

communication with Hobart and to send meteorological reports to the

Commonwealth Weather Bureau. A week was spent at the island and all the

collections were embarked, while Correll was enabled to secure some good

colour photographs and Hurley to make valuable additions to his

cinematograph film.

The `Aurora' had passed through the ``fifties'' without meeting the

usual gales, sighting the first ice in latitude 63 degrees 33' S.,

longitude 150 degrees 29' E. She stopped to take a sounding every

twenty-four hours, adding to the large number already accumulated

during her cruises over the vast basin of the Southern Ocean.

All spoke of the clear and beautiful days amid the floating ice and

of the wonderful coloured sunsets; especially the photographers.

The pack was so loosely disposed, that the ship made a straight course

for Commonwealth Bay, steaming up to Cape Denison on the morning of

December 14 to find us all eager to renew our claim on the big world

up North.

There was a twenty-five-knot wind and a small sea when we pulled off

in the whale-boat to the ship, but, as if conspiring to give us for

once a gala-day, the wind fell off, the bay became blue and placid

and the sun beat down in full thawing strength on the boundless ice

and snow. The Adelians, if that may be used as a distinctive title,

sat on the warm deck and read letters and papers in voracious haste,

with snatches of the latest intelligence from the Macquarie Islanders

and the ship's officers. No one could erase that day from the

tablets of his memory.

Late in the afternoon the motor-launch went ashore, and the first of

the cargo was sent off. The weather remained serene and calm, and for

the next six days, with the exception of a ``sixty-miler'' for a few

hours and a land breeze overnight, there was nothing to disturb the

embarkation of our bulky impedimenta which almost filled the outer

Hut. Other work went on apace. The skua gulls, snow and Wilson

petrels were laying their eggs, and Hamilton went ashore to secure

specimens and to add to our already considerable collection of bird

skins. Hunter had a fish-trap lowered from the forecastle, used a

hand dredge from the ship, and did tow-netting occasionally from the

launch in its journeys to and from the land. Hurley and Correll had

bright sunshine to ensure good photographic results. Bage and

Hodgeman looked after the transport of stores from the Hut, and

Gillies, Bickerton and Madigan ran the motor-launch. McLean, who was

now in possession of an incubator and culture tubes, grew bacteria

from various sources--seals and birds, soils, ice and snow. Ainsworth,

Blake and Sandell, making their first acquaintance with Adelie Land,

were most often to be seen quarrying ice on the glacier or pulling

loaded sledges down to the harbour.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Mackellar Islets

On the 18th a party of us went off to the Mackellar Islets in the

motor-launch, taking a tent and provisions, intending to spend two

days there surveying and making scientific observations.

These islets, over thirty in number, are clustered mainly in a group

about two miles off shore. The group is encircled by rocky ``outposts,''

and there are several ``links'' to the southern mainland. Under a

brilliant sun, across the pale blue water, heaving in a slow northerly

swell, the motor-launch threaded her way between the granite knobs,

capped with solid spray. The waves had undermined the white canopies

so that they stood immobile, perched on the dark, kelp-fringed rocks,

casting their pallid reflections in the turquoise sea. Steaming into

a natural harbour, bordered by a low ice-foot on which scores of

Weddell seals lay in listless slumber, we landed on the largest islet--

a succession of salt-encrusted ridges covered by straggling penguin

rookeries. The place just teemed with the sporadic life of an Antarctic

summer.

It was calculated that the Adelie penguins exceeded one hundred and

fifty thousand in number over an area of approximately one hundred

acres. Near the landing-place there were at least sixty seals and

snow petrels; skua gulls and Wilson petrels soon betrayed their nests

to the biologists.

The islets are flat, and afford evidence that at one time the

continental ice-cap has ridden over them. The rock is a hard grey

gneiss. A rough plane-table map of the group was made by Hodgeman

and myself.

Our scheme of local exploration was now continued to the west. For

two years we had looked curiously at a patch of rocks protruding

beneath the ice-cap eight miles away, within Commonwealth Bay. It had

been inaccessible to sledging parties, and so we reserved Cape Hunter,

as it was ultimately called, for the coming of the Ship.

The anchor was raised on the forenoon of the 22nd, and by midday the

`Aurora' steamed at half-speed along the ramparts of the glacier,

stopping about four miles from the Cape, after sounding in four hundred

and twenty-four fathoms. Through field-glasses much had already been

seen; enough to arouse an intense interest.

One could not but respond to the idea that here was a new world,

flawless and unblemished, into which no human being had ever pried.

Here were open secrets to be read for the first time. It was not with

the cold eye of science alone that we gazed at these rocks--a tiny

spur of the great unseen continent; but it was with an indefinable

wonder.

In perfect weather a small party set off in the launch towards a

large grounded berg which appeared to lie under the ice-cliffs.

Approaching it closely, after covering two miles, we could see that

it was still more than a mile to the rocks.

Penguins soon began to splash around; Wilson petrels came glancing

overhead and we could descry great flocks of Antarctic petrels

wheeling over cliff and sea. Reefs buried in frothing surge showed

their glistening mantles, and the boat swerved to avoid floating

streamers of brash-ice.

The rocky cliffs, about eighty feet in height at the highest point,

were formed of vertically lying slate rocks--a very uniform series

of phyllite and sericite-schist. At their base lay great clinging

blocks of ice deeply excavated by the restless swell. One island

was separated from the parent mass by a channel cut sheer to the deep

blue water. Behind the main rocks and indenting the ice-cliff was a

curving bay into which we steered, finding at its head a beautiful

cove fringed with a heavy undermined ice-foot and swarming with

Adelie penguins. Overhanging the water was a cavern hollowed out of a

bridge of ice thrown from the glacier to the western limit of the rock

outcrop.

Hurley had before him a picture in perfect proportion. The steel-blue

water, paled by an icy reflection, a margin of brown rocks on which

the penguins leapt through the splashing surf, a curving canopy of ice-

foot and, filling the background, the cavern with pendent icicles along

its cornice.

The swell was so great that an anchor had to be thrown from the stern

to keep the launch off shore, and two men remained on board to see that

no damage was done.

At last we were free to roam and explore. Over the first ridge of rocks

we walked suddenly into the home of the Antarctic petrels! There had

always been much speculation as to where these birds nested. Jones'

party at our western base had the previous summer at Haswell Island

happened upon the first rookery of Antarctic petrels ever discovered.

Here was another spot in the great wilderness peopled by their thousands.

Every available nook and crevice was occupied along a wide slope which

shelved away until it met the vertical cliffs falling to the ocean.

One could sit down among the soft, mild birds who were fearless at the

approach of man. They rested in pairs close to their eggs laid on the

bare rock or among fragments of slate loosely arranged to resemble a

rest. Many eggs were collected, and the birds, losing confidence in us,

rose into the air in flocks, gaining in feathered volume as they circled

in fear above this domain of rock and snow which had been theirs for

generations.

In adjoining rookeries the Adelie penguins, with their fat, downy

cheeks, were very plentiful and fiercer than usual. Skuas, snow and

Wilson petrels were all in their accustomed haunts. Down on the low

ice-foot at the mouth of a rocky ravine, a few seals had effected a

landing. Algae, mosses and lichens made quite a display in moist

localities.

Before leaving for the ship, we ``boiled the billy'' on a platform

of slate near the cove where the launch was anchored and had a small

picnic, entertained by the penguins playing about in the surf or

scaling the ice-foot to join the birds which were laboriously

climbing to the rookeries on the ridge. The afternoon was so peaceful

and the calm hot weather such a novelty to us that we pushed off

reluctantly to the `Aurora' after an eventful day.

Those on board had had a busy time dredging, and their results were

just as successful as ours. A haul was made in two hundred and fifty

fathoms of ascidians, sponges, crinoids, holothurians, fish and other

forms of life in such quantity that Hunter and Hamilton were occupied

in sorting the specimens until five o'clock next morning. Meanwhile

the `Aurora' had returned to her old anchorage close to Cape Denison.

The sky banked up from the south with nimbus, and early on the 23rd

a strong breeze ruffled the water. There were a few things to be

brought off from the shore, while Ainsworth, Sandell and Correll were

still at the Hut, so that, as the weather conditions pointed to a

coming blizzard, I decided to ``cut the painter'' with the land.

An hour later the motor-launch, with Madigan and Bickerton, sped away

for the last load through falling snow and a rising sea. Hodgeman had

battened down the windows of the Hut, the chimney was stuffed with

bagging, the veranda-entrance closed with boards, and, inside, an

invitation was left for future visitors to occupy and make themselves

at home. After the remainder of the dogs and some miscellaneous gear

had been shipped, the launch put off and came alongside in a squally

wind through thick showers of snow. Willing hands soon unloaded the

boat and slung it in the davits. Every one was at last safe on board,

and in future all our operations were to be conducted from the ship.

During the night the wind rose and the barometer fell, while the air

was filled with drifting snow. On the 24th--Christmas Eve--the

velocity of the wind gradually increased to the seventies until at

noon it blew with the strength of a hurricane. Chief Officer Blair,

stationed with a few men under the fo'c'sle-head, kept an anxious eye

on the anchor chain and windlass.

About lunch time the anchor was found to be dragging and we commenced

to drift before the hurricane. All view of the land and lurking

dangers in the form of reefs and islets were cut off by driving snow.

The wind twanged the rigging to a burring drone that rose to a shriek

in the shuddering gusts. The crests of the waves were cut off and

sprayed in fine spindrift. With full steam on we felt our way out,

we hoped to the open sea; meanwhile the chain cable and damaged anchor

were slowly being hauled in. The ship's chances looked very small

indeed, but, owing to the good seamanship of Captain Davis and a

certain amount of luck, disaster was averted. Soon we were in a

bounding sea. Each time we were lifted on a huge roller the motor-

launch, swinging in the davits, would rise and then descend with a

crash on the water, to be violently bumped against the bulwarks.

Everything possible was done to save the launch, but our efforts

proved fruitless. As it was being converted into a battering ram

against the ship itself it had to be cut away, and was soon swept

astern and we saw no more of it.

Most unexpectedly there came a lull in the wind, so that it was

almost calm, though the ship still laboured in the seas. A clearance

in the atmosphere was also noticeable for Cape Hunter became

discernible to the west, towards which we were rapidly drifting.

This sight of the coast was a great satisfaction to us, for we then

knew our approximate position ** and the direction of the wind, which

had veered considerably.

** It should be borne in mind that compasses are unreliable in the

vicinity of the magnetic pole.

The lull lasted scarcely five minutes when the wind came back from a

somewhat different quarter, north of east, as violent as ever. The

``eye'' of the storm had passed over us, and the gale continued steady

for several days. That night the struggle with the elements was kept

up by officers and crew, assisted by members of the shore party who

took the lee-wheel or stood by in case of emergency.

``December 25. Christmas Day on the high seas off Adelie Land,

everything wet and fairly miserable; incipient mal de mer, wind

55-60; snowing! When Davis came down to breakfast and wished us a

Merry Christmas, with a smile at the irony of it, the ward-room was

swaying about in a most bewildering fashion.''

Towards evening, after the `Aurora' had battled for hours slowly to

the east, the sea went down somewhat and some drifting ice was sighted.

We continued under full steam, pushing forward to gain the shelter of

the Mertz glacier-tongue. It was now discovered that the fluke of the

anchor had broken off short, so great had been the strain imposed upon

it during the height of the hurricane.

On Boxing Day the ship was in calmer water heading in a more

southerly direction so as to come up with the land. Fog, fine snow

and an overcast sky made a gloomy combination, but during the

afternoon the fog lightened sufficiently for us to perceive the

mainland--a ghostly cliff shrouded in diaphanous blink. By 10 P.M.

the Mertz glacier was visible on the port bow, and to starboard there

was an enormous tilted berg which appeared to be magnified in the dim

light.

Allowing a day for the weather to become clearer and more settled,

we got out the trawl on the 28th and did a dredging in three hundred

fathoms close to the glacier-tongue. Besides rocks and mud there were

abundant crinoids, holothurians, corals, crustaceans and ``shells.''

In addition, several pieces of fossilized wood and coaly matter were

discovered scattered through the ``catch.''

Bage, under Davis's direction, took temperatures and collected water

samples at fifty, seventy-five, one hundred, two hundred and three

hundred fathoms, using the Lucas sounding-machine on the fo'c'sle.

The temperature gradient from the surface downwards appeared to give

some indication of the depth of ice submerged in the glacier-tongue

alongside which we were lying.

On the 29th a cold south-easter blew off the ice-cliffs and the sun

was trying to pierce a gauzy alto-stratus. The `Aurora' steamed

north-east, it being our intention to round the northern limit of the

Mertz Glacier. Gradually a distant line of pack, which had been

visible for some time, closed in and the ship ran into a cul-de-sac.

Gray, who was up in the crow's-nest, reported that the ice was very

heavy, so we put about.

Proceeding southward once more, we glided along within a stone's throw

of the great wall of ice whose chiselled headlands stood in profile

for miles. There was leisure to observe various features of this

great formation, and to make some valuable photographic records when

the low south-western sun emerged into a wide rift. Hunter trailed

the tow-net for surface plankton while the ship was going at half-speed.

At ten o'clock the ship had come up with the land, and her course was

turned sharply to the north-west towards a flotilla of bergs lying to

the east of the Way Archipelago, which we intended to visit.

On December 30, 1913, the `Aurora' lay within a cordon of floating ice

about one mile distant from the nearest islet of a group scattered along

the coast off Cape Gray.

Immediately after breakfast a party of eight men set off in the launch

to investigate Stillwell Island. The weather was gloriously sunny and

every one was eager at the prospect of fresh discoveries. Cape Hunter

had been the home of the Antarctic petrels, and on this occasion we were

singularly fortunate in finding a resort of the Southern Fulmar or

silver-grey petrels. During the previous summer, two of the eastern

sledging parties had for the first time observed the breeding habits of

these birds among isolated rocks outcropping on the edge of the coast.

But here there was a stronghold of hundreds of petrels, sitting with

their eggs in niches among the boulders or ensconced in bowers excavated

beneath the snow which lay deep over some parts of the island.

The rock was a gneiss which varied in character from that which had

been examined at Cape Denison and in other localities. All the

scientific treasures were exhausted by midday, and the whale-boat was

well laden when we rowed back to the ship.

Throughout a warm summer afternoon the `Aurora' threaded her way between

majestic bergs and steamed west across the wide span of Commonwealth Bay,

some fifteen miles off the land. At eleven o'clock the sky was perfectly

clear and the sun hung like a luminous ball over the southern plateau.

The rocks near the Hut were just visible. Close to the ``Pianoforte

Berg''and the Mackellar Islets tall jets of fine spray were seen to shoot

upward from schools of finner whales. All around us and for miles

shoreward, the ocean was calm and blue; but close to the mainland there

was a dark curving line of ruffled water, while through glasses one

could see trails of serpentine drift flowing down the slopes of the

glacier. Doubtless, it was blowing at the Hut; and the thought was

enough to make us thankful that we were on our good ship leaving Adelie

Land for ever.

On the morning of December 31, 1913, Cape Alden was abeam, and a strong

wind swept down from the highlands. Bordering the coast there was a

linear group of islets and outcropping rocks at which we had hoped to

touch. The wind continued to blow so hard that the idea was abandoned

and our course was directed towards the north-west to clear a submerged

reef which had been discovered in January 1912.

The wind and sea arose during the night, causing the ship to roll in

a reckless fashion. Yet the celebration of New Year's Eve was not

marred, and lusty choruses came up from the ward-room till long after

midnight. Next morning at breakfast our ranks had noticeably

thinned through the liveliness of the ship, but it is wonderful how

large an assembly we mustered for the New Year's dinner, and how

cheerfully the toast was drunk to ``The best year we have ever had!''

On January 2, 1914, fast ice and the mainland were sighted. The

course was changed to the south-west so as to bring the ship within a

girdle of loose ice disposed in big solid chunks and small pinnacled

floes. A sounding realized two hundred fathoms some ten miles off the

coast, which stretched like a lofty bank of yellow sand along the

southern horizon. On previous occasions we had not been able to see

so much of the coastline in this longitude owing to the compactness of

the ice, and so we were able to definitely chart a longer tract at

the western limit of Adelie Land.

The ice became so thick and heavy as the `Aurora' pressed southward

that she was forced at last to put about and steer for more open

water. On the way, a sounding was made in two hundred and fifty

fathoms, but a dredging was unsuccessful owing to the fact that

insufficient cable was paid out in going from two hundred and fifty

fathoms to deeper water.

Our north-westerly course ran among a great number of very long

tabular bergs, which suggested the possibility of a neighbouring

glacier-tongue as their origin.

At ten o'clock on the evening of the 2nd, a mountain of ice with a

high encircling bastion passed to starboard. It rose to a peak,

flanked by fragments toppling in snowy ruin. The pyramidal summit

was tinged the palest lilac in the waning light; the mighty pallid

walls were streaked and blotched with deep azure; the green swell

sucked and thundered in the wave-worn caverns. Chaste snow-birds

swam through the pure air, and the whole scene was sacred.

A tropical day in the pack-ice! Sunday January 4 was clear and

perfectly still, and the sun shone powerfully. On the previous day

we had entered a wide field of ice which had become so close and heavy

that the ship took till late in the evening to reach its northern

fringe.

From January 5 onwards for two weeks we steamed steadily towards the

west, repeatedly changing course to double great sheets of pack which

streamed away to the north, pushing through them in other places

where the welcome ``water-sky showed strong'' ahead, making ``southing''

for days following the trend of the ice, then grappling with it in

the hope of winning through to the land and at last returning to the

western track along the margin of brash which breaks the first swell

of the Southern Ocean.

The weather was mostly overcast with random showers of light snow and

mild variable winds on all but two days, when there was a ``blow'' of

forty miles per hour and a considerable sea in which the ship seemed

more active than usual.

Many soundings were taken, and their value lay in broadly [...] Of

course, too, we were supplementing the ship's previous work in these

latitudes.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Section Illustrating The Moat In The Antarctic Continental Shelf

One successful dredging in eighteen hundred fathoms brought up some

large erratics and coaly matter, besides a great variety of animal

life. It was instructive to find that the erratics were coated with a

film of manganese oxide derived from the sea-water. Several tow-

nettings were taken with large nets automatically closing at any

desired depth through the medium of a ``messenger.'' Small crustaceans

were plentiful on the surface, but they were if anything more numerous

at depths of fifty to one hundred fathoms. Amongst the latter were

some strongly phosphorescent forms. The flying birds were ``logged''

daily by the biologists. Emperor and Adelie penguins were occasionally

seen, among the floes as well as sea-leopards, crab-eater and Weddell

seals.

Friday January 16 deserves mention as being a day full of incident.

In the morning a thin, cold fog hung along the pack whose edge

determined our course. Many petrels flew around, and on the brash-

ice there were dark swarms of terns--small birds with black-capped

heads, dove-grey backs and silvery-white breasts. They were very

nervous of the ship, rising in great numbers when it had approached

within a few hundred yards. One startled bird would fly up, followed

by several more; then a whole covey would disturb the rest of the flock.

Hamilton managed to shoot two of them from the fo'c'sle, and, after

much manoeuvring, we secured one with a long hand-net.

Soon after, there was a cry of ``killer whales!'' from the stern.

Schools of them were travelling from the west to the east along the

edge of the pack. The water was calm and leaden, and every few

seconds a big black triangular fin would project from the surface,

there would be a momentary glimpse of a dark yellow-blotched back

and then all would disappear.

We pushed into the pack to ``ice ship,'' as the water-supply was

running low. Just as the `Aurora' was leaving the open water, a school

of finner whales went by, blowing high jets of spray in sudden blasts,

wallowing for a few seconds on the surface, and diving in swirls of foam.

These finners or rorquals are enormous mammals, and on one occasion we

were followed by one for several hours. It swam along with the ship,

diving regularly underneath from one side to another, and we wondered

what would happen if it had chosen to charge the vessel or to

investigate the propeller.

Close to a big floe to which the ship was secured, two crab-eater

seals were shot and hauled aboard to be skinned and investigated by

the biologists and bacteriologist. When the scientists had finished

their work, the meat and blubber were cut up for the dogs, while the

choicer steaks were taken to the cook's galley.

After lunch every one started to ``ice ship'' in earnest. The sky

had cleared and the sun was warm and brilliant by the time a party

had landed on the snow-covered floe with baskets, picks and shovels.

When the baskets had been filled, they were hoisted by hand-power on

to a derrick which had been fixed to the mizen mast, swung inboard

and then shovelled into a melting tank alongside the engine-room.

The melter was a small tank through which ran a coil of steam pipes.

The ice came up in such quantity that it was not melted in time to

keep up with the demand, so a large heap was made on the deck.

Later in the afternoon it was found that holes chipped in the sea-ice

to a depth of six or eight inches filled quickly with fresh water,

and soon a gang of men had started a service with buckets and dippers

between these pools and the main hatch where the water was poured

through funnels into the ship's tanks. The bulwarks on the port side

of the main hatch had been taken down, and a long plank stretched

across to the floe. At nine o'clock work was stopped and we once more

resumed our western cruise.

It was found that as the region of Queen Mary Land approached, heavy

pack extended to the north. While skirting this obstacle, we

disclosed by soundings a steep rise in the ocean's floor from a depth

of about fifteen hundred fathoms to within seven hundred fathoms of

the surface, south of which there was deep water. It was named ``Bruce

Rise'' in recognition of the oceanographical work of the Scottish

Expedition in Antarctic seas.

On the 17th, in latitude 62 degrees 21' S., longitude 95 degrees 9' E.,

the course ran due south for more than seven hours. For the two

ensuing days the ship was able to steer approximately south-west through

slackening ice, until on the 19th at midday we were in latitude 64

degrees 59' S., longitude 90 degrees 8' E. At length it appeared that

land was approaching, after a westward run of more than twelve hundred

miles. Attempts to reach the charted position of Totten's Land, North's

Land, Budd Land and Knox Land had been successively abandoned when it

became evident that the pack occupied a more northerly situation than

that of the two previous years, and was in most instances thick and

impenetrabIe.

At 10 P.M. on the 19th, the ice fields still remaining loose and

navigable, a dark line of open water was observed ahead. From the

crow's-nest it was seen to the south stretching east and west within

the belt of pack-ice--the Davis Sea. We had broken through the pack

less than twenty-five miles north of where the `Gauss' (German

Expedition, 1902) had wintered.

All next day the `Aurora' steamed into the eye of an easterly wind

towards a low white island, the higher positions of which had been

seen by the German Expedition of 1902, and charted as Drygalski's

High Land. Dr. Jones' party had, the year before, obtained a

distant view of it and regarded it as an island, which proved to be

correct, so we named it Drygalski Island. To the south there was the

dim outline of the mainland. Soundings varied between two hundred and

three hundred fathoms.

On January 21, Drygalski Island was close at hand, and a series of

soundings which showed from sixty to seventy fathoms of water

deepening towards the mainland proved beyond doubt that it was an

island. In shape it is like a flattened dome about nine miles in

diameter and twelve hundred feet in height, bounded by perpendicular

cliffs of ice, and with no visible evidence of outcropping rock.

The dredge was lowered in sixty fathoms, and a rich assortment of

life was captured for the biologists--Hunter and Hamilton. A course

was then made to the south amidst a sea of great bergs; the water

deepening to about four hundred fathoms.

During the evening the crevassed slopes of the mainland rose clear to

the south, and many islets were observed near the coast, frozen in a

wide expanse of bay-ice. Haswell Island, visited by Jones, Dovers

and Hoadley of the Western Party, was sighted, and the ship was able

to approach within eight miles of it; at ten o'clock coming up to

flat bay-ice, where she anchored for the night. Before we retired

to bunk, a Ross seal was discovered and shot, three-quarters of a mile

away.

Next day, January 22, an unexpected find was made of five more of

this rare species of seal. Many Emperor penguins were also secured.

It would have been interesting to visit the great rookery of Emperor

penguins on Haswell Island, but, as the ship could only approach to

within eight miles of it, I did not think it advisable to allow a

party to go so far.

On the night of the 22nd, the `Aurora' was headed northeast for the

Shackleton Ice-Shelf. In the early hours of the 28rd a strong gale

sprang up and rapidly increased in violence. A pall of nimbus

overspread the sky, and blinding snow commenced to fall.

We had become used to blizzards, but on this occasion several factors

made us somewhat apprehensive. The ship was at least twenty-five

miles from shelter on an open sea, littered with bergs and fragments

of ice. The wind was very strong; the maximum velocity exceeding

seventy miles per hour, and the dense driving snow during the

midnight hours of semi-darkness reduced our chances of navigating with

any certainty.

The night of the 23rd had a touch of terror. The wind was so powerful

that, with a full head of steam and steering a few points off the eye

of the wind, the ship could just hold her own. But when heavy gusts

swooped down and the propeller raced on the crest of a mountainous

wave, Davis found it impossible to keep steerage-way.

Drift and spray lash the faces of officer and helmsman, and through

the grey gloom misty bergs glide by on either hand. A long slow

struggle brings us to a passage between two huge masses of ice. There

is a shock as the vessel bumps and grinds along a great wall. The

engine stops, starts again, and stops once more. The yards on the

foremast are swung into the wind, the giant seas are broken by the

stolid barriers of ice, the engine commences to throb with its old

rhythm, and the ship slowly creeps out to meet the next peril. It

comes with the onset of a ``bergy-bit'' which smashes the martingale

as it plunges into a deep trough. The chain stay parts, dragging

loose in the water, while a great strain is put by the foremast on

the bowsprit.

Early on the 24th the ship was put about and ran with the wind, while

all hands assembled on the fo'c'sle. The crew, under the direction of

Blair, had the ticklish job of replacing the chain stay by two heavy

blocks, the lower of which was hooked on to the lug which secured the

end of the stay, and the upper to the bowsprit. The running ropes

connecting the blocks were tightened up by winding the hauling line

round the capstan. When the boatswain and two sailors had finished

the wet and chilly task of getting the tackle into position, the rest

put their weight on to the capstan bars and the strain on the bowsprit

was relieved. The fo'c'sle, plunging and swaying in the great waves,

was encased in frozen spray, and along all the ropes and stays were

continuous cylinders of ice. The `Aurora' then resumed her easterly

course against the blizzard.

Saturday January 24 was a day of high wind, rough seas, watery

decks, lively meals and general discomfort. At 11.30 P.M. the waves

had perceptibly decreased, and it was surmised that we were approaching

the berg, about thirty miles in length, which lay to the west of the

Shackleton Ice-Shelf.

At 6 A.M. on the 25th the sun managed to glimmer through the low rack

flying from the east, lighting up the carven face of an ice-cliff

along which the `Aurora' was coasting. Up and down we steamed until the

afternoon of the 26th, when the wind lulled away to nothing, and the

grey, even pall of cloud rose and broke into fleecy alto-cumulus.

At the southern extremity of the long berg, fast bay-ice extended up

to the land and for twenty miles across to the shelf on which the

Winter Quarters of the Western Party had been situated. Further

progress to the south was blocked, so our course was directed to the

north along the western border of the berg.

When not engaged in sounding, dredging, or tow-netting members of the

land party found endless diversion in trimming coal. Big inroads had

been made in the supply of more than five hundred tons, and it now

became necessary to shift many tons of it from the holds aft to the

bunkers where it was accessible to the firemen. The work was good

exercise, and every one enjoyed the shift below, ``trucking''and

``heaving.'' Another undoubted advantage, in the opinion of each worker,

was that he could at least demand a wash from Chief Engineer Gillies,

who at other times was forced to be thrifty with hot fresh water.

After supper on the 28th it was evident that we had reached a point

where the shelf-ice veered away to the eastward and a wide tract of

adhering sea-ice barred the way. The floe was exceedingly heavy and

covered with a deep layer of soft snow. Emperor and Adelie penguins,

crab-eater and Weddell seals were recognized through glasses along its

edge. As there was a light obscuring fog and dusk was approaching,

the `Aurora' ``hung up'' for the night.

On January 29 the ship, after a preliminary trawling had been done

in three hundred and twenty fathoms, pushed into the floe and was

made fast with an ice-anchor. Emperor penguins were so plentiful in

the neighbourhood that many specimens were secured for skins.

A sea-leopard was seen chasing a crab-eater seal quite close to the

bow of the ship. The latter, after several narrow escapes, took

refuge on an ice-foot projecting from the edge of the floe.

Advantage was taken of a clearing in the weather to walk over the

sea-ice to a berg two and a half miles away, from the summit of which

it was hoped that some sign of land might be apparent. Away in the

distance, perhaps five miles further on, could be seen an immense

congregation of Emperor Penguins--evidently another rookery. No

certain land was visible.

The cruise was now continued to the north-west in order to skirt a

collection of bergs and floe, with the ultimate object of proceeding

in an easterly direction towards Termination Ice-Tongue at the

northern limit of the Shackleton Shelf-Ice.

A glance at the map which illustrates the work done by the Western

Party affords the best idea of the great ice-formation which stretches

away to the north of Queen Mary Land. It is very similar in

character to the well-known Ross Barrier over which lay part of

Scott's and Amundsen's journeys to the South Pole. Its height is

remarkably uniform, ranging from sixty to one hundred feet above the

water-level. When allowance has been made for average specific

gravity, its average total thickness should approximate to six hundred

feet. From east to west the formation was proved to be as much as two

hundred miles, with one hundred and eighty miles between its northern

and southern limits.

This vast block of ice originates fundamentally from the glacial flow

over the southern hinterland. Every year an additional layer of

consolidated snow is added to its surface by the frequent blizzards.

These annual additions are clearly marked in the section exposed on

the dazzling white face near the brink of the ice-cliff. There is a

limit, however, to the increase in thickness, for the whole mass is

ever moving slowly to the north, driven by the irresistible pressure

of the land-ice behind it. Thus the northern face crumbles down into

brash or floats away as part of a berg severed from the main body of

the shelf-ice.

On the morning of January 30 we had the unique experience of witnessing

this crumbling action at work--a cataclysm of snow, ice and water!

The ship was steaming along within three hundred yards of a cliff,

when some loose drifts slid off from its edge, followed by a slice of

the face extending for many hundreds of feet and weighing perhaps one

million tons. It plunged into the sea with a deep booming roar and

then rose majestically, shedding great masses of snow, to roll onwards

exposing its blue, swaying bulk shivering into lumpy masses which

pushed towards the ship in an ever-widening field of ice. It was a

grand scene enacted in the subdued limelight of an overcast day.

During the afternoon the `Aurora' changed her north-westerly course

round to north-east, winding through a wonderful sea of bergs grounded

in about one hundred and twenty fathoms of water. At times we would

pass through narrow lanes between towering walls and emerge into a

straight wide avenue along which these mountains of ice were ranged.

Several were rather remarkable; one for its exquisite series of

stratification lines, another for its facade in stucco, and a third

for its overhanging cornice fringed with slender icicles.

On January 31 a trawling was made in one hundred and twelve fathoms.

Half a ton of life emptied on the deck gave the biologists occupation

for several days. Included in the catch were a large number of

monstrous gelatinous ascidians or ``sea-squirts.'' Fragments of coal

were once more found; an indication that coaly strata must be very

widely distributed in the Antarctic.

The pack was dense and in massive array at the extremity of Termination

Ice-Tongue. Davis drove the ship through some of it and entered an

open lead which ran like a dark streak away to the east amid ice which

grew heavier and more marked by the stress of pressure.

Our time was now limited and it seemed to me that there was little

chance of reaching open water by forcing a passage either to the east

or north. We therefore turned on our tracks and broke south-west back

into the Davis Sea, intending to steam westward to the spot where we

had so easily entered two weeks previously.

On February 4 the pack to the north was beginning to thin out and to

look navigable. Several short-cuts were taken across projecting

``capes,'' and then on February 5 the `Aurora' entered a zone of bergs

and broken floe. No one slept well during that night as the ship bumped

and ground into the ice which crashed and grated along her stout sides.

Davis was on watch for long hours, directing in the crow's nest or down

on the bridge, and throughout the next day we pushed on northwards

towards the goal which now meant so much to us--Australia--Home!

At four o'clock the sun was glittering on the great ocean outside the

pack-ice. Many of us climbed up in the rigging to see the fair sight--

a prevision of blue skies and the calm delights of a land of eternal

summer. Our work was finished, and the good ship was rising at last

to the long swell of the southern seas.

On February 12, in latitude 55 degrees S, a strong south-wester drove

behind, and, with all sails set, the `Aurora' made eight knots an hour.

The last iceberg was seen far away on the eastern horizon. Albatrosses

followed in our wake, accompanied by their smaller satellites--Cape hens,

priors, Lesson's and Wilson petrels.

Before leaving the ice, Sandell and Bickerton had fixed an aerial

between the fore and mizen masts, while the former installed a

wireless receiving-apparatus within the narrow limits of his cabin.

There was no space on the ship to set up the motor-engine, dynamos

and other instruments necessary for transmitting messages over a long

distance.

As the nights began to darken, Sandell listened eagerly for distant

signals, until on February 16, in latitude 47 degrees S, the ``calls''

of three ships in the vicinity of the Great Australian Bight were

recognized. After this date news was picked up every night, and all

the items were posted on a morning bulletin pinned up in the

ward-room.

The first real touch of civilization came unexpectedly early on the

morning of February 21. A full-rigged ship on the southern horizon!

It might have been an iceberg, the sails flashed so white in the

morning sun. But onward it came with a strong south-wester, overhauled

and passed us, signalling `` `Archibald Russell', fifty-four

days out from Buenos Ayres, bound for Cape Borda.'' It was too magical

to believe.

On February 26 we gazed on distant cliffs of rock and earth--Kangaroo

Island--and the tiny cluster of dwellings round the lighthouse at Cape

Borda. Then we entered St. Vincent's Gulf on a clear, hot day,

marvelling at the sandy-blue water, the long, flat mainland with its

clumps of trees and the smoke of many steamers.

The welcome home--the voices of innumerable strangers--the hand-grips

of many friend--it chokes one--it cannot be uttered!

APPENDIX I

THE STAFF

The Ship's Officers

J. K. Davis Master of S. Y. `Aurora' and Second-in-

Command of the Expedition.

J. H. Blair First Officer during the later stages of

the Expedition.

P. Gray Second Officer.

C. P. de la Motte Third Officer.

F. J. Gillies Chief Engineer.

Macquarie Island Party

G. F. Ainsworth Leader: Meteorologist.

L. R. Blake Geologist and Cartographer.

H. Hamilton Biologist.

C. A. Sandell Wireless Operator and Mechanic.

A. J. Sawyer Wireless Operator.

Main Base Party

Dr. D. Mawson Commander of the Expedition.

Lieut. R. Bage Astronomer, Assistant Magnetician and

Recorder of Tides.

C. T. Madigan Meteorologist.

Lieut. B. E. S. Ninnis In charge of Greenland dogs.

Dr. X. Mertz In charge of Greenland dogs.

Dr. A. L. McLean Chief Medical Officer, Bacteriologist.

F. H. Bickerton In charge of air-tractor sledge.

A. J. Hodgeman Cartographer and Sketch Artist.

J. F. Hurley Official Photographer.

E. N. Webb Chief Magnetician.

P. E. Correll Mechanic and Assistant Physicist.

J. G. Hunter Biologist.

C. F. Laseron Taxidermist and Biological Collector.

F. L. Stillwell Geologist.

H. D. Murphy In charge of Expedition stores.

W. H. Hannam Wireless Operator and Mechanic.

J. H. Close Assistant Collector.

Dr. L. A. Whetter Surgeon.

Western Base Party

F. Wild Leader.

A. D. Watson Geologist.

Dr. S. E. Jones Medical Officer.

C. T. Harrisson Biologist.

M. H. Moyes Meteorologist.

A. L. Kennedy Magnetician.

C. A. Hoadley Geologist.

G. Dovers Cartographer.

In addition to these were the following gentlemen who accompanied

the Expedition for a portion of the time only or who joined later.

S. N. Jeffryes Wireless Operator, who relieved

W. H. Hannam during 1913.

E. R. Waite (Curator, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch),

Biologist, first Sub-Antarctic cruise of

`Aurora'.

Professor T. T. Flynn (Hobart University), Biologist, second

Sub-Antarctic cruise of `Aurora'.

J. van Waterschoot Marine Artist, second Antarctic cruise of

van der Gracht `Aurora'.

Captain James Davis Whaling authority, second Antarctic cruise

of `Aurora'.

C. C. Eitel Secretary, second Antarctic cruise of `Aurora'.

N. C. Toucher, and later Served in the capacity of Chief Officer

F. D. Fletcher on the `Aurora' during the earlier voyages.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Signatures of members of the land parties in Antarctica and at

Macquarie Island

[Accounts of the members of the expedition, in alphabetical order.]

G. F. AINSWORTH, thirty** years of age, single, was born in Sydney,

New South Wales. His services were loaned to the expedition by the

Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau, Melbourne. For a period of two

years he acted as leader of the Macquarie Island Party, carrying out

the duties of Meteorologist. In the summer of 1913-1914 he visited

the Antarctic during the final cruise of the `Aurora'.

** The ages refer to the date of joining the Expedition and are but

approximate.

R. BAGE, twenty-three years of age, single, was a graduate in

Engineering of Melbourne University and a lieutenant in the Royal

Australian Engineers. A member of the Main Base Party (Adelie Land)

and leader of the Southern Sledging Party, he remained in the

Antarctic for two years. During the first year he was in charge of

chronometers, astronomical observations and tidal records, and

throughout the second year continued the magnetic work and looked

after stores.

F. H. BICKERTON, F.R.G.S., twenty-two years of age, single, was born

at Oxford, England. Had studied engineering: joined the Expedition

as Electrical Engineer and Motor Expert. A member of the Main Base

Party and leader of the Western Sledging Party, he remained in the

Antarctic for two years, during which time he was in charge of the

air-tractor sledge, and was engineer to the wireless station. For

a time, during the second year, he was in complete charge of the

wireless plant.

J. H. BLAIR, twenty-four years of age, single, was born in Scotland.

For five years he served with the Loch Line of Glasgow as apprentice

and third mate. As second mate he joined A. Currie and Company, of

Melbourne, in the Australian-Indian trade, reaching the rank of first

mate, in which capacity he acted during the final Antarctic cruise of

the `Aurora' in the summer of 1913-14.

L. R. BLAKE, twenty-one years of age, single, was born in England,

but had lived for many years in Queensland previous to joining the

Expedition. Before accompanying the Macquarie Island Party as

Geologist and Cartographer, he obtained leave from the Geological

Survey Department, Brisbane. He visited the Antarctic during the

final cruise of the `Aurora' in the summer of 1913-1914.

J. H. Close, F.R.G.S., forty years of age, married, was born in

Sydney, New South Wales. During the South African War he saw active

service in Rhodesia, and at the time of the Expedition's departure was

a teacher of physical culture at Sydney. A member of the Main Base

Party (Adelie Land) and of several sledging parties, he spent two

summers and one winter in the Antarctic.

P. E. CORRELL, nineteen years of age, single, was a student in

Science of the Adelaide University. He joined the Expedition

as Mechanician and Assistant Physicist. He was a member of the Main

Base Party accompanying the Eastern Coastal Party during their

sledging journey. He spent three summers and one winter in the

Antarctic, acting as colour photographer during the final cruise of

the `Aurora'.

J. E. DAVIS, twenty-eight years of age, single, was master of the

`Aurora' and Second-in-Command of the Expedition. Born in Ireland and

educated in England, he served his apprenticeship on the Liverpool-

owned sailing-ship, `Celtic Chief', obtaining his certificate

as second mate before joining the barque `Westland' trading between

England and New Zealand. His next post was that of second officer on

the training ship `Port Jackson', following which he joined Sir Ernest

Shackleton's Expedition (1907-1909) as chief officer of the `Nimrod',

acting subsequently as master. Throughout the whole period of the

Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914) Captain J. K. Davis

commanded the `Aurora' during five cruises.

G. DOVERS, twenty-one years of age, single, of Sydney, New South Wales,

was completing his term for Licensed Surveyor in the service of the

Commonwealth Government when he joined the Expedition. He was in

the Antarctic for two summers and one winter, being stationed with the

Western Party (Queen Mary Land). A member of several sledging parties,

he acted as Cartographer to the party which reached Gaussberg.

F. J. GILLIES, thirty-five years of age, single, was born at Cardiff,

Wales. He served his apprenticeship as an engineer on the steamers of

John Shearman and Company and P. Baker and Company of Cardiff. For

six years previous to joining the Expedition he was in the Indian trade.

Throughout the five cruises of the `Aurora' between 1911 and 1914 F. J.

Gillies was Chief Engineer.

P. GRAY, twenty-two years of age, single, was born and educated in

England. He served on the `Worcester' as cadet captain for eighteen

months and as apprentice on the `Archibald Russell', of Glasgow, and

in the New Zealand Shipping Company. In 1909 he entered the Peninsula

and Oriental Company and reached the rank of third officer, joining

the Australasian Antarctic Expedition as second officer of the `Aurora'.

Throughout five cruises, from 1911 to 1914, he served in this capacity.

H. HAMILTON, twenty-six years of age, single, was born at Napier, New

Zealand. Graduate of the Otago University. Besides being employed on

the New Zealand Geological Survey, he acted as Entomological Collector

to the Dominion Museum at Wellington. A member of the Macquarie

Island Party, of which he was the Biologist for two years, H. Hamilton

visited the Antarctic during the final cruise of the `Aurora' in the

summer of 1913-1914.

W. H. HANNAM, twenty-six years of age, single, was of Sydney, New

South Wales, and joined the Expedition in charge of the arrangements

for a wireless telegraphic system. He was in the Antarctic at the

Main Base (Adelie Land) for two summers and a winter, and was

successful in transmitting wireless messages for a short time during

1912 through Macquarie Island to Australia, assistant magnetician for

a time.

C. T. HARRISSON, forty-three years of age, married, was born in

Hobart, Tasmania. For many years previous to joining the Expedition

he had done illustrative and artistic work and had been engaged on a

survey and in botanical and other scientific observations on the west

coast of Tasmania. Stationed with the Western Base (Queen Mary Land)

he acted as Biologist and Artist, accompanying F. Wild on his main

eastern journey and several other sledging parties.

C. A. HOADLEY, twenty-four years of age, single, was a graduate in

Mining Engineering of Melbourne University. A member of F. Wild's

Western Party (Queen Mary Land), he took part in several sledging

journeys and was Geologist of the party who explored westwards to

Gaussberg.

A. J. HODGEMAN, twenty-six years of age, single, was born at

Adelaide, South Australia. For four years he was an articled

architect, and for five years a draughtsman in the Works and Buildings

Department, Adelaide. A member of the Main Base Party (Adelie Land),

he took part in several sledging journeys, and throughout two years

in the Antarctic acted in the capacity of Cartographer and Sketch

Artist, as well as that of Assistant Meteorologist.

J. G. HUNTER, twenty-three years of age, single, was a graduate in

Science of Sydney University, New South Wales. A member of the Main

Base Party (Adelie Land) he carried on the work of Biologist during

two summers and one winter; and in the same capacity accompanied

the `Aurora' in her final summer cruise l911-1914.

J. F. HURLEY, twenty-four years of age, single, was of Sydney, New

South Wales. He had been the recipient of many amateur and professional

awards for photographic work before joining the Expedition. At the

Main Base he obtained excellent photographic and cinematographic records

and was one of the three members of the Southern Sledging Party. He

was also present on the final cruise of the `Aurora'.

S. N. JEFFRYES, twenty-seven years of age, single, of Towoomba,

Queensland, was a qualified operator of the Australasian Wireless

Company. During the second year (1913) he took W. H. Hannam's place

in charge of the wireless plant, wintering at the Main Base (Adelie

Land).

S. E. JONES, twenty-four years of age, single, was a graduate in

Medicine of Sydney University, New South Wales. A member and Medical

Officer of F. Wild's Western Base (Queen Mary Land), he took part in

several sledging journeys during 1912 and was leader of the party who

explored westward to Gaussberg.

A. L. KENNEDY, twenty-two years of age, single, was a student in

Science of Adelaide University, South Australia. Receiving special

tuition, he acted as Magnetician at the Western Base (Queen Mary

Land) during the year 1912. He was a member of several sledging

parties and accompanied F. Wild on his main eastern journey as

Cartographer.

C. F. LASERON, twenty-five years of age, single, had gained a

Diploma in Geology at the Technical College, Sydney, New South Wales,

and for some years was Collector to the Technological Museum. At the

Main Base (Adelie Land), during 1912, he acted as Taxidermist and

general Collector, taking part, as well, in sledging journeys to the

south and east of Winter Quarters.

C. T. MADIGAN, twenty-three years of age, single, was a graduate in

Science (Mining Engineering) of Adelaide University, South Australia.

Through the courtesy of the Trustees of the Rhodes Scholarship, the

necessary leave to accompany the Expedition was granted just as he

was on the eve of continuing his studies at Oxford University. A

member of the Main Base Party (Adelie Land) he acted as Meteorologist

for two years, and during the second year (1913) was also in charge of

the Greenland dogs. An important journey in the spring and one to

the east in the summer were made under his leadership, and the Party,

left in Adelie Land in 1913, was to have been under his charge, but

for my return.

D. MAWSON, thirty years of age, single, was the Organiser and Leader

of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition and was, previous to it, a

member of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition of 1907-1909,

being one of the party under Professor David which reached the South

Magnetic Pole. A graduate in Science and Engineering of Sydney and

Adelaide Universities, he had filled for some time the post of

Lecturer in Mineralogy and Petrology at the Adelaide University.

The only survivor of a party sledging to the east from the Main Base

in the summer of 1912-1913.

A. L. McLEAN, twenty-six years of age, single, was a graduate in Arts

and Medicine of Sydney University; New South Wales. He acted as

Chief Medical Officer at the Main Base (Adelie Land) and carried out

observations in Bacteriology and Physiology during the first year.

In 1913 (the second year) he was Biologist, Ice-Carrier and Editor of

the `Adelie Blizzard'. He took part in a sledging journey along the

eastern coast in the summer of 1912-1913.

X. MERTZ, twenty-eight years of age, single, of Basle, Switzerland,

was a graduate in Law of the Universities of Leipzig and Berne. Prior

to joining the Expedition he had gained the Ski-running Championship

of Switzerland and was an experienced mountaineer. At the Main Base

(Adelie Land) he was assisted by B. E. S. Ninnis in the care of

the Greenland dogs. On January 7, 1913, during a sledging journey,

he lost his life, one hundred miles south-east of Winter Quarters.

C. P. DE LA MOTTE, nineteen years of age, single, of Bulli, New

South Wales, had early training at sea on the barque `Northern Chief'

of New Zealand, obtaining his certificate as second mate in March

1911. During the eight months prior to joining the Expedition he

served as fourth officer on the S.S. `Warrimoo' of the Union Steamship

Company of New Zealand. Throughout the five cruises of the `Aurora'

between 1911 and 1914, C. P. de la Motte was third officer with the

Ship's party.

M. H. MOYES, twenty-five years of age, single, of Koolunga, South

Australia, was a graduate in Science of Adelaide University. With the

Western Base Party (Queen Mary Land) he acted as Meteorologist and

took part in several sledging journeys in the autumn and spring of

1912. During the summer of 1912-1913, through an unavoidable

accident, he was left to carry on work alone at Winter Quarters for

a period of nine weeks.

H. D. MURPHY, thirty-two years of age, single, of Melbourne,

one-time Scholar in History of Oxford University. At the outset he

was to have been leader of a third Antarctic Base which was eventually

amalgamated with the Main Base (Adelie Land). Here he had charge of

the stores and during the early summer of 1912 was leader of the

Southern Supporting Party.

B. E. S. NINNIS, twenty-three years of age, single, was educated at

Dulwich, England, and entered His Majesty's Army, having a commission

as Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers prior to joining the Expedition

in London. At the Main Base (Adelie Land) he was assisted by X. Mertz

in the care of the Greenland dogs. On December 14, 1912, while on a

sledging journey, he lost his life by falling into a crevasse three

hundred miles east of Winter Quarters.

C. A. SANDELL, twenty-five years of age, single, of Surrey, England,

studied electrical engineering for some years and then came to

Australia in 1909 and entered the Commonwealth Branch of Telephony.

Having a practical knowledge of wireless telegraphy he joined the

Expedition as a Wireless Operator and Mechanic and was stationed with

the Macquarie Island Party for two years. After the departure of A.

J. Sawyer in August 1913, he was in complete charge of the wireless

station. C. A. Sandell visited the Antarctic during the final

cruise of the `Aurora' in the summer of 1913-1914.

A. J. SAWYER, twenty-six years of age, single, was born in New

Zealand. Having had considerable experience in wireless telegraphy,

he joined the Expedition as an operator from the Australasian Wireless

Company. At the Macquarie Island Station he was chief wireless until

August 1913, when on account of illness he returned to New Zealand.

F. L. STILLWELL, twenty-three years of age, single, was a graduate

in Science of Melbourne University, Victoria. A member of the Main

Base Party (Adelie Land) he acted as Geologist. F. L. Stillwell

was leader of two sledging parties who did detail work for about sixty

miles along the coast eastward of Winter Quarters.

A. D. WATSON, twenty-four years of age, single, was a graduate in

Science of Sydney University, New South Wales. A member of the

Western Base Party (Queen Mary Land) he acted as Geologist. A. D.

Watson took part in several sledging journeys, accompanying F. Wild

in his main eastern trip during the summer of 1912-1913.

E. N. WEBB, twenty-two years of age, single, was an Associate of

Civil Engineering of Canterbury University College, and, for the

five months previous to joining the Expedition, carried out magnetic

observations under the Carnegie Institute of Washington, U.S.A. At

the Main Base (Adelie Land) E. N. Webb was Chief Magnetician,

accompanying the Southern Sledging Party.

L. A. WHETTER, twenty-nine years of age, single. He graduated at

Otago University, New Zealand, and joined the Expedition as Surgeon,

acting in that capacity at the Main Base (Adelie Land) during 1912.

He accompanied a sledging party which explored to the westward of

Winter Quarters.

F. WILD, thirty-eight years of age, single, was Leader of the Western

Base Party (Queen Mary Land). He joined the Merchant Service in

1889 and the Navy in 1900, served on an extended sledge journey

during the National Antarctic Expedition (Capt. R. F. Scott) of

1901-1904, and was one of the Southern Party of Sir Ernest

Shackleton's Expedition from 1907-1909. During the Australasian

Expedition he opened up a new tract of country-- Queen Mary Land.

I desire to make special mention of the Ship's Party who faced the

rigorous conditions of Antarctica and the stormy Southern Ocean,

during five separate voyages, with a cheerfulness and devotion to duty

which will always stand to their lasting credit. In regions of heavy

pack-ice and sudden blizzard winds, Captain Davis piloted the Ship

safely through many situations of extreme danger. In a report to me

on the work of the Ship he writes an appreciative note:--

``I wish to draw particular attention to the loyal way in which the

officers and men of the `Aurora' supported me. Messrs. Toucher,

Fletcher, Blair, Gray, de la Motte, and Gillies, in their respective

positions, carried out the duties assigned to them with ability and

cheerfulness, often under very trying conditions.

``Mr. Gillies not only looked after the engines but assisted

materially in the deep-sea work by the invention of a new form of

sounding driver which was used successfully during the various

cruises of the `Aurora'.

``The Chief Officer was in charge of the stores and equipment of the

Expedition on board the vessel, in addition to his ordinary executive

duties. Messrs. Toucher, Fletcher and Blair served in this capacity

on different voyages.

``Mr. P. Gray, as Second and Navigating Officer, and Mr. C. P. de

la Motte, as Third Officer, acted capably and thoroughly throughout

the Expedition.''

APPENDIX II

Scientific Work

It should be remarked that there is no intention of furnishing

anything more than a suggestion of the general trend of the scientific

observations of the Expedition. The brief statement made below

indicates the broad lines on which the work was conducted and in some

cases the ground which was actually covered. It may thus give the

general reader a clue to the nature of the scientific volumes which

will serve to record permanently the results amassed during a period

of more than two years.

Terrestrial Magnetism

1. Field Work.

(a) Dip determinations were made at Macquarie Island, on the eastern

and southern journeys from the Main Base (Adelie Land) and on a

short journey from the Western Base (Queen Mary Land).

(b) Declination by theodolite observations was determined at

Macquarie Island and at intervals on all sledging journeys in the

Antarctic.

`Aurora' during her five cruises.

2. Station Work.

(a) Regular magnetograph records were kept at the Main Base (Adelie Land)

for a period of eighteen months. A system of term days for quick runs

was also followed; Melbourne, Christchurch, and other stations co-

operating. In connexion with the magnetograph work, Webb conducted

regular, absolute observations throughout the year 1912. Bage continued

the magnetograph records for a further six months in 1913, observed

term days, and took absolute observations.

(b) At the Western Base (Queen Mary Land) Kennedy kept term days in

the winter, using a magnetometer and dip-circle.

Biology

1. Station Collections.

(a) At Macquarie Island, Hamilton worked for two years amongst a rich

fauna and a scanty but interesting flora. Amongst other discoveries

a finch indigenous to Macquarie Island was found.

(b) In Adelie Land, Hunter, assisted by Laseron, secured a large

biological collection, notwithstanding the continuous bad weather.

Dredgings from depths down to fifty fathoms were made during the

winter. The eggs of practically all the flying birds known along

Antarctic shores were obtained, including those of the silver-grey

petrel and the Antarctic petrel, which were not previously known;

also a variety of prion, of an unrecorded species, together with its

eggs.

other petrels were found, and a large rookery of Emperor penguins was

located; the second on record. Harrisson, working under difficulties,

succeeded in trapping some interesting fish on the bottom in two

hundred and fifty fathoms of water.

2. Ship Collections.

(a) A collection made by Mr. E. R. Waite, Curator of the Canterbury

Museum, on the first Sub-Antarctic cruise.

(b) A collection made by Professor T. T. Flynn, of Hobart, on the

second Sub-Antarctic cruise.

waters during the summer of 1913-1914. This comprised deep-sea

dredgings at eleven stations in depths down to one thousand eight

hundred fathoms and regular tow-nettings, frequently serial, to

depths of two hundred fathoms. Six specimens of the rare Ross seal

were secured. A large collection of external and internal parasites

was made from birds, seals and fish.

Geology

(a) A geological examination of Macquarie Island was made by Blake.

The older rocks were found to be all igneous. The Island has been

overridden in comparatively recent times by an ice-cap travelling

from west to east.

(b) Geological collections at the Main Base. In Adelie Land the rocky

outcrops are metamorphic sediments and gneisses. In King George V

Land there is a formation similar to the Beacon sandstones and dolerites

of the Ross Sea, with which carbonaceous shales and coaly strata are

associated.

terminal moraine near Winter Quarters, Adelie Land. Amongst them was

red sandstone in abundance, suggesting that the Beacon sandstone

formation extends also throughout Adelie Land but is hidden by the

ice-cap. A solitary stony meteorite was found by a sledging party

lying on the ice of the plateau.

(d) In the collections made by Watson and Hoadley at the Western

Base (Queen Mary Land) gneisses and schists were ascertained to be

the predominant types.

(e) A collection of erratics was brought up by the deep-sea trawl in

the course of dredgings in Antarctic waters.

Glaciology

(a) Observations of the pack-ice, coastal glaciers and shelf-ice from

the `Aurora' during her three Antarctic cruises.

(b) Obscrvations of the niveous and glacial features met with on the

sledging journeys from both Antarctic bases.

Meteorology

(a) Two years' observations at Macquarie Island by Ainsworth

(b) Two years' observations in Adelie Land by Madigan.

(d) Observations by the Ship on each of her five voyages.

(e) Observations during the many sledging journeys from both

Antarctic Bases.

Bacteriology, etc.

In Adelie Land, McLean carried out many months of steady work in

Bacteriology, Haematology and Physiology.

Tides

Self-recording instruments were run at Macquarie Island by Ainsworth

and at Adelie Land by Bage.

Wireless and Auroral Observations

A very close watch was kept upon auroral phenomena with interesting

results, especially in their relation to the ``permeability'' of the

ether to wireless waves.

Geographical Results

1. The successful navigation by the `Aurora' of the Antarctic pack-

ice in a fresh sphere of action, where the conditions were practically

unknown, resulting in the discovery of new lands and islands.

2. Journeys were made over the sea-ice and on the coastal and upland

plateau in regions hitherto unsurveyed. At the Main Base (Adelie

Land) the journeys aggregated two thousand four hundred miles, and at

the Western Base (Queen Mary Land) the aggregate was eight hundred

miles. These figures do not include depot journeys, the journeys of

supporting parties, or the many miles of relay work. The land was

mapped in through 33 degrees of longitude, 27 degrees of which were

covered by sledging parties.

3. The employment of wireless telegraphy in the fixation of a

fundamental meridian in Adelie Land.

4. The mapping of Macquarie Island.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS]

A Section of the Antarctic Plateau from the Coast to a Point Three

Hundred Miles Inland, along the Route followed by the Southern

Sledging Party (Adelie Land)

A Section across the Antarctic Continent through the South Magnetic

Pole from the D'Urville Sea to the Ross Sea; Compiled from Observations

made by the British Antarctic Expedition (1907-1909) and by the

Australian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914)

Oceanography

1. By soundings the fringe of the Antarctic Continent as well as the

Continental Shelf has been indicated through 55 degrees of longitude.

2. The configuration of the floor of the ocean southward of Australia

and between Macquarie Island and the Auckland Islands has been broadly

ascertained.

3. Much has been done in the matter of sea-water temperatures and

salinities.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS]

A Section of the Floor of the Southern Ocean between Tasmania

and King George V Land

A Section of the Floor of the Southern Ocean between Western

Australia and Queen Mary Land

APPENDIX Ill

An Historical Summary**

** For this compilation reference has been largely made to Dr. H. R.

Mill's ``The Siege of the South Pole.'' Several doubtful voyages

during the early part of the nineteenth century have been omitted.

1775. James Cook circumnavigated the Globe in high southern

latitudes, discovering the sub-antarctic island of South Georgia.

He was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle.

1819. William Smith, the master of a merchant vessel trading between

Montevideo and Valparaiso, discovered the South Shetland Islands.

1819. Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, despatched in command of an

Expedition by the Emperor, Alexander I of Russia, with instructions

to supplement the voyage of Captain Cook, circumnavigated the

Antarctic continent in high southern latitudes. The first discovery

of land south of the Antarctic Circle was made, namely, Peter I Island

and Alexander I Land (also an island), in the American Quadrant of

Antarctica.

1820. Nathaniel Palmer, master of an American sealing-vessel, sighted

new land to the south of the South Shetland Islands. It seems clear

that he was the first to view what is now known as the Palmer

Archipelago (1820-21).

1823. James Weddell, a British sealer, sailing southward ofthe

Atlantic Ocean, reached 74 degrees 15' south latitude in the American

Quadrant, establishing a ``farthest south'' record.

1830. John Biscoe, a whaling master of the British firm of Enderby

Brothers, sailed on a voyage circumnavigating the Antarctic Regions.

Enderby Land was discovered south of the West Indian Ocean in the

African Quadrant of Antarctica. This was apparently a part of the

Antarctic continent. New land was also met with to the south of

America and charted as Graham's Land, Biscoe Island and Adelaide

Island.

Kemp, a sailing master of Enderby Brothers, extended Biscoe's

discoveries shortly after by the report of land east of, and

adjacent to, Enderby Land.

Neither of these discoveries has yet been proved, though Enderby Land

(Biscoe) undoubtedly exists.

1839. John Balleny, another of Enderby's whaling captains, discovered

the Balleny Islands within the Antarctic Circle, in the Australian

Quadrant of Antarctica, and gave a vague description of an appearance

of land to the westward. This has been charted on maps, without

adequate evidence, as Sabrina Land.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Antarctic Land Discoveries Preceding 1838

Note. This and the two following maps of the series illustrate land

discoveries only. In cases where the existence of land once reported

has since been disproved no record at all is shown

1837. Jules Sebastian Cesar Dumont D'Urville, was despatched by King

Louis Philippe of France for the prosecution of scientific researches

on a voyage round the World. His cruise in the Antarctic resulted in

the charting of Joinville Island and Louis Philippe Land to the south

of America (American Quadrant) and the discovery of a portion of the

Antarctic continent, named Adelie Land, southward of Australia

(Australian Quadrant).

1838. Charles Wilkes, United States Navy, in accordance with a bill

passed by Congress, set out on an exploring expedition to circumnavigate

the World. His programme included the investigation of the area of

the Antarctic to the south of Australia--the Australian Quadrant.

The squadron composing this American expedition first visited the

Antarctic regions in the American Quadrant, and then proceeded eastward

round to the Australian Quadrant from which, after a long cruise, they

returned, reporting land at frequent intervals in the vicinity of the

Antarctic Circle between longitudes 157 degrees 46' E. and 106 degrees

19' E. He shares with D'Urville the full honour of the discovery of

Adelie Land. Some of the supposed landfalls known to be non-existent.

1839. James Clark Ross proceeded south in charge of a scientific

expedition fitted out by the Admiralty at the instance of the British

Association for the Advancement of Science and approved of by the Royal

Society. His aim was to circumnavigate the Antarctic regions and to

investigate the Weddell Sea. The geographical results were fruitful;

the Ross Sea, the Admiralty Range and the Great Ice Barrier were

discovered and some eight hundred miles of Antarctic coastline were

broadly delineated.

1844. T. E. L. Moore was detailed by the Admiralty to supplement

the magnetic work of Ross and to explore to the southward of Africa

and of the Indian Ocean, but no additions were made to geographical

knowledge.

1872. Eduard Dallmann, whilst engaged in whaling with a German

steamer to the southward of America, added some details to the map of

the Palmer Archipelago but did not go further south than 64 degrees

45' S. Iatitude.

1874. The `Challenger' scientific expedition, under the command of

George Strong Nares, in the course of their voyage from the Cape to

Australia during the circumnavigation of the World penetrated within

the Antarctic Circle in longitude 78 degrees 22' E.

1892. A fleet of four Scottish whalers cruised through the north-

western part of the Weddell Sea. Scientific observations were made

by W. S. Bruce and others, but no geographical discoveries were

recorded.

1892. C. A. Larsen, master of a Hamburg whaler, added important

details to the geography of the American Quadrant of Antarctica on

the western side of the Weddell Sea.

1894. Evensen, master of another Hamburg whaler, brought back further

information of the American Quadrant on the Pacific Ocean side.

1895. H. J. Bull organized a whaling venture and with Leonard

Kristensen, master of the ship, revisited the Ross Sea area where

a landing was made at Cape Adare (Australian Quadrant). This was the

first occasion on which any human being had set foot on the Antarctic

continent.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Antarctic land Discoveries Preceding 1896 (A. J. Hodgeman)

1897. Adrien de Gerlache sailed from Belgium on a scientific exploring

expedition to the American Quadrant. Important additions were made to

the map, but the ship became frozen into the pack-ice and drifted about

for a whole year south of the Antarctic Circle. The members of this

expedition were the first to experience an Antarctic winter. Antarctic

exploration now entered upon a new era.

1898. Carstens Egeberg Borchgrevink led an expedition, fitted out by

Sir George Newnes; its objective being the Ross Sea area. Further

details were added to the map, but the most notable fact was that the

expedition wintered at Cape Adare, on the mainland itself. The Great

Ross Barrier was determined to be thirty miles south of the position

assigned by Ross in 1839.

1898. Chun of Leipsig, in charge of the `Valdivia' Expedition, carried

out oceanographical researches far to the south, in the vicinity of

Enderby Land (African Quadrant), though he did not come within sight

of the continent.

1901. Robert Falcon Scott, in command of the `Discovery' Expedition,

organised by the Royal Geographical Society and Royal Society with

the co-operation of the Admiralty, in accordance with a scheme of

international endeavour, passed two winters at the southern extremity

of the Ross Sea and carried out many successful sledging journeys.

Their main geographical achievements were: the discovery of King

Edward VII Land; several hundred miles of new land on a ``farthest

south'' sledging journey to latitude 82 degrees 17' S.; the discovery

of the Antarctic plateau; additional details and original contributions

to the geography of the lands and islands of the Ross Sea.

1901. A German national expedition, led by Erich von Drygalski, set

out for the region south of the Indian Ocean. After a small party

had been stationed on Kerguelen Island, the main party proceeded

south close to the tracks of the Challenger. They came within sight

of Antarctic shores but were frozen into the pack-ice for a whole

year. Kaiser Wilhelm II Land was discovered close to the junction

between the Australian and African Quadrants.

1901. A Swedish national expedition, planned and led by Otto

Nordenskjold, wintered for two years on Snow Hill Island in the

American Quadrant, and did much valuable scientific work.

1902. William Speirs Bruce organized and led a Scottish expedition to

the Weddell Sea, southward of the Atlantic Ocean. The party effected

notable oceanographic researches and wintered at the South Orkney

Islands, but were foiled in their attempt to penetrate the pack-ice.

During the second season, conditions were more favourable and the ship

reached Coats Land in 74 degrees 1' S. Iatitude.

1903. Jean Charcot organized and led a French expedition to the

American Quadrant and there added many details to the existing chart.

1907. Ernest Henry Shackleton organized and led a British

expedition with the main object of reaching the South Geographical

Pole. His party wintered at Cape Royds, McMurdo Sound, and two main

sledging parties set out in the early summer. E. H. Shackleton's

party ascended the Antarctic plateau and penetrated to within ninety-

seven geographical miles of the South Pole, discovering new land beyond

Scott's ``farthest south.'' T. W. Edgeworth David's party reached the

South Magnetic Polar Area, filling in many details of the western coast

of McMurdo Sound.

1908. Jean Charcot organized and led a second French expedition to

extend the work accomplished in 1903 in the American Quadrant. He was

successful in discovering new land still further to the south.

Loubet, Fallieres and Charcot Lands, towards and beyond Alexander I

Land, were added to the map of Antarctica.

1910. Roald Amundsen organized an expedition for scientific research

in the vicinity of the North Pole but changed his plans, eventually

heading for the South Pole. The expedition wintered on the Ross

Barrier near King Edward VII Land, from which point he set out and

attained the South Geographical Pole, mapping in new land on the way.

Another party visited King Edward VII Land.

1910. Robert Falcon Scott led a second Antarctic expedition, the main

object of which was to reach the South Geographical Pole. The

principal party wintered near his old winter quarters at Hut Point,

McMurdo Sound. A second party was landed at Cape Adare. Scott

reached the Pole soon after the Norwegian Amundsen, but he and his

party perished on the return journey. Other parties added details to

the map of Victoria Land. Oates Land was sighted from the ship to the

westward of Cape Adare in the Australian Quadrant.

1910. A Japanese expedition sailed to the Ross Sea, but on account of

the lateness of the season was forced to turn back without landing.

The winter was spent at Sydney, New South Wales. Next year a summer

visit was made to the South, but no additional land discoveries were

made.

1911. A German expedition, led by Wilhelm Filchner, proceeded to the

Weddell Sea; the South Pole being its objective. The party

succeeded in reaching further south in that region than any previous

navigators and discovered new land, to be named Prince Luitpold Land.

They were driven northwards amongst the pack in a blizzard and spent

the winter frozen in south of Coats Land.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

A Map of the Antarctic Regions as Known at the Present Day

[1915]

APPENDIX IV

Glossary

Oceanography. The study of the ocean, including the shape and

character of its bed, the temperature and salinity of the water at

various depths, the force and set of its currents, and the nature of

the creatures and plants which haunt its successive zones.

Neve. [n,e acute, v, e acute] The compacted snow of a snow-field;

a stage in the transition between soft, loose snow and glacier-ice.

Sastrugi. The waves caused by continuous winds blowing across the

surface of an expanse of snow. These waves vary in size according to

the force and continuity of the wind and the compactness of the snow.

The word is of Russian derivation (from zastruga [sing.], zastrugi

[pl.] ), denoting snow-waves or the irregularities on the surface of

roughly-planed wood.

Ice-foot. A sheath of ice adhering along the shores of polar lands.

The formation may be composed of attached remnants of floe-ice,

frozen sea-spray and drift-snow.

Nunatak. An island-like outcrop of rock projecting through a sheet of

enveloping land-ice.

Shelf-ice. A thick, floating, fresh water ice-formation pushing out

from the land and continuous with an extensive glacier. Narrow

prolongations or peninsulas of the shelf-ice may be referred to as

ice-tongues or glacier-tongues.

Barrier is a term which has been rather loosely applied in the

literature of Antarctic Exploration. Formerly it was used to

describe a formation, which is mainly shelf-ice, known as the Great

Ross Barrier. Confusion arose when ``Barrier'' came to be applied to

the seaward ice-cliff (resting on rock) of an extensive sheet of

land-ice and when it was also employed to designate a line of

consolidated pack-ice. Spelt with a small ``b'' the term is a

convenient one, so long as it carries its ordinary meaning; it seems

unnecessary to give it a technical connotation.

Blizzard. A high wind at a low temperature, accompanied by drifting,

not necessarily falling snow.

Floe or Floe-ice. The comparatively flat, frozen surface of the sea

intersected by cracks and leads (channels of open water).

Pack or Pack-ice is a field of loose ice originating in the main from

broken floe, to which may be added material from the disintegration

of bergs, and bergs themselves.

Brash or Brash-ice. Small, floating fragments of ice--the debris of

larger pieces--usually observed bordering a tract of pack-ice.

Bergschrund has been ``freely rendered'' in the description of the

great cleft between the lower part of the Denman Glacier and the

Shackleton Shelf-Ice (Queen Mary Land). In a typical glacier, ``the

upper portion is hidden by neve and often by freshly fallen snow

and is smooth and unbroken. During the summer, when little snow

falls, the body of the glacier moves away from the snow-field and a

gaping crevasse of great depth is usually established, called a

`Bergschrund', which is sometimes taken as the upper limit of the

glacier'' (``Encyclopaedia Britannica'').

Sub-Antarctica. A general term used to denote the area of ocean,

containing islands and encircling the Antarctic continent, between the

vicinity of the 50th parallel of south latitude and the confines of

the ice-covered sea.

Seracs are wedged masses of icy pinnacles which are produced in the

surface of a glacier by dragging strains which operate on crevassed

areas. A field of such pinnacles, jammed together in broken

confusion, is called serac-ice

The following colloquial words or phrases occurring in the narrative

were largely determined by general usage:

To depot = to cache or to place a stock of provisions in a depot;

drift = drift-snow;

fifty-mile wind = a wind of fifty miles an hour;

burberry = ``Burberry gabardine'' or specially prepared wind-proof

clothing;

whirly (pi. whirlies) = whirlwind carrying drift-snow and pursuing a

devious track;

night-watchman = night-watch;

glaxo = ``Glaxo'' (a powder of dried milk);

primus = primus stove used during sledging;

hoosh = pemmican and plasmon biscuit ``porridge'';

tanks = canvas bags for holding sledging provisions;

boil-up = sledging meal;

ramp = bank of snow slanting away obliquely on the leeward side of an

obstacle;

radiant = an appearance noted in clouds (especially cirro-stratus)

which seem to radiate from a point on the horizon

The following appended list may be of biological interest:

Birds Aves

Emperor penguin Aptenodytes forsteri

King penguin Aptenodytes patagonica

Adelie penguin Pygoscelis adeliae

Royal penguin Catarrhactes schlegeli

Victoria penguin Catarrhactes pachyrynchus

Gentoo or Rockhopper penguin Pygoscelis papua

Wandering albatross Diomedea exulans

Mollymawk or Black-browed albatross Diomedea melanophrys

Sooty albatross Phoebetria fuliginosa

Giant petrel or nelly Ossifraga gigantea

MacCormick's skua gull Megalestris maccormicki

Southern skua gull Megalestris antarctica

Antarctic petrel Thalassoeca antarctica

Silver-grey petrel or southern fulmar Priocella glacialoides

Cape pigeon Daption capensis

Snow petrel Pagodroma nivea

Lesson's petrel Oestrelata lessoni

Wilson petrel Oceanites oceanicus

Storm petrel Fregetta melanogaster

Cape hen Majaqueus oequinoctialis

Small prion or whale bird Prion banksii

Crested tern Sterna sp.

Southern black-backed or Dominican gull Larus dominicanus

Macquarie Island shag Phalacrocorax traversi

Mutton bird Puffinus griseus

Maori hen or ``weka'' Ocydromus scotti

Seals Pinnipedia

Sea elephant Macrorhinus leoninus

Sea-leopard Stenorhynchus leptonyax

Weddell seal Leptonychotes weddelli

Crab-eater seal Lobodon carcinophagus

Ross seal Ommatophoca rossi

Whales and Dolphins Cetacea

Rorqual, finner, or blue whale Balaenoptera sibbaldi

Killer whale Orca gladiator

APPENDIX V

Medical Reports

Western Base (Queen Mary Land)

by S. E. Jones, M.B., CH.M.

There was a very marked absence of serious illness during the whole

period of our stay at the Base. After the `Aurora' left Adelie Land

on January 19, 1912, for her western cruise, an epidemic of influenza

broke out. It should be noted that one case occurred on the voyage

south from Hobart, and then an interval of almost a month occurred

before the infection spread. An interesting feature of the outbreak

was the fact that the recovery of those who were convalescing, when

we arrived at Queen Mary Land, was much more rapid than was the case

with those whose convalescence occurred on the Ship.

By the careful use of snow-goggles during the summer, snow-blindness

was practically prevented, and such cases as occurred yielded quickly

when zinc and cocaine tablets were used and the eyes obtained rest.

An undoubted factor in the causation of snow-blindness is the strain

caused by the continual efforts at visual accommodation made

necessary on dull days when the sun is obscured, and there is a

complete absence of all light-and-shade contrast.

Although frostbites were frequent during the winter months, immediate

attention to the restoration of circulation prevented the occurrence

of after-effects, so that no one suffered the loss of any more tissue

than the superficial epithelium. The nose, ears, fingers and toes

were the parts which suffered first.

Our supplies of food were excellent in point of view of variety. Some

tinned onions were responsible for several mild attacks of poisoning,

but these were not used after our first experience. There was no sign

of scurvy in any form.

Hoadley, on one occasion, had an unpleasant experience. He was alone

in the hut sleeping one night when he awoke to find the room filled

with smoke. On going outside he found that the chimney had become

blocked with snow; as the fire was banked, the hut was filled with the

gases from the imperfect combustion of the coal. It was three or four

days before Hoadley recovered from his experience, having marked

symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

On my return from the Western Depot journey I found that Wild was

suffering from an attack of herpes zoster. The illness came on while

he was out sledging, and he suffered severely from the pain and

irritation.

Beyond a few cases of minor illness, and one or two accidents, there

was nothing of serious moment to report.

Main Base (Adelie Land)

by A. L. McLean, M.B., CH.M., B.A.

Throughout the whole period of the Expedition--from December 2, 1911,

to February 26, 1914--the health of the expedition was remarkably

good. Undoubtedly Antarctica has a salubrious climate, and it is

simply because one returns in a measure to the primitive that such an

ideal result is obtained.

The first thing to resist is the cold, and additional clothing is the

first and adequate means to such an end. No one needs to be specially

inured to a rigorous climate. If he has a normal circulation he

immediately reacts to a new set of temperature conditions, and in a

few weeks may claim to be acclimatized. Most of the members of the

expedition were Australians, so that the change of latitudes was

rather abrupt but none the less stimulating and healthful.

Appetite for food had suddenly a new piquancy, hard manual work was

a pleasure in a novel and wonderful environment, the intellect and

imagination were quickened and the whole man embodied the mens sana

in corpore sano. That is why illness was practically unknown for more

than two years; and, further, it may be said with partial truth that

in the high sense of physical and mental fitness he possessed for a

time, lies the explanation of the proverbial desire of an explorer

to return to the ice-lands.

Regular monthly examinations of the blood were made from the date of

leaving Hobart in December 1911 until October 1912, with an interval

of about nine weeks between the first and second examinations. The

haemoglobin or red colouring-matter went up with a leap and then very

steadily increased in amount during the winter months in Adelie Land.

The blood pressure became slightly more marked, the weight increased,

but as one might have expected, the resistance to ordinary civilized

germs was decreased. With regard to weight, the maximum amount gained

by a single individual during a period of eight weeks was almost two

stones, and every one became heavier by as much as ten pounds. As

clinical evidence of the loss in immunity may be quoted the epidemic

of influenza to which Dr. S. E. Jones referred. As well, it was noted

that several members had attacks of ``boils'' during the voyage

southward; in Adelie Land during 1912 there were two instances of acute

abscesses on the fingers (whitlows) and one jaw abscess. It appears as

if, with its new and unbounded energy of function, the body attempts to

throw oft its waste products. Then, too, experimental observations of

opsonic index pointed towards the lowering of resistance, and, by the

way, it was rather a remarkable fact that after a few months in Adelie

Land, staphylococcus pyogenes aureus--a common germ in civilization--

could not be cultivated artificially from the throat, nose or skin, of

six individuals from whom monthly bacteriological cultures were made.

Within the Hut, at a temperature which ranged from 40 degrees to

45 degrees F., the number of micro-organisms continuously increased,

if the exposure of agar plates at regular intervals (by night) gave

a true indication. The organisms were staphylocci albi, bacilli, yeasts,

and moulds; the latter overgrowing the plate after it had been for forty-

eight hours in the incubator.

Frostbites were common, but, perhaps for that reason, were not regarded

seriously. No one suffered permanent harm from being frost-bitten,

though in several cases rather extensive blisters formed and nails and

skin were lost.

Whilst the Hut was being built, minor casualties often occurred; the

common remedy being to cover the injured part with a small piece of

gauze surrounded by adhesive tape; for open wounds will not heal

when exposed to the cold. The Greenland dogs had small accidents and

ailments which often required treatment.

On sledging journeys snow-blindness was an affection which sooner or

later caught every one in an unguarded moment. That moment was when

he ceased to use goggles if the light were at all trying to his eyes.

Prevention came first, and then the ``zinc and cocaine'' cure.

Adelie Land can only be regarded as an intolerable country in which

to live, owing to the never-ceasing winds. Usage and necessity

helped one to regard the weather in the best possible light; for the

sake of a few hours of calm which might be expected to occasionally

intervene between the long spells of the blizzards. It is, therefore,

with regret and some diffldence that I speak of the illness of Mr. S.

N. Jeffryes, who took up so conscientiously the duties of wireless

operator during the second year (1913); but upon whom the monotony

of a troglodytic winter life made itself felt. It is my hope that he

is fast recovering his former vigour and enthusiasm.**

So many miles of sledging were done at both Antarctic Bases in a

climate which is surely without a parallel in the history of polar

travelling, the Ship was so often in jeopardy during her three main

cruises to the South, that we feel the meagre comment should be made

on our providential return to civilization with the loss of two

comrades whose memory will ever be imperishable to each one of us.

** With the advent of summer, Jeffryes became normal, but unfortunately

suffered a temporary relapse upon his return to Australia.--D. M.

APPENDIX VI

Finance

A General reference was made to the finances of the expedition in the

Introduction. Here is an extended statement which, more fully amplified

with a detailed list of donations, will be again published when

additional funds have been raised to pay off the debit balance and

establish equilibrium.

GRANTS AND DONATIONS

AUSTRALIA, January 1911: L

Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, L1000;

R. Barr Smith (South Australia), L100; Hugh Denison (Sydney),

L1000; Samuel Hordern (Sydney), L1000 (subsequently increased

to L2500) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000

LONDON, June 1911:

S. Hordern (Sydney), L1500 (second donation); Roderick Murchison

(Melbourne), L1000; W. A. Horn (South Australia), L1000;

Lord Strathcona, L1000; Eugene Sandow, L1050; Imperial Government,

L2000; Royal Geographical Society, L500; Lionel Robinson (Sydney),

L250; C. D. Mackellar, L150; G. P. Doolette, L150; G. Buckley,

L150; Lord Denman, L100; Madame Melba (Melbourne), L100;

S. Y. Buchanan, L100 (later increased to L200); Daily Mail,L100;

Messrs. Bullivants L100, &c., aggregating an additional L593 . . 9,843

AUSTRALIA, October 1911:

Sydney: Government grant, L7000; collected by L.

Professor David, L50; `Sydney Morning Herald',

L100; Professor David's own donation and

lecture proceeds, L100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,250

Melbourne: Government grant, L6000; collected by

Professor Masson, L70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,070

Adelaide: Government grant, L5000; collected by

Mr. Piper, L250 (including Angus L100, Simpson L85,

Scarfe L50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,250

Hobart: Government grant, L500; collected, L55 . . . 555

Commonwealth grant 5,000

________

24,125

Carried forward . . . . . . 37,968

LONDON, 1913: Brought forward . . . . . . 37,969

Sir Lucas Tooth, L1000 (Sydney); Imperial Treasury, L1000;

Royal Geographical Society, L100; S. Y. Buchanan, L100;

Lady Scott, L100; Commander Evans, L100; other members of

Scott Expedition and general subscriptions, L227 . . . . . . . 2,627

Australia, 1913:

Commonwealth grant, L5000; collected by Professor David

(approximately), L50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,050

Australia, 1914:

Collected by Professor Masson (approximately), L80;

G. J. R. Murray (Adelaide), L100; Sir Samuel Way, L50 . . . . . 230

Collected in London, 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Total moneys donated L45,885

Assets realized and added to the fund:

Sale of photos and newspaper articles, L490; sale

of ship and materials, L3699; lectures, films, &c., L726 . . . . . 4,915

Bills Owing . . . . . . 5,932 5,932

Assets to be realized:

In hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Owing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Anticipated sale of gear . . . . . . . . . 570

----- 1,470

Debit balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,462

Total cost ** of Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . 56,732

There is therefore a deficit of L4462 to be made up by the royalty

on the sale of the book, lectures, donations, &c., and the cost of

the publication of the scientific results, which will be approximately

L8000, has yet to be defrayed.

** An estimate of the cost of the expedition should also take

account of donations in kind, which, as can be gathered, were numerous.

Facilities offered by harbour boards and valuable assistance extended

in the matter of docking and repairing the `Aurora', particularly in

the case of the State of Victoria, and to a less extent in New South

Wales.

Then there were valuable contributions of coal, particularly by Mr.

J. Brown of Newcastle (N.S.W.), Mr. H. D. Murphy (Melbourne),

and the Lithgow Collieries Company.

APPENDIX VII

Equipment

Clothing

With regard to the clothing, the main bulk was of woollen material

as supplied by Jaeger of London. This firm is unexcelled in the

production of camel's-hair garments and has supplied most polar

expeditions of recent years with underclothing, gloves, caps, and

the like. From the same firm we also secured heavy ski-boots,

finnesko-crampons, and the blankets which were used at Winter Quarters

at both Antarctic Bases. Some of the Jaeger woollens were damaged

by sea water on the voyage from London to Australia and were replaced

by Eagley goods; an Australian brand, which proved very satisfactory.

The Ship's Party were outfitted with Kaipoi woollens (New Zealand).

Outer garments were made up to our design from Jaeger fleece by

tailors in Hobart. The suit consisted of a single garment, to be worn

with combination underclothing, and was calculated to meet the

requirements of a severe climate.

An over-suit of wind-proof material, which may be worn when required,

is a necessary adjunct to woollen clothing. Such a suit should have

the additional properties of being light, strong, not readily

absorbing moisture, and not affected by the cold. Burberry

gabardine was found to possess all these properties, and two complete

suits were made up for each man. One suit consisted of three pieces,

whilst the other was made of two; the blouse-jacket and helmet of the

latter being combined.

Furs, which were obtained from Norway, were restricted to sleeping-

bags, finnesko or fur-boots, and wolfskin mitts (Lapland).

The outfit of clothing for the party at Macquarie Island and on the

Ship, respectively, differed from that used in the Antarctic. Warmer

temperatures and wet conditions had to be taken into account, and so

rubber boots, oilskins, and rubberized materials were provided as

outer coverings.

Food

The food-stuffs were selected with at least as much consideration as

was given to any of the other requisites. The successful work of an

expedition depends on the health of the men who form its members, and

good and suitable food reduces to a minimum the danger of scurvy; a

scourge which has marred many polar enterprises. Thus our

provisioning was arranged with care and as a result of my previous

experience in the Antarctic with Sir Ernest Shackleton's Expedition.

A summary which may be of possible use to future expeditions is

appended below:

In the matter of canned meats we had some six tons of the excellent

Australian article supplied by the Sydney Meat Preserving Company,

Ramornie Meat Company (N.S.W.), Baynes Brothers (Brisbane), and the

Border (rabbit) Preserving Company of South Australia. For use on

the Ship three tons of salt beef and pork served to replenish the

``harness cask,'' largely obtained in Melbourne from Cook and Sons.

For a ton of sauces and pickles we were indebted to Brand and Company

(London) and to Mason and Company (London).

Of course fresh meat was consumed as far as possible; a number of

live sheep being taken by the `Aurora' on each cruise. Some of these

were killed and dressed after reaching 60 degrees south latitude and

supplied our two Antarctic Bases with the luxury of fresh mutton

about once a week throughout a year.

One ton of preserved suet came from the firms of Hugon (Manchester)

and Conrad (Adelaide).

Almost all our bacon and ham, amounting to well over one ton, was of

the Pineapple Brand (Sydney), and to the firm which supplied them we

are indebted alike for the quality of its goods and for its generosity.

Soups in endless variety, totalling two tons, came chiefly from the

Flemington Meat Preserving Company (Melbourne).

Fours tons of canned fish were supplied by C. & E. Morton (London).

Variety in vegetables was considered important. We decided to reduce

the amount of dried vegetables in favour of canned vegetables. About

six and a half tons of the latter in addition to one ton of canned

potatoes were consumed; from Laver Brothers (Melbourne) and Heinz

(Pittsburgh). There were one and a half tons of dried vegetables.

In addition, large quantities of fresh potatoes and other vegetables

were regularly carried by the `Aurora', and many bags of new and old

potatoes were landed at the Main Base. In the frozen condition, the

former kept satisfactorily, though they were somewhat sodden when

thawed. The old potatoes, on the other hand, became black and useless,

partly owing to the comparatively high temperature of the ship's hold,

and in part to the warmth of the sun during the first few weeks in

Adelie Land.

Canned fruits, to the extent of five tons, were supplied by Jones

Brothers (Hobart) and Laver Brothers (Melbourne). This stock was eked

out by some two and a half tons of dried fruits, chiefly from South

Australia.

The management of Hartley (London) presented us with two tons of jam,

and James Keiller and Son (London) with one ton of marmalade.

Of the twelve tons of sugar and half a ton of syrup consumed, all were

generously donated by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (Sydney).

For milk we were provided with two tons of Glaxo (a dry powder) which

was used at the land bases, and a ton and a half of Nestle's condensed

variety for use on the ship.

Three tons of cereal meals, largely from Parsons (Sydney), were

consumed.

As one might have expected, the amount of flour used was enormous.

In the thirteen tons of this commodity from Colman (London) there were

three varieties, self-rising, plain, and wheatmeal flour, encased in

stout metal linings within strong, well-finished cases of a convenient

size. Until required, the cases of flour were used to solidify the

break-wind on the southern side of the Hut.

Bird and Company (Birmingham) more than satisfied our needs in the

matter of baking powder, custard powder, jelly crystals, and the

like.

There was over half a ton of fancy biscuits of excellent quality and

great variety, for which we were indebted to Jacob and Company

(Dublin), Arnott Brothers (Sydney), and Patria Biscuit Fabriek

(Amsterdam). ``Hardtack,'' the name by which a plain wholemeal

biscuit of good quality, made by Swallow and Ariell (Melbourne) was

known, constituted the greater part of the remaining two and a half

tons of ordinary biscuits. ``Hardtack'' was much appreciated as a

change from the usual ``staff of life''--soda bread.

For sledging we had secured one ton of biscuits specially prepared

by the Plasmon Company (London) containing 30 per cent. of plasmon.

These, together with one ton of pemmican and half a ton of emergency

ration prepared by the Bovril Company (London), are specially referred

to in the chapter on sledging equipment.

Butter was an important item; the large stock of two and a half tons

coming from the Colac Dairying Company (Melbourne). The butter was

taken fresh in fifty-six lb. blocks, packed in the usual export

cases. On the `Aurora' it was carried as deck-cargo, and at the Main

Base was stacked in the open air on the southern side of the Hut. At

the end of the second year (1913) it was still quite good; a fact

which speaks well for the climate as a refrigerator. Of Australian

cheese we used half a ton, and this was supplied in forty-pound

blocks.

The firm of Messrs. Cadbury, well known for their cocoa and eating

chocolate, supplied us with these commodities, and receive our

unqualified praise for the standard of the articles and the way in

which they were packed. The total consumption was one ton of cocoa

and half a ton of chocolate.

The three-quarters of a ton of tea was donated by ``Te Sol''

(Guernsey) and Griffiths Brothers (Melbourne). In both cases the

articles were well packed and much appreciated. Half a ton of coffee

was used, partly supplied from London and partly donated by

Griffiths Brothers.

Rose's (London) lime juice, as an antiscorbutic, was mainly reserved

for consumption on the Ship. This lime juice was much in favour as a

beverage.

Other supplies, taken in bulk, and for which we are indebted to the

manufacturers, are: one ton of Cerebos Salt, half a ton of Castle

salt, one ton of Sunlight Soap, our complete requirements in toilet

soap from Pears, candles from Price, matches from Bryant and May

including special sledging vestas, and dried milk from the Trufood

Company.

Sweets, which were used for dessert and on special occasions, were

presented by the firms of Fuller and Batger of London, and by Farrah

of Harrogate, &c. There were also small quantities of aerated waters,

ales, wines, and whisky for each Base.** At the Main Base, at least,

there was no demand for whisky until penguin omelettes became

fashionable.

** * Donated by Schweppes, Kopke, Burgoyne, and others.

The smokers were well provided for by a generous donation of Capstan

tobaccos, cigarettes and cigars from the British American Tobacco

Company in London. At a later date, when our Macquarie Island party

was formed, the Sydney branch of the same firm met our added needs

with the same generosity.

There are many other items which have not yet found a place in this

summary which cannot be acknowledged severally, but for which we are

none the less grateful. Mention is made of the following: Horlick's

Malted Milk, Neave's Health Diet, Brown and Polson's Cornflour,

International Plasmon Company's Plasmon chocolate and Plasmon powder,

Bovril and lime juice nodules manufactured by Bovril Limited,

Colman's Mustard and Groats, Flemington Meat Company's desiccated

soups, Seager's meats, Nestle's nut-milk chocolate, Escoffier's soups,

&c.

The cooking range which served us well for two years in the Hut at

Adelie Land was from J. Smith and Wellstood (London); others were

presented by Metters (Adelaide).

The total supply of foods purchased and donated aggregated quite one

hundred tons, exclusive of packing. Much of this was assembled in

London. In Australia the Government Produce Department of Adelaide

rendered valuable assistance.

TABLE OF FOOD-SUPPLIES FOR A TWELVE-MAN BASE

The following are the food requirements for a party of twelve men

wintering in the Antarctic. It is our own store list, with slight

modifications where these are found desirable. The figures are based

on the supposition that unlimited quantities of seal and penguin meat

can be had on the spot, and, furthermore, are ample for a second

year's requirements should the party be unavoidably detained. The

fare during the second year might be somewhat less varied, but would

otherwise be sufficient. Health was, of course, the first

consideration in this selection, but economy was also studied. The

quantities are stated in pounds weight.

lbs.

Meats, tinned--Corned beef, 216; roast beef, 72; roast mutton, 72;

boiled mutton, 72; Irish stew, 216; assorted meats, 168, including

mutton cutlets, haricot mutton, ox tail, ox tongue, sausages, and

brawn; sheep's tongues, 288; special meats, 192, including rabbit,

hare, duck, fowl, and turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1296

Live sheep--16 sheep to be dressed south of 60 degrees S. latitude

(weight not included)

Suet, tinned--400 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Bacon and Ham--Bacon in sides, packed in salt, 250; ham, 250 . . . 500

Fish, tinned--Salmon, 360; haddocks, 96; kippered herrings, 216;

herrings in tomato sauce, 72; fresh herrings, 72; sardines, 300;

cods' roe, curried prawns, &c., 72 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , 1188

Soups, assorted tinned, 1152 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1152

Vegetables, fresh, in wooden cases--new potatoes, 1200; onions,

3601560

Tinned--potatoes, 864; onions, 216; peas, 450;

French beans, 450; spinach, 360; cabbage, 144; beetroot, 288;

carrots, 288; parsnips, 144; turnips, 108; celery, 144;

leeks, 72; champignons, 144; Boston baked beans, 144;

tomatoes, 288 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3240

Cereals and Dried Vegetables, &c.--Split peas, 112; lentils, 56;

marrowfat peas, 56; haricot beans, 56; barley, 72; rice, 252;

tapioca, 144; semolina, 56; macaroni, 56; rolled oats, 648;

cornflour, 156 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1664

Flour, including plain, wholemeal, and self-rising . . . . . . 4480

Biscuits, &c.--Plasmon wholemeal, 1344; plain wholemeal, 560;

assorted sweet, 560; cake tinned, 224; plum pudding, 224 . . . . 1712

Fruit, tinned in syrup--peaches, 288; pears, 288; plums, 288;

apricots, 288; pineapples, 288; apples, 288; gooseberries, 216;

cherries, 216; mulberries, 48; strawberries, 48; red currants, 48;

black currants, 48; raspberries, 48 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2400

Dried fruits--Prunes, 112; apples, 112; peaches, 56; nectarines, 56;

apricots, 56; raisins seeded, 224; currants, 112; figs, 224;

dates, 112; candied peel, 56 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1120

Sweets, &c.--Eating chocolate (chiefly for sledging) 504; assorted

sweets, 168; crystallized fruits, 56; assorted nuts, 84 . . . . . 812

Milk--as dried powder, 2400 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2400

Butter--in 56 lb. export cases, 1456 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1456

Cheese--in original blocks or tins, 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Cocoa, Tea, and Coffee--Cocoa, 576; tea, 288; coffee, 288 . . . . 1152

Sugar, Jam, &c.--Sugar, 3584; jam, 1456; marmalade, 448;

honey, 576; syrup, 288 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6352

Sauces, Pickles, &c.--Tomato sauce, 180; Worcester sauce, 135;

sweet pickles, 162; mango chutney, 81; assorted pickles

(first quality) 216; vinegar, 210 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 984

Cooking requisites--Baking powder (in addition to that in

selfrising flour) 56; sodium bicarbonate, 1; ground mixed spice, 3;

ground ginger, 4; whole cloves, 1; nutmegs, 2; assorted essences, 10;

desiccated cocoanut, 12; mixed dried herbs, 2; dried mint, 6; dried

parsley, 1; onion powder, 9; curry powder, 30; mustard, 30; black

pepper, 12; white pepper, 12; table salt, 784 . . . . . . . . . . 975

Soap, &c.--Soap, 448; soda, 168 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616

(16 tons approx.) 35,699

Note. These weights are exclusive of packing. When high southern

latitudes can be reached within three weeks, fresh eggs may be taken

with advantage, preferably unfertilized, but care should be taken to

freeze them as soon as possible, and not to allow them to thaw again

until required for use. It is advisable to take small quantities

of whisky, ale, wines and lime juice. Matches, candles, soap, and

other toilet requirements, kerosene and fuel are not reckoned with

here, appearing in a more general stores' list. Certain medical

comforts, such as malted milk and plasmon, may also be included.

Medical Equipment

The medical equipment consisted of a complete outfit of Burroughs

and Wellcome's drug's, dressings, &c., and Allen and Hanbury's

surgical instruments. Sets, varying in character with particular

requirements, were made up for the Ship and for each of the land

parties. Contained within the fifty-five boxes was a wonderful

assortment of everything which could possibly have been required

on a polar expedition. There was in addition a set of Burroughs

and Wellcome's medicines for the treatment of dogs.

Scientific Equipment

The scope of our projected scientific work necessitated extensive

purchases, and these were amplified by loans from many scientific

bodies and individuals.

Instruments for surveying and navigation were loaned by the Royal

Geographical Society and by the Admiralty, while many theodolites,

chronometers, and half-chronometer watches were manufactured to order.

An assortment of oceanographical gear was generously supplied through

H. S. H. The Prince of Monaco, from the Institut Oceanographique

of Monaco. Dr. W. S. Bruce made similar donations and supervised the

construction of our largest deep-sea dredge. The three-thousand-

fathom tapered steel cables and mountings, designed to work the

deep-water dredges, were supplied by Messrs. Bullivant. Appliances

were also loaned by Mr. J. T. Buchanan of the `Challenger' Expedition

and by the Commonwealth Fisheries Department. The self-recording

tide-gauges we employed were the property of the New South Wales

Government, obtained through Mr. G. Halligan.

The taxidermists' requirements, and other necessaries for the

preservation of zoological specimens, were for the most part purchased,

but great assistance was rendered through Professor Baldwin-Spencer

by the National Museum of Melbourne and by the South Australian Museum,

through the offices of Professor Stirling. Articles of equipment for

botanical work were loaned by Mr. J. H. Maiden, Director of the

Botanical Gardens, Sydney.

A supply of heavy cameras for base-station work and light cameras for

sledging was purchased; our stock being amplified by many private

cameras, especially those belonging to F. H. Hurley, photographer of

the Expedition. Special Lumiere plates and material for colour

photography were not omitted, and, during the final cruise of the

`Aurora', P. E. Correll employed the more recent Paget process for

colour photography with good results.

The programme of magnetic work was intended to be as extensive as

possible. In the matter of equipment we were very materially assisted

by the Carnegie Institute through Dr. L. A. Bauer. An instrument

was also loaned through Mr. H. F. Skey of the Christchurch Magnetic

Observatory. A full set of Eschenhagen self-recording instruments

was purchased, and in this and in other dispositions for the magnetic

work we have to thank Dr. C. Chree, Director of the National Physical

Laboratory, and Dr. C. C. Farr of University College, Christchurch.

Captain Chetwynd kindly assisted in arrangements for the Ship's

compasses.

Two complete sets of Telefunken wireless apparatus were purchased from

the Australasian Wireless Company. The motors and dynamos were got

from Buzzacott, Sydney, and the masts were built by Saxton and Binns,

Sydney. Manilla and tarred-hemp ropes were supplied on generous terms

by Melbourne firms (chiefly Kinnear).

The meteorological instruments were largely purchased from Negretti

and Zambra, but a great number were loaned by the Commonwealth

Meteorological Department (Director, Mr. H. A. Hunt) and by the

British Meteorological Office (Director, Dr. W. N. Shaw).

For astronomical work the following instruments were loaned, besides

transit-theodolites and sextants: a four-inch telescope by the

Greenwich Observatory through the Astronomer Royal: a portable

transit-theodolite by the Melbourne Observatory through the

Director, Mr. P. Baracchi; two stellar sidereal chronometers by

the Adelaide Observatory through the Astronomer, Mr. P. Dodwell.

The apparatus for bacteriological and physiological work were got in

Sydney, in arrangements and suggestions for which our thanks are due

to Dr. Tidswell (Microbiological Laboratory) and Professor Welsh, of

Sydney University.

Artists' materials were supplied by Winsor and Newton, London, while

the stationery was partly donated by John Sands, Limited, Sydney

Geological, chemical, and physical apparatus were all acquired at the

instance of the several workers.

Adjuncts, such as a calculating machine, a typewriter, and duplicator

were not forgotten.**

** Acceptable donations of various articles were made by the firms of

Ludowici, Sydney; Allen Taylor, Sydney; Sames and Company, Birmingham;

Gamage, London; Gramophone Company, London; the Acetylene Corporation,

London; Steel Trucks Ltd., &c.

**Through the offices of Mr. C. A. Bang we are indebted to ``De

Forenede Dampskibsselskab,'' of Copenhagen, for the transport of the

dogs from Greenland.

Apart from the acquisition of the instruments, there were long

preparations to be made in the arrangement of the scientific programme

and in the training of the observers. In this department the

Expedition was assisted by many friends.

Thus Professor W. A. Haswell (Biology), Professor T. W. Edgeworth

David (Geology), and Mr. H. A. Hunt (Meteorology), each drew up

instructions relating to his respective sphere. Training in

astronomical work at the Melbourne Observatory was supervised by

Mr. P. Baracchi, Director, and in magnetic work by the Department

of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institute (Director, Dr. L. A.

Bauer). Further, in the subject of magnetics, we have to thank

especially Mr. E. Kidston of the Carnegie Institute for field

tuition, and Mr. Baldwin of the Melbourne Observatory for

demonstrations in the working of the Eschenhagen magnetographs.

Professor J. A. Pollock gave us valuable advice on wireless and

other physical subjects. At the Australian Museum, Sydney, Mr.

Hedley rendered assistance in the zoological preparations. In the

conduct of affairs we were assisted on many occasions by Messrs. W.

S. Dun (Sydney), J. H. Maiden (Sydney), Robert Hall (Hobart), G.

H. Knibbs (Melbourne),and to the presidents and members of the

councils of the several Geographical Societies in Australia--as well,

of course, as to those of the Royal Geographical Society, London.

In conclusion, the proffered, disinterested help, of all the above

and many other friends contrived to make our scientific equipment

well-nigh complete and eminently up-to-date.

INDEX

Abrasion effects of drift snow,

Abruzzi expedition 1900, rations

Absolute Hut, the

Acetylene Corporation, London, (note)

Adare, Cape

Adelaide Island

.........University

`Adelie Blizzard'

........Land;

the main base at; glaciation of; hurricanes of; Wilkes'

account of; the Hut; drifts; wireless installation at;

clothing for; Empire Day in; temperatures

Admiralty Range

Aerial Cove, depot

Aeroplane sledge. See Air-tractor sledge

Ainsworth, G F.,

``Life on Macquarie Island;'' ``A Land of Storm and Mist,''

``Through Another Year;'' picked up by the `Aurora' ,

the home journey; account of

Air-tractor sledge, the;

Aladdin's Cave;

Albatross

Alden, Cape,

Alexander I Island,

Alexandra, Queen

Allen and Hanbury, Messrs.

Alligator Nunatak.

`Amakura', the

American expedition under Wilkes

........ Quadrant, the, accessibility; whaling industry in

Amundsen, Captain; sledging dogs presented by

..........dog

Anchor Rock

Anemobiagraph, the

Anemometers

Anemones, preservation of

Angas Mr. C.

``Annie Hill,''

Antarctic theory of distribution of flora

Antarctica, history of discovery

`Anthology of Australian Verse, An'

Anthony, Messrs., of Melbourne

`Archibald Russell', the

Arnott Bros., Messrs.

Asia, Southern, wind velocities

`Astrolabe', D'Urville's journey in the

Astronomer Royal, the

Astronomical Hut, the

``Atmospherics,''

Auckland Islands

`Aurora', the S.Y. plan and section; adaptation and fitting out;

from Macquarie Island to Adelie Land; the first ice; landing of

cargo at main base; new lands; food carried by the; return of the;

observations secured on the; deep-sea soundings; at Macquarie Island;

arrival at Port Lyttleton; at Melbourne; second deep-sea cruise;

departure from Hobart, Christmas; visit to the main base, Adelie Land;

reception by Wild; relief of Wild's party; arrival in Hobart; papers

brought by the; stores laid at Caroline Cove; visits to Macquarie

Island; at Dunedin; leaves Hobart on Southern trip to bring back the

two parties; wireless communication with; the Homeward Cruise; list

of ship's officers

.........Peak

Auroral phenomena

Australasian Association for Advancement of Science,

Australian ensign hoisted

Avalanche Rocks

Avalanches,~

Azimuth Hill;

memorial cross on

Bacteriology, work of the expedition,

Bage, R., at the main base; work at the hut; the tide-gauge;

transit house; food experiences; search for the dogs;

with the Southern Sledging Party; return to the hut;

on building a tent; snow-blindness; return to Aladdin's Cave;

note left by, at Cathedral Grotto; return from the south;

visit to the `Aurora'; the relief expedition; winter work;

wireless work; magnetograph records; the home journey;

account of

Baldwin, Mr.

Baldwin-Spencer, Professor

Balleny Islands

John

Bang, C. A. (note)

Baracchi, Mr. P.

Barometer, movements of the

``Barrier,'' the, at the Winter Quarters

``Barrier-formations,''

Barron, Lady

........Sir Harry

Barr-Smith, Mount

......Mr. Robert

Basilisk, dog

Bass Strait

Bates, Mr. D. C.; request for weather reports

Batger, Messrs.

Bauer, Dr. L. A.

Mr., Sealer at Macquarie Island

Baynes Bros., Messrs.

``Beaufort scale'' of wind-pressure

Belgian Antarctic expedition

Bellingshausen, expedition of 1821

``Benzine Hut,''

Bergschrund

Betli, dog

Bickerton, F. H., at main base; work at the hut; erection of the

wireless installation; food experiences; ``bus driver'';

the air-tractor sledge; the Western sledging expedition;

on tent pitching; his birthday; the relief party; winter work

at the hut; wireless work; dredge constructed by; the home journey;

account of

Biology, work of the expedition

Bird & Coy, Messrs.

Birds, Antarctic, weight in relation to wing areas

Birthday Camp

Biscoe Island

........John, work

Bishop and Clerk, islet

Black Sunday

Blair, J. H., Chief Officer on the `Aurora'

Blake, Cape

...... L R., work on Macquarie Island; visit to Sandy Bay;

accident to; visits to Lusitania Bay; photographs taken by

visits to the `Aurora'; specimens obtained; sheepkilling;

the home journey; account of

Blizzard, puppy

.........the

`Blizzard, The', poem

Blood-pressure, observations by McLean,

``Blue Billys,''

``Board-sliding,''

Bollons, Captain

Borchgrevinck

Borda, Cape

Border (Rabbit) Preserving Coy.

Bovril Coy., the

Brand & Coy., Messrs.

Bridge-playing at Western Base

Bristow, Captain

British Antarctic expedition

British Expedition

British Meteorological Office

``Brothers (The),''

Brown, Mr. John

Brown & Polson, Messrs.

Bruce, Dr. W. S.

........Rise

Bruni Island

Bryant & May, Messrs.

Buchanan, Mr. J. Y.;

..........S. Y.

Buckley, Mr. G.

Budd Land;

Buenos Ayres

Bull, H. J.

Bullivant, Messrs.

Burberry, the

Burroughs & Wellcome, Messrs.

Buzzacott, Messrs.

Cadbury, Messrs.

Camp Cove

Campbell & Sons, Messrs.

Camping

``Cannonading,''

Canterbury Museum, Christchurch

Cape Town

Carbohydrates, definition of the term (note)

Cardiff to Hobart, the journey

Carnegie Institute

Carnley Harbour

Caroline Cove, Macquarie Island

Carr, Cape

Caruso, dog

Castor, dog

Cat, wild

Catch Me Cave

Cathedral Grotto, the

`Challenger' expedition

Charcot, Jean

.........Land

Chetwynd, Captain

Chocolate as barter

Chree, Dr. C.,

Christchurch, New Zealand

...........Magnetic Observatory

`Christmas Carol, A'

...........Day, Dr. Mawson's; with the Southern Sledging Party;

Madigan's account; with Bickerton's party; at Hobart;

with Wild's party; with S. E. Jones's party;

Ainsworth's account; on the homeward journey

Chun, Professor, of Leipsic

Close, J. H., at Main Base; at Aladdin's Cave; journey to the West;

and the Near Eastern Party; journey to Commonwealth Bay;

return from the East; back to Australia; account of

Clothing for the expedition

Clyde, wreck of the

Coal-supply, difficulties of

Coats Land

Cocoa, value of,

Colac Dairying Coy.

Colman, Messrs.

Colonel, dog

Colonial Sugar Refining Coy.

Commonwealth Bay

.............Fisheries Department

.............Meteorological Department

.............Weather Bureau, reports to

Cormorant. See Shag

Compass, variations of the; the bearing of the sun and the

magnetic needle compared

Conrad, Messrs.

Cook, Captain James

Copenhagen

Coronae, lunar

Correll, P. E., at Main Base; and the tide-gauge;

production of `The Washerwoman's Secret;

the Eastern Coastal Party; at Horn Bluff,

the search party; return to Australia;

photographs taken by; the homeward journey;

account of

.........Nunatak

Cote Clarie

Crampons, use of

Crippen, dog

Crown Fuel Company, briquettes

`Daily Graphic'

.......`Mail'

Dallman, Eduard

Danish Geographical Society

Darwin, Charles

David Island

......Professor T. W. Edgeworth

Davis, Captain J. K., appointment; arrival at Hobart; work of stowage;

the journey to Macquarie Island; voyage in the Nimrod;

at Macquarie Island; events on board; narrative quoted; return

of the `Aurora'; his decision regarding Wild's party; ``The Ship's

Story''; mission to London; visits to Macquarie Island;

the homeward cruise; account of

.......Captain James, of Hobart, joins the `Aurora'; efforts to recover

ship's lost chain; account of

.......Sea

``DeadBeat Gully,''

Deakin, Hon. Alfred

Declination of the magnetic needle

Decouverte, Cape

Delay Point

Denison, Cape ;

..........Mr. Hugh

Denman Glacier, the

........Lord, messages to Antarctica; Finance

Denny, Mr., visit to Macquarie

D'Entrecasteaux Channel

Depot Bay

Depots maintained by the New Zealand Government

Derwent River, the;

Dietetics

Disappointment Island

`Discovery', voyage of the

...........Cape

Dixson Island

Mr. Hugh

Dodwell, Mr. P.

Dogs for the expedition, journey to Hobart; at the hut; harness for the;

food for the; at Aladdin's Cave; with the sledging parties;

the lost; used for food; presented to the `Aurora' by Amundsen;

with the Western Party; pups; quarrels

Dolerite (note)

Dominion Meteorological Office

Doolette, Mr. G. P.

Dovers, G., member of Wild's party; depot-laying party formed;

surveying work; at Haswell Island; account of

`Drake', H.M.S., wireless communication with

Drift gauge, a

Drift snow; abrasion effects of; electrical effects of

Drygalski Island (note)

..........Professor;

Ducks

Dun, W.S.

`Dundonald', barque

Dunedin

D'Urville Sea;

`Eagle' Cave

........schooner, wreck

Earthquake shocks at Macquarie Island

Eastern Barrier

........Coastal Party, formation; account of, by Madigan;

instruments cached by

Eclipse, lunar,

Eitel, Mr. C. C.

Elder, Mr.

.......Mount

`Eliza Scott', the

Empire Day, at the Western Base; on Adelie Land

`Encyclopaedia Britannica', use of

`Endeavour', the

Enderby Island

........Land

Equinox, effects of the

Equipment of the expedition

Erebus Cove

``Erratics,''

Esperance, Port

Esquimaux, dogs of the; method with snow-blindness,

Euphausia

Evans, Commander

Evensen, work of

Farr, Dr. C. C.

Fallieres Land

`Fantome', H.M.S.

Far-Eastern Party, the; the return of

Farrah, Messrs.

Fats, definition of term, (note)

``Feather Bed'' terrace

Fiala, quoted

Figure of Eight Island

Filchner, Wilhelm

Finance of the expedition

Finnesko footwear

Fisher, Hon. Andrew,

........wireless message to

Fishing

Fix, dog

Flag depot

Flagstaff Point, Carnley Harbour

Flemington Meat Preserving Coy.

Fletcher, F. D.

Flora, Antarctic, theories concerning

`Flying Fish', the

........Fox, working of the

Flynn, Professor T. T.

Foehn effect

Food, for sledging journey, dietetics; rations; items;

table of supplies

Fram, dog

......voyage of the

Franklin, dog

Freshfield, Cape

Fuller, Messrs.

Fusilier, dog

Gadget, dog

Gamage, Messrs (note)

`Gauss', expedition of the

Gaussberg

Geographical results of the expedition

Geological work of the expedition

George, dog

........V, King, wireless message to,

Georgia, South;

Gerlache, Adrien de

..........Cape

German Scientific Expedition; expedition of 1902, see Gauss

Gillies, F., chief engineer of the `Aurora'

.........Nunataks

Ginger, dog

......Bitch, dog,

Glacier, the continental,

Glacier-ice, structural composition

Glacier-tongues

Glaciology, work of the expedition

Glaxo

Gloves

Goggles for snow-blindness

Golf at Western Base

Gracht, Mr. Van Waterschoot van der

`Grafton', wreck of the

Graham's Land

Gramophone Coy., London, (note)

Grampuses

Grandmother, dog

Gray, Cape

......P., second officer `Aurora'

Great Australian Bight

.....Britain, Antarctic Expeditions

.....Ross Barrier;

Greely expedition of 1882

Green Valley

Greenland, dogs from

..........pup

Greenwich Observatory

Griffiths Brothers, Messrs.

``Grottoes (The),'' the hut at the Western Base, building; return

of the sledging party; entrance and tunnels; the igloo;

clearing the tunnels; return of the Western depot party;

preparations for the Eastern summer journey; return of Wild;

distances from; return of Jones's party; the flagstaff

Guano deposits

Gulls, Dominican or black backed

.......skua

Haines, Mr., taxidermist

Haldane, dog

Hall, Robert

Halligan, Mr. G.

Hamilton, H., life at Macquarie Island; visits to Sandy Bay;

biological work; reception of the `Aurora';

erection of the tide gauge; a dinghy for; visits to

Lusitania Bay; photographs by; home journey; account of

.........Mount

Hangar

Hannan, W. H., at Main Base; work at the hut; wireless work;

the drift gauge; as magnetician; working of the air-tractor

sledge; the wireless at Winter Quarters; return to Australia;

account of

Harbour Board, Hobart

Harness, sledging,

Harrisson, C. T.; member of Wild's party; visit to the capsized berg,

account; Hippo depot; meteorological work at The Grottoes;

included in the Eastern summer journey; winch contrived by;

account

Hartley, Messrs.

Hasselborough Bay

..............Captain

Haswell Island

............Professor W. A.

Hedley, Mr. C.

Heinz, Messrs.

Helen Glacier

Henderson, Professor G. C..

Henderson Island

Hens, Cape

`Hinemoa', rescue by

`Hints to Travellers'

Hippo Nunatak

Hoadley, C. A., member Wild's party; party to lay depot formed;

main western journey starting November; geological work;

at Haswell Island; account

Hobart

Hodgeman, A. J., at Main Base; work at hut; Near Eastern Party;

the cairn; return to the hut; journey of the Near Eastern

Party; trip to Aladdin's Cave; on tent-pitching; investigation

of snow ramp; the relief party; winter work at the hut;

journey to Mount Murchison; the home journey; map of Mackellar

Islets; account of

Holliman, Captain,

Holman, Hon., W. A.

Hoosh

Hordern, Mr. Samuel

Horlick, Messrs.

Horn Bluff

``Horn Bluff,'' by C. T. Madigan

Horn, Mr. W. A.

Hoyle, pup

Hugon, Messrs.

Hunt, Mount

......Mr. H. A.

Hunter, Cape

........J. G., at Main Base; biological work; parasitology;

sledging; production of `The Washerwoman's Secret';

the Southern Supporting Party; expansion of the cave;

return from the south; return to Australia; arrival

with the `Aurora'; fishing;the homeward journey;

account of

`` Huntoylette,''

Hurley, J. F., Main Base; camera work; observations; rescue of the dogs;

production of `The Washerwoman's Secret; the Southern

Party; the cairn;pitching tent; ``Lot's Wife'';

the `Christmas Carol`; snow-blindness; return from the

south; arrival with the `Aurora'; sledging

Hurricane-walking

Hut, the Main Base, temperature; tunnels; the nightwatchman's duty

......Point, McMurdo Sound

Hutchinson, sealer of Macquarie Island

Ice, Arctic and Antarctic compared; the first; pack-ice; bergs;

structural composition

``Ice floods,''

``Ice islands,''

Ice-shafts, digging of

``Icing-ship,''

`Illustrated London News'

Insect hunting

Jack, dog

Jackson, Port

Jacob & Coy., Messrs.

Jaeger fleece

Japanese Antarctic expedition

Jappy, dog

Jeffreys Deep

Jeffryes, S. N., wireless operator

`Jessie Nichol', wreck

John Bull, dog

Johnson, dog

Joinville Island

Jones, Dr. S. E., autopsy on the dogs; member of Wild's party; party

formed to lay a depot on September; Wild's instructions

to; main western journey starting November; ``Linking

up with Kaiser Wilhelm Land,'' account by; discovery

of Antarctic petrels; view of Drygalski Island; account

of; medical report for Western Base

........Bros., Messrs.

Journalists' Association

Joyce, Mr. E., delivery of the dogs;

Judge and Clerk, islet of; soundings

Junction Corner

Kaiser Wilhelm I Land, linking up with, account by Dr. S. E. Jones

Kangaroo Island

Keiller, Messrs. James & Son

Kelp

Kembla, Port

Kemp, work of

Kennedy, [A. L.] member of Wild's party; attempted trip with Wild for

the minimum thermometer; Eastern summer journey; blocked on

the ice-shelf with Wild; observations; account of

Kerguelen Island

Kidston, Mr. E.

King Edward V Land

.....George V Land, naming of; map

King' Birthday, at Western Base

................Island

Kinsey, Mr. J. J.

Kite, work with

Knibbs, G. H.

Knox Land

Kristensen, Leonard

Lake-ice

Lamp, a non-magnetic

Lampwick, uses of

Larson, C. A.

Laseron, C. F., Main Base; biological work; collection of petrel

skin; at Aladdin's Cave; production of The `Washerwoman's

Secret'; the Southern Supporting Party; recording

Webb's observations; expansion of the Cave; journey

to Commonwealth Bay December 9; collection of eggs

and birds; return from the east; back to Australia;

account of

Lassie, dog

Lever Brothers, Messrs.

Lewis, Sir Elliott

Lithgrow Colleries

``Lot's Wife,''

Loubet Land

Louis Phillippe Land

Lucas Sounding-machine

Lucas-Tooth, Sir Robert

Ludowici, Messrs. (note)

Lusitania Bay;

..........the, sealing boat

Lyttleton, Port, arrival of the `Aurora'

``M. H. S . Championship, " the start

Mac, dog

McClintock, expedition of 1850; rations

Mackay, Dr. F. A.

Mackellar Islet

Mackellar Library

..........the Hon.C.D.

McLean, Dr. A. L., autopsy on the dogs; at Main Base; electrical

observations; lines on `The Blizzard'; erection of

the wireless; observations regarding seals; at

Aladdin's Cave; blood-pressure, observations;

at Cathedral Grotto; expedition of the Eastern Coastal

Party; snow-blindness; at Horn Bluff; photographs taken

by; return of; the relief expedition; winter work at

the Hut; founding of `The Adelie Blizzard'; on illness

of Jeffryes; a wind episode; dredging operations;

biological specimen; the home journey; account;

medical report for Main Base

McMurdo Sound, wind velocities, chart; the Scott expedition

Macquarie Island, the base at; ``Life on Macquarie Island,'' by G. F.

Ainsworth; ``A Land of Storm and Mist,'' by G. F. Ainsworth;

``Through Another Year,'' by G. F. Ainsworth;

Macquarie Island Party, list of

Madigan, C. T., at Main Base; meteorological observations; at the Hut;

electrical observation; spring exploits; journey to the

west, September 1912; sledging; the Eastern Coastal Party;

return to the Hut; his account of the expedition of the

Eastern Coastal Party; ``Horn Bluff and Penguin Point'' by;

depot of; visit to the `Aurora'; care of the dogs; winter

work at the Hut; journey to Mount Murchison; the home

journey; account

...........Nunatak

Magnetic Flat, the

.........meridian

.........needle, use for steering purposes

.........Pole, North

.........Pole, South, observations regarding the; Bage's search for;

chart

Magnetograph House; work of the magnetician

Magnetometer, the

Maiden, Mr. J. H.

Main Base, Adelie Land, visit of the `Aurora'; wireless installation at

...........Base Party, list of; return of members to Australia

Maori cabbage (Stilbocarpa polaris)

......hens, see Wekas

Martelli, Mr., assistant harbourmaster, Hobart

Mary, dog

......Queen, message to Antarctica

Mason Coy., Messrs.

Masson Island

.......Professor, efforts to raise funds,

Mawson, Dr., plans for the expedition; party of

Medical equipment for the expedition

........reports

Melba, Mme.

Melbourne, arrival of the `Aurora'; wireless calls; time signals from

...........Observatory

Memorial cross on Azimuth Hill

Men, choice of, for a polar campaign

Mertz, Dr. Xavier, appointment; at Hobart, care of the dogs; at Main

Base; meteorological observations; skiing; cooking;

at Aladdin's Cave; journey to the southeast, September 11;

the Far Eastern Party; the return journey; illness and

death; Bage's parting from; meeting with the Eastward

Coastal Party; Captain Davis's inquiries after; message

to his relatives; account of

........Glacier

........Glacier-tongue

Meteorology, work of the expedition; meteorological chart for April

1913

Meteorite found

Midsummer Day, temperature

Midwinter Day at Western Base

Mikkel, dog

Mill, Dr. H. R., ``Siege of the South Pole,''

.........Rise

Minerals of Adelie Land

Mitts

Mollymawk rookery

Monaco, Prince of

Monagasque trawl

Monkey, dog

Moore, T. E. L.

`Morning Herald', Sydney

Morton, Messrs. C. & E.

Motte, C. P de la

Moyes, M. H., member of Wild's party; account of

Moraine, terminal, Adelie Land

`Morning', the, British expedition,

Murchison, Mount;

...........Mr. Roderick

Murphy, H. D., at Main Base; erection of the wireless installation;

at Aladdin's Cave; journey to the southeast September 11;

observations; formation of the Southern Supporting Party;

return to the Hut; composition of party at Cathedral

Grotto; return from the south; visit to the `Aurora';

return to Australia; account of

Murphy, H. D. (senior)

Murray, G. J. H.

Mutton birds

Nansen, expedition in the `Fram'; `Farthest North'; use of the primus

stove,

........dog

Nares, Captain G. S.

National Museum, Melbourne

.........Physical Laboratory, London

Near Eastern Party

Neave, Messrs.

Negretti & Zambra, Messrs.

Nestle, Messrs.

Neve

New Zealand, depots maintained by; flora of, theories regarding

Newnes, Sir George

Nightbirds

`Nimrod', the, voyages;

Ninnis Glacier

.......Lieut. B. E. S., appointment; care of the dogs; at the Main Base;

clothing artifices; spring exploits; journey

to the southeast, September 11; the Far Eastern

Party; his death in the crevasse; Bage's parting

from; flag planted by; Captain Davis's inquiries

after; message to his relatives; account of

``Nodules (The),''

Nordensyold, Otto

North, Cape

.......East Bay ;

.......End

.......Head

Northcliffe Glacier

North's Land

Notothenia

``Nuggets (The)''

Oates Land

Observation Point

Oceanography, results of expedition

Oil, seal, methods of the sealers

Organ Pipe Cliffs

Pack-ice;

Palmer Archipelago

.......Nathaniel

Parisitology

Parsons, Messrs.

Parties for sledging, arrangement

Patria Biscuit Fabriek

Partridge & Twiss, Messrs.

Pavlova, dog

`Peacock', the;

Peary, dog

Pemmican

Penguin Hill

``Penguin Point,'' by C. T. Madigan

Penguin rookeries;

Penguins

........Adelie

........an Albino Penguin

........Emperor

........Gentoo

........King

........Royal

........Victoria,

Pennant Hills

`Perseverance', the

Peter I Island

Petrel Rookeries

Petrels

........Antaretic

........Giant

........Lesson's

........Silver-grey or Southern Fulmar

........Snow

........Wilson

Petrol, amount carried

Pianoforte Berg

``Piecrust''

Pigeons, Cape

Piper, Mr.

Plasmon

Pollock, Professor J. A.

`Porpoise', the

Posadowsky Bay

Possession Nunataks

Primmer, Mr.

Primus heater, the

Prince Luitpold Land

Prion Banksii

Proteins, value of

``Puffometer,'' the

Punch

Quarantine Station, Hobart

Queen Mary Land

Queen's Wharf, Hobart

Rabbits

`Rachel Cohen', the

Ramornie Meat Coy.

Rations, daily polar; for the Far Eastern Party; for the sledge journey

from the Western Base

Rats

Reid, Sir George,

......Glacier

Robinson, Lionel

......Bay

......anemometer, the

``Rock Flour,''

Rocks, effect of wind and rain on

.......igneous

Rose Island

.....Messrs.

Ross Barrier

......dog

......Expedition

......Port

......Sea, the

Royal Company Island

......Geographical Society.

Royds, Cape

Russian Antarctic Expeditions

Sabrina Land

`Sabrina', the

Sails, value of

St. Elmo's fire

St. Vincent's Gulf

Sames & Coy.

Sandell, C. A., Wireless work at Macquarie Island; cooking; lantern

made by; visit to the `Aurora'; erection of the

tide-gauge; sheepkilling; as barber; an accident to;

telephone installed by; lamp made by; the home journey;

account of

Sandow, dog

........Mr. Eugene

Sandy Bay, Hobart

...........Enderby Island

...........Macquarie Island

``Sarcophagus,'' the

Sastrugi

Sawyer, A. J., wireless operator at Macquarie Island; visits to the

`Aurora'; erection of the tide-gauge; leaves Macquarie

Island; visit to the `Tutanekai; account of

Saxton & Binns, Messrs.

Scarfe, Mr.

Scientific equipment for the expedition,

...........work of the expedition

`Scotia', the

Scott, Captain, work of; voyage of the `Discovery; voyage in the

`Terra Nova'; rations allowed by; stay in Antarctica;

at McMurdo Sound; the disaster to; on Macquarie Island,

........Islands

........Lady

........the dog

Scott Expedition Staff

Scottish Antarctic Expedition

Sea, temperature, effect of snow on

Sea bears

Sea-elephants; rookeries of the

Seager, Messrs.

Sea-ice

Sea-leopards

Sealers of Macquarie Island; methods of the

Sea-lions

Seals

......Crabeater

......Fur

......Hair

......Ross

......Weddell

Sewing-machine, Wild's need of a

Shack, the

Shackleton Expedition

...........Ice-Shelf, the; establishment of the Western Base on;

winter and spring on; Western Party blocked on,

Wild's narrative; the `Aurora' at

...........the dog

Shags

Shaw, Dr. W. N.

Shelf-ice

Shell Brand benzine and Shell kerosene

Shoe Island

`` Shuteye,'' practice of

Signatures of members of land parties

Simpson, Mr.

Skeats, Professor E., examination of the meteorite

Skey, Mr. H. F.

Skiing

Sledge, the air-tractor

Sledging; preparation of equipment; wood for sledges; harness for;

a load; camping

Smith & Wellstood, Messrs.

.......William, work of

Snow, temperatures

Snow-blindness

Snow drift, electrical effects

Snow gauges

.....Hill Island

Soundings, Lucas automatic sounding machine

South Australian Museum

......Orkney Islands

......Shetland Islands

Southern Cross Depot, declination of the needle at

.........Ocean

.........Party; instruments cached by

.........Supporting Party,

`Sphere', the

Spratt, Messrs., care of the dogs

Steel Trucks Ltd.

Stewart Island (New Zealand)

Stillwell, F. L., at Main Base; geological researches; map of Winter

Quarters; records; production of `The Washerwoman's

Secret'; finding an albino penguin; the Near Eastern

Party; his sledge; pitching tent; journey of the Near

Eastern Party; the search party; return to Australia;

account of

...........Island

Stirling, Professor

Storm Bay

Strathcona, Lord

............Mount

Sun, the midnight; display of rings and arcs

Suva, wireless station

Swallow & Ariell, Messrs.

Sweep, dog

Swiss Confederation Day

.......the dog

Switzerland, the dog .

Sydney, Wilkes's expedition started from; Cathedral of; wood from;

the harbour; wireless communication with

........Meat Preserving Coy.

`Sydney Morning Herald', donation

Tasman Sea

Tasmania, hospitality of; soundings

Taylor, Mr. Allen

``Te Sol,''

Tea

Temperature, Foehn effect; in Adelie Land

Tent-pitching; Bickerton on

`Terebus and Error in Eruption'

Termination Ice Tongue

............Land

Terns

`Terra Nova', Scott's voyage

Terrestrial magnetism, work of the expedition

``The Steps''

Theodolite, use of the

Tich, dog

Tide-gauge, Bage's; use on Macquarie Island

Tides, work of the expedition

Tidswell, Dr.

Tiger, dog

Tooth, Sir R. Lucas

.......Lady Helen--see Helen Glacier

`Toroa', s.s.

Totten's Land

Toucher, N. C.

Transit House

Trawl, Monagasque

Trawling, experiences of the `Aurora'

Tussock grass

`Tutanekai', the, relief of Macquarie Island

`Ulimaroa', s.s., the

Umbrella aerial, use of the

Union Jack, hoisting the

University College, Christchurch

Urville, Dumont D', expedition under

.........the dog

`Valdivia' expedition

``Veranda Club''

Verran, Hon. J.

Vickers & Coy., Messrs.

Victoria Land

Vincennes, the

Waite, Mr. E. R.

`Washerwoman's Secret, The'

``Watersky,''

Watkins, Lieut., aviator

Watson, A. D., at the Western Base; attempted trip with Wild for the

minimum thermometer; preparation for the Eastern summer

journey; blocked on the ice-shelf with Wild; fall into

a crevasse

..........Bluff

Watt, Hon. W.

Way Archipelago

..............map

......Sir Samuel

Weather, the, as a conversational subject

Webb, E. N., at Main Base; care of the dogs; work at the Magnetograph

House; photo-work; magnetic ice-cave of; his first camp;

formation of the Southern Sledging Party; observations of

the needle; use of the theodolite; building a break-wind;

the toasts on Christmas Day; sighting Aladdin's Cave;

return from the south; return to Australia; account of

Weddell, James, work

.........Sea

Wekas

Wellington, Mount

.............wireless communication with

Welsh, Professor

Western Base, the party at; winter and spring at the; establishment and

adventures by F. Wild; the geological shaft; ``The Glacier

Tongue''; Wild's party blocked on the Ice Shelf; linking

up with Kaiser Wilhelm II Land, account by Dr. S. E. Jones;

medical reports from

West Point

Western Sledging Party

`Westralia', s.s.,

Whalebirds

Whales

Whetter, Dr. L. A., at Main Base; the ``Toggle King''; journey to the west;

the Western Party; meteorological work; preparations for

the air-tractor sledge trip; his birthday; on tent-

pitching; investigations of a snow ramp; return; return

to Australia; account of

``Whirlies,''

Wild, Frank, the work at Hobart; working of the "flyingfox''; incidents

on board; leader of the Western Base; the winter station on

the ice shelf; rations for the expedition; arrangements with

the `Aurora'; return to Aladdin's Cave; his party at Western

Base; relief of; reception of the `Aurora'; winter and spring;

land mapped out by; blocked on the ice shelf, narrative

Wilkes, discoveries of; charts; Knox Land,

Wilkes's Land

Willesden-drill, tents

Williamstown, Victoria

Wind, velocities

Winds, Bay of

Winsor & Newton, Messrs.

Winter quarters, Adelie Land

.............Stillwell's map

Wireless Hill, establishment of the station;

.........installation range, in the Antarctic; report of Captain Davis;

messages received by Hannam on the `Aurora'; messages from,

and to, Adelie Land; effect of ice on intensity of waves;

work of the expedition; telefunken apparatus

Worms, parasitical, in fish

`Zelee', the

Zip, the dog

Zoological investigations

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