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APPLETON NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE SERIES
EDITED BY WATSON DAVIS

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE
AND RESEARCH

By GRIFFITH TAYLOR

A. GEOGRAPHY

AUSTRALIA, PHYSIOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC (4th EDITION).
OXFORD, 1928.

A GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. OXFORD, 1914.

*NEW SOUTH WALES. MELBOURNE, 1912.

*THE GEOGRAPHICAL LABORATORY. SYDNEY, 1925.

*WALL-ATLAS OF AUSTRALIAN MAPS. OXFORD, 1929.

B. METEOROLOGY, etc.

*CLIMATE AND WEATHER OF AUSTRALIA. MELBOURNE, 1913.

AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENT. (GOVERNMENT PRINTER) MEL-
BOURNE, 1918.

AUSTRALIAN METEOROLOGY. OXFORD, 1920.

C. ANTARCTICA

WITH SCOTT—THE SILVER LINING. LON®ON, 1916.

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF MacMURDO SOUND.: (HARRISON) LONDON,
1922.

*HINTS TO SCIENTIFIC TRAVELERS (Vol. FV). THE “HAGUE, 1926,

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH. NEW YORK, 1930.

D. PALEONTOLOGY
THE ARCHEOCYATHINAE (CAMBRIAN CORALS). ADELAIDE, 1910.

7

E. ETHNOLOGY

ENVIRONMENT AND RACE. OXFORD, 1927.
, * Joint Author.

’ a
Fs

=P

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE ~
AND RESEARCH

Jot f
GRIFFITH TAYLOR
D.Sc.; B.E. (SypNEy); B.A. (CAMBRIDGE)

PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

ae or

ILLUSTRATED

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK 1930 LONDON

JRA TFA

COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY
D. APPLETON & COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

NevER has so much interest been taken in Antarctic
exploration as at present. Three major expeditions,
those of Byrd, Wilkins and Mawson, are still in the
field (early in 1930). Norwegians are flying from
whalers and charting new coasts (near Enderby Land)
whose longitude has not been published. Thanks
iargely to the kindness of Dr. Bowman and Mr. Joerg
of the American Geographical Society, this small book
will be found to be up to date at the time the proof
was corrected. The splendid Antarctic maps recently
published by the same Society have been referred to
repeatedly in this book—as also have recent articles
dealing with the same area. The writer has also bor-
rowed data with due acknowledgment from the Jour-
nal of the Royal Geographical Society which has al-
ways welcomed the records of Antarctic explorers.
Lastly, John Murray has kindly permitted me to use
one or two diagrams from my book “With Scott—
The Silver Lining.” Although I can not altogether
agree with his taste, the Editor of the series expressly
asked for my own somewhat rough diagrams and
sketches. So I hope that those readers who prefer
something more artistic will blame the right man!

As regards the chapters dealing with research, they
are concerned largely with work in the Ross Sea area

Vv

PREFACE

of Antarctica. Some readers may feel that other re-
gions have been somewhat neglected, but I think that
if the whole body of Antarctic literature be examined
it will be found to deal very dominantly with this
sector, i.e., that behind the coasts explored by Ross,
Scott, Shackleton, Mawson, Byrd, and others. Almost
all branches of science have been studied as regards
their Antarctic aspects more fully in this sector than
in any other. Moreover, it is the region with which
I have personal acquaintance.

If this book gives the reader some conception of the
last great unknown area of the earth it will have accom-
plished its purpose.

i ae
University of Chicago.

CONTENTS

PREFACE - : - : - : : . . . :

CHAPTER

1?

bi

THE VALUE OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION
EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

Ve RECENT EXPEDITIONS TO. THE ANTARCTIC
V:. THE CONTINENT, ITS GEQLOGY AND-EELA-
TION, TO OTHER LANDS

VE.) SCENERY AND) TOPOGEAPEY : . .
Vil. ICE SHEETS AND GLACIERS-~ : ° ° .
VIII. OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE . ° ° .
IX. CLIMATOLOGY : : : : . . .

me BLORA AND FAUNA

xt. COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS
REFERENCES ° ° : ° . : . . . °
iN DEX” is ° ° . . . . . . : °

PAGE

FIGURE

T..

By

ame

2a.

Se

FO:

RY.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Relative areas of Antarctica, Europe and
Australia, also Texas .

Sketch map showing lines of af Geenene
variation in South Victoria Land

Mercator’s world-map, 1587 . .

Cook’s explorations (1772-1775) of ee
arctic seas .

Chart showing Aeecie icone oh
dates

Voyages in ae Aniacemes a D’Urville,
Wilkes and Ross...

Map of South Victoria fad Php oan,

Chart of the Weddell Sea (incorporating
Wilkin’s discoveries) .

Map of MacMurdo Sound, eine oes
of the author’s parties in ae the
four great outlet glaciers .

Symmetry of the World about an axis 2,
epeiogenic (en masse) uplift, from Ant-
arctica through Africa to Greenland (on
Mollweide Equal Area Projection with
Antarctica added)

Generalized diagram illustrating if alien
features in the “build’’ of Antarctica and
adjacent continents

Geological sections across acces

ix

PAGE

54

85

88
QI

FIGURE
2.

‘13.
14.

£5:

16.

17.

18.

19.
20.

al.

27)
7.

24.

ILLUS#E RATIONS

Gomphocephalus, the largest animal of Ant-
arctica. Archeocyathus, the oldest fossil
in Antarctica, where dwarf forms, a few
millimeters wide, occur

Plan and section of Taylor Valley showing
two riegel .

Deébris-cones between Brehie ine aie
the sea-ice, near Cape Evans . hae

Block diagram showing the ice-free Taylor
Valley, 18 miles long, and the ice divide
between the Taylor and Ferrar glaciers

Sections illustrating the evolution of the
riegel in Taylor Valley . Ame

Block diagrams illustrating the “palimpsest
theory” of glacier erosion applied to the
Royal Society Range .

Diagram showing positions of ihe layer &
maximum nie at present, and in the
Pleistocene. Pleiocene conditions are
merely suggested .

Sketches illustrating the classiateeen uf
glaciers ;
The Herbertson Glacies pressing into the

Ferrar Glacier on the left . a (8

A vertical section through “confluent ice”
and Drygalski Tongue. Vertical section
along front face of Ross Ice Shelf, look-
ing north ;

Bathymetric maps of Bast Anancies

Vertical section of ocean north of Gauss-
berg, showing stratification of water

Block diagram of Granite Harbor .

x

PAGE

96
II2

118

123

125

128

149

155
159

161
167

FIGURE

25.
26.

a7.

33:

34.

I[ELUSTRATIONS

Variations in width of pack ice off Queen
Mary Land

Summer and winter temperatures in eae
tic and Arctic regions eee eesiaait

Atmospheric circulation in the southern
hernisphere south of the trade wind belt,
according to the “Polar front’ theory,
showing the belt of lows surrounding the
er cyclone

Mean monthly temperatures a eat ne
tralian and Antarctic stations

The glacial anticyclone :

Probable isobars at sea level and A 3, 000
meters

The biological cycle i in the cede

Emperor penguin and chick; also Adelie
penguins pondering, ecstatic and tobog-
ganing .

Map of South ee ae dieprinution
of whale food .

Map illustrating nomenclature aie a
annexations

Xi

PAGE

172

180

182

CHAPTER I
THE VALUE OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

T has been some years now since it was my fortune
I to be a member of one of the greatest expeditions
which set forth to explore the regions around the South
Pole. Over and over again I have been asked, ““What is
the use of polar exploration?’ It seems advisable,
therefore, to consider this aspect of the problem, for
assuredly readers who see no value in the subject of
a book will not be tempted to read far beyond the first
page.

It has been customary for promoters of a new ex-
pedition to dwell largely on the “quick returns” which
may accrue from exploring an unknown land. Some
good Antarctic friends of my own have, in this con-
nection, stressed the fact that Alaska was bought for a
song, when its resources were almost unknown, and
that its gold yield has made it a very profitable invest-
ment for the United States. Subconsciously, I fancy,
the hesitating supporter thinks, “Well, Alaska is a
mighty cold place; so is Antarctica. Why shouldn’t the
expedition find a second Yukon near the South Pole?’
Personally, I don’t believe that this method of angling
for support does much good. The hard-headed busi-
ness man soon learns that hardly a single mineral prod-
uct and certainly no vegetable products of present value

E

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

have been discovered in the Antarctic,’ and that the
chances are against such being discovered in the rela-
tively small areas of rock which are not covered deep
beneath the Antarctic ice cap. But he gallantly sub-

Fic. I.—RELATIVE AREAS OF ANTARCTICA, EUROPE AND
AUSTRALIA (BROKEN LINE), ALSO TEXAS.
(Note: The United States is the same size as Australia.)

scribes to help on the cause of exploration. Why?
Because other considerations beyond mere pounds, shil-
lings and pence appeal to his pocket.

To my mind there are two very real reasons for
which such expeditions should appeal to any intelligent
man or woman. There is first of all the fundamental

1 The inaccessible coal fields and the whaling will be dis-
cussed later.

2

Tae VALUE OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

“appeal of the unknown.” Our lonely little planet is,
so far as we know, the only habitat of sentient beings
of the human type. There are nearly two thousand
million of us clustered on the fifty million square miles
of the better-known continents. Surely it is the duty
of man to learn all he can with regard to this great
new continent of Antarctica, which is certainly not the
least in area, for it is larger than Australia and quite
probably larger than the whole of Europe. A fair
estimate for the area of Antarctica is four and one-
half million square miles—while these other continents
are decidedly smaller.”

The world has been educated to revere astronomical
research, and governments feel it part of their duty to
support public observatories for the study of far dis-
tant stars. I hope for a time when the larger nations
of the world will look nearer home and subsidize work
on this very large segment of their own planet, whose
study would repay them equally well in the advance of
scientific knowledge. No scientist ever needs to be con-
verted to a belief in the value of Antarctic exploration.
There is hardly a branch of science which is not await-
ing help from data to be studied properly only in the
inaccessible lands of high latitudes. But since the lay-
man is naturally not so familiar with these fundamental
problems of science as he is with the more practical
problems of applied knowledge, it will perhaps not be
out of place for me briefly to traverse this aspect of
Antarctic research.

2 Australia has an area of three million, and Europe of three
and nine-tenths million square miles.

3

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Let us first of all consider one of the chief problems
of navigation. This science hinges very largely on the
magnetic compass and on the distribution of the lines
of magnetic force over the earth’s surface. In almost
every part of the globe there is a notable difference
between the direction of the magnetic needle and the
true north-south line (which is, of course, indicated by
the meridian), and it is often stated that Columbus
first noted this declination during his earliest voyage to
America. Humboldt, about the year 1800, was the first
to chart the lines of magnetic force over any large area
of the world. In 1831 Sir James Ross observed that
a freely suspended magnet dipped 89° 50’ (i.e. it was
practically vertical) in Boothia Land (70° 5’ N.) on
the north coast of Canada. This is the North Mag-
netic Pole and is situated 1,400 miles from the true
North Pole. All the lines of equal declination (or
variation from the true meridian) converge at this
point.

The most fruitful Antarctic expedition resulted di-
rectly from this discovery, for in 1840 Sir James Ross
was dispatched by the British Government to the un-
known Antarctic regions precisely to advance our
knowledge of magnetism. His chief aims were to set
up magnetic observatories at St. Helena, Kerguelen,
and Tasmania, and then if possible to plant the same
flag on the South Magnetic Pole that he had set up in
the north. As we shall see, he was blocked by the
giant mountains of the Admiralty Range, but proceed-
ing south he traversed the Ross Sea, far surpassed the
previous southern record, and reached what has proved

4

Glacier
|

\
!
|
\
’
)
}
’
!
'
U
|

Fic. 2—SKETCH MAP SHOWING LINES OF EQUAL MAG-
NETIC VARIATION IN SOUTH VICTORIA LAND.

Inset is Glossopteris, a Permian fern from the Beardmore
Glacier. (From map by American Geographical Society, 1929.)

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

to be the most fruitful area of Antarctic research. It
was left to Scott in 1903 to be the first to cross that
interesting line (at the head of the Taylor Glacier)
joining the South Magnetic and South poles. This
is the line of 180° variation and along it the south-seek-
ing end of the needle points due north. In 1909 David
reached the South Magnetic Pole, where the magnetic
needle dipped vertically, and so he paralleled Ross in
the north. This interesting locality is some one thou-:
sand two hundred miles from the true South Pole.
Another field of science for which a polar environ-
ment is essential is the determination of the shape of
the earth. Owing to the polar “flattening,” the effect
of gravity is greater at the poles than at the equator.
In fact a piece of lead tested on a spring balance would
be found to be one half of one per cent heavier at the
poles. This variation in the pull of gravity is of course
measured by the swing of a pendulum at the required
localities, and an accuracy of one part in two hundred
and fifty thousand was attainable in the Antarctic.
Special interest attaches to the very abundant auroral
displays in polar areas. These are found to be con-
nected with sunspot phenomena and with magnetic
storms. In North Polar regions the maximum zone
for auroral displays passes close to the North Mag-
netic Pole, but we have not enough data to plot their
distribution accurately in southern regions. Dr. Chree
expressed the opinion that if they are due to electrical
discharges from the sun, then these are probably of
daily or hourly occurrence. As such, it is clear that
Antarctica is a specially valuable area for their study.

6

THE VALUE OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

Perhaps in the field of meteorology lies the most
practical application of data obtainable only in the
Antarctic. Sir Hubert Wilkins is carrying out his
reconnaissance surveys in the south primarily with a
view to finding localities suitable for a chain of
meteorological stations all around the Antarctic con-
tinent. The layman knows that the general surface
circulation of the atmosphere is from the colder regions
toward the equator, and back again at higher levels.
But it is only since Scott’s discovery in 1902 that
Antarctica is a gigantic ice-covered plateau that
meteorologists have appreciated the special localized
action of the phenomena at the South Pole. (There
is, for instance, nothing of the kind at the North Pole,
and indeed the meteorological pole in the Northern
Hemisphere is to be placed in northeast, Siberia rather
than in the deep ocean at the Pole itself.) We may
picture the poleward-flowing streams sinking to the
earth at the intensely cold elevated South Pole and
thence streaming out, either with moderate speed or as
furious blizzards, back again to temperate regions.
Indeed the phenomena in the heart of the Antarctic
may be compared to an organic “heart,’’ which pumps
the streams back again to revivify regions of vital
importance to man. In a later section I hope to show
how closely linked are the climatic changes of Antarc-
tica with those of the southern continents, so that it is
not too much to say that the future long-range fore-
casting of droughts in south temperate lands will be
greatly helped by increased knowledge of Antarctic
meteorology.

7

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Turning now to fields of natural science, there is
much of vital interest which can only be elucidated in
Antarctica. Many of the problems in southern zodlogy
turn on the paths followed by animals in the past in
_ reaching the three southern continents. Broadly speak-
ing, there are two schools of thought. One believes
that all the vertebrates reached the southern continents
by migration from the more extensive lands to the
north, in most cases from Eurasia. The other school
believes that Antarctica served as a sort of “half-way
house” whence animals could spread by vanished
“land-bridges” to South America, to South Africa, to
Australia, and to New Zealand. To quote R. C.
Murphy, “The real proof would be forthcoming only
through the discovery of marsupials or other pertinent
material in fossiliferous beds of Antarctica.’’ We shall
see that wonderful fossils, both of plants and animals,
have been discovered in South Victoria Land and in
Graham Land, which also throw a flood of light on the
fascinating problem of past climates.

As regards plants, there are so few in the Antarctic
that the botanical problems are not so interesting as
those of zodlogy. No flowering plants occur there,
but it is very curious that half the Antarctic lichens and
thirty per cent of the mosses occur also in the Arctic
regions and have not yet been found in the low latitudes
between. }

It is generally known that the regions now inhabited
by the most progressive peoples were covered with a
series of enormous ice fields in the last (Pleistocene)
epoch. This occurred many thousand years ago, but

8

THe VALUE OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

the later phases were contemporaneous with important
human populations. Moreover, the effects of the ice
ages concern practically every dweller in the United
States, in Canada, in Britain, and in north and central
Europe. For instance, the environments of the
Canadian wheat fields, the Great Lakes, the rivers and
canals and scenery of the northeastern United States,
the whole topography of Alpine countries, the routes
of the transcontinental railways in Europe, the actual
settlement in the deep valleys of Switzerland—all these
features depend almost entirely on the phenomena of
the Great Ice Age. We cannot now study what these
lands were like during the period of maximum glacia-
tion, but it was an attempt to solve in part this set of
problems which led the writer to become a member of
the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910. For sev-
eral years he had been investigating the post-glacial
scenery of the European Alps, but here it is very dif-
ficult to decide how much of the scenery is due to past
ice action and how much to the action of rivers and
streams of post-glacial origin. In the Antarctic I
was so fortunate as to find ice-free valleys where all
the features of the Swiss topography were displayed
without the obliterating effects of many thousand years
of rains and rivers.

In the realm of geology there are similar reasons
why Antarctica should be closely surveyed. The two
regions fairly well known at present belong to two
differing provinces. In the Australian quadrant around
the Ross Sea the rocks and structures are quite re-
markably like those of Australia. They consist es-

9

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

sentially of blocks of the earth’s crust bounded by
definite north-south fault-scarps. The eruptive rocks
are like those of South Australia. The fossils are also
similar. In West Antarctica (Graham Land, etc.)
- we seem to see a continuation of the South American
Andes. These are folded mountains occurring often
in arcs, one of which appears to link Chile with Ant-
arctica by way of the drowned islands of South
Georgia, South Orkneys, etc. Here, moreover, the
eruptive rocks belong to a different province from those
of Victoria Land and consist of a calc-alkaline series
of granodiorites and basalts akin to those of the
Andes. Probably the greatest unsolved problem as re-
gards the earth’s structure is the relation of these two
regions to each other. Are there two Antarctic con-
tinents, separated by straits or archipelagic areas? Or
do the Antarctic Andes die away against an infinitely
larger plateau of the Australian type? The latter
seems probable, and if Antarctica as a whole is
covered with an ice carapace, we shall probably wait
many a long year for a satisfactory answer.

Finally the whole problem of the general evolution
of the earth in geological times is only to be solved by
frequent references to polar evidence. Recent research
has shown that in the five hundred million years of
which geology gives us the record the earth was for
most of the time characterized by a more uniform en-
vironment both of topography and climate than in the
present epoch. Plant and animal life was also more
cosmopolitan than to-day. There was probably much
less differentiation of those climatic zones (frigid, tem-

IO

THE VALUE OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

perate, torrid) which control all plant and animal life
to-day. Obviously if this thesis is correct the decisive
data will be found in those lands which lie around the
poles—and of these the Antarctic lands are much the
most extensive. It is a very remarkable fact that
though we now have an almost complete series of
geological formations surveyed in Antarctica, dealing
with the whole five hundred million years of the
geological record, there is no evidence of any extreme
glacial climates such as we know occurred in other
parts of the world, either in Cambrian, Silurian, or
Permian times. There is a vague indication of glacial
beds of early Tertiary Age, but nothing suggesting
that the awe-inspiring ice plateau of the seventh Con-
tinent dates back more than the last few million years
in our long terrestrial epic.

It is the purpose of this small book to interest the
reader in the adventures and researches of that ex-
tremely small number of the earth’s huge population
who have been willing to try to prove that polar ex-
ploration is well worth while.

CHAPTER i

EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

PERIOD 1739-1774

T is always surprising to a scientist to see how long
I a geographical fallacy will hold ground, while an
indubitable scientific fact of equal interest seems to
take much longer to attract public attention. For in-
stance, I found in Australia that few folk there know
anything about the Sahara except the project to render
parts of it fertile by flooding large adjacent areas, or
of Central Australia save that since Lake Eyre is below
sea level much might result from leading the sea into
it. Neither of these projects is in the least advisable—
or indeed practicable. So also in the early history of
southern exploration there was an old legend of the
Greeks which it took three hundred years to nullify.
This was to the effect that a huge land must neces-
sarily be situated south of the equator, to balance the
known world in the northern hemisphere. Ptolemy
lent it the weight of his authority in his remarkable
maps of the Mediterranean and adjacent regions, and
the cartographers of the Middle Ages adopted it very
generally in the maps published to the end of the
sixteenth century.

In Figure 2a I have sketched the map as published by
Mercator in 1587. We can see at a glance that while

I2

EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

the Old and New Worlds are fairly well represented in
latitude (north to south), there is a good deal of error
in the east-west direction. This is of course primarily
due to the difficulty of obtaining longitude before the
accurate use of chronometers was possible. Hence all
the known continents are too wide. There is no sign
of Australia, save a huge “hump” in the hypothetical
land which occupies so large a part of the Southern

ang
We

Fic. 24.——MERCATOR’S WORLD-MAP, 1587.

For some 300 years explorers were reducing the large ruled
“Southern Continent” to its true size, shown in black. (True
position of Australia and East Asia indicated. )

Hemisphere. The only basis for this large area was
perhaps the view of Tierra del Fuego seen by Magel-
lan in 1520, when his voyage around the world clearly
showed that Ptolemy’s Terra Incognita was not joined
to South America. Moreover, in 1578 Drake had
been driven as far to the south of Tierra del Fuego
as 57° and sailed through the broad strait now known
by his name. This gap of some four hundred and fifty
miles was apparently not known to Mercator.

13

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

To the French must be given the credit for the first
serious attempt to discover whether this southern con-
tinent really existed. In 1739 on New Year’s Day,
Bouvet discovered a new land which lay to the south
of Capetown some 1,400 miles (see Figure 3). Ow-
ing to fog, he was unable to state if it were an island
or part of a large continent, but he sailed along the
edge of the ice pack in the vicinity for some four
hundred miles, feeling sure that a large continent
existed just to the south. Antarctica, however, lay
still one thousand miles south of his track. It is a
noteworthy fact that the small island of Bouvet was
thereafter lost until 1898, when the “Valdivia” found
it eight degrees west of the original determination.
This is another example of the relative difficulty of
fixing longitude, for the latitude (54° S.) was approxi-
mately correct.

The losses of France in Canada in part led to
Kerguelen’s voyages of 1772 and 1773 when he dis-
covered the island (named after him) in the Indian
Océan. in ‘latitude 50° S. (see Figure 3). Dhis agaim
had little relationship with the Antarctic continent.

The greatest achievement of Captain James Cook
was not his charting of the best-endowed coast of
Australia in 1770, but his wonderful work in delimit-
ing the southern boundaries of the three great oceans
in his voyages from 1772 to 1775. Cook first came
into prominence through his charts of the Saint
Lawrence, where he took part in the siege of Quebec.
Some of these charts and the copy of his Australian
log are the prized possessions of the National Museum

14

EX PUORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

at Canberra, Australia, where other relics of Australian
and Antarctic exploration are gradually being gathered.

We may summarize his first and third voyages as
follows. In the first he doubled Cape Horn from the
east and observed the transit of Venus at Tahiti. He
discovered and charted the east coasts of both New
Zealand and Australia, and returned home through
Torres Straits between New Guinea and Australia. He
reached England in July, 1771. His third voyage was
chiefly directed to the North Pacific in an attempt to
reach the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Behring
Straits. This has, of course, not been done to this
day, though several ships have managed to make the
voyage in the opposite direction, like the “Vega’’
(1878-9) along Siberia, and the “Gjoa” (1903-6)
along Canada. Cook discovered many islands in the
Pacific and surveyed much of the northwest American
coast. He was killed at Hawaii in February, 1779.

It was in his second voyage, however, in which he
“put a girdle round the earth, and had enough over
to tie the knot.’’ Dalrymple, a well-known writer of
this period, was convinced that there existed a great
continent around the South Pole. He wrote in a let-
ter to the King, “That unknown part is a quarter of
the whole globe, and so capacious that it may contain
in it double the kingdoms and provinces of all those
your Majesty is at present lord of.’’ Cook left Eng-
land in July, 1772, and his first object was to survey
Bouvet “Land.” They sighted ice on December roth
and soon proved that Bouvet Land was not part of a
large continent, for they sailed in open water far to

15

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

the south. As Lieutenant Clerke wrote in his log,
“If my friend Monsieur found any land, he has been
confoundedly out in the latitude and longitude of it.”

Fic. 3.—Cook’s EXPLORATIONS (1772-1775) oF ANT-

ARCTIC SEAS ARE SHOWN RULED. A, B, C, D, E ARE

CRUISES. THE INNER WHITE AREA SHOWS THE ANT-

ARCTIC SEAS YET TO BE EXPLORED. CONTINENTS ARE
BLACK.

Alexander Is., Enderby Land and Peter Is. are indicated, while
X shows Weddell’s furthest.

On the seventeenth of January, 1773, the Antarctic

Circle was crossed for the first time not far from

Enderby Land in longitude 40° E. As far north as
16

PAPUORING ANTARCTIC’ SEAS

this Circle (owing to the tilt of the earth’s axis) the
sun shines for twenty-four continuous hours on De-
cember 22nd, so that sunset and sunrise occur due
south at the same instant.

Cook now sailed to the northeast to survey the land
of Kerguelen of which he had received a report, but
he was again unlucky and missed this second French
discovery. He then returned to southern latitudes and
for four weeks sailed along latitude 60° S. (see A,
Figure 3). On March 16th he left the Antarctic area
and proceeded to the rendezvous with his other ship
in New Zealand. In June he proceeded to examine
the region east of New Zealand and sailed through an
empty sea right across Dalrymple’s conjectured conti-
nent (see B, Figure 3). He returned by a northern
route to New Zealand. On the approach of summer
Cook sailed south once more for his most remarkable
cruise (see C, Figure 3). For six weeks his ships
were buffeted by the storms of the “Shrieking Sixties”
and on two occasions he crossed the Antarctic Circle.
The first was on longitude 140° W. where, however,
the Antarctic coast is still quite unknown. After the
second crossing (near 106° W.) he penetrated to lati-
tude 70°, and on January 30th, 1774, he was blocked
by mountainous ice in a position which has not yet
been surpassed in this region, though the ‘Pourquoi
Pas” approached it in 1910. Thereafter he made for
Warmer waters and returned northwest to New
Zealand.

On his last southern cruise (see D, Figure 3), he
left on November toth, 1774, and sailed along lati-

17

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE/ AND RESEARCH

tude 56° S. for Cape>Hoern.~ Here again he’ crossed
the supposed continent and found no land whatever.
From the Horn he followed a course to Capetown
far south of that usually taken. His initiative was
rewarded by the discovery of the large rocky island
of South Georgia, which lies on the submarine ridge
connecting the Andes of South America to the Andes
of West Antarctica. Somewhat to the east he sighted
further “peaks” of the same ridge which he named
the Sandwich Group. Then he made one more attempt
to sight Bouvet Island, and he must have passed only
a few miles to the south of it. After crossing his
original track of 1772 he turned to the north and
reached Capetown March 2ist, 1775.

Probably no other voyage, not even excepting Magel-
lan’s, has done so much to remove ‘“‘false lands’ from
the world map. Cook’s first cruise in large part mapped
the ice pack south of the Indian Ocean. His second
main cruise did the same work for the Pacific, while
his last cruise completed his task in the Atlantic. On
two occasions he practically reached the Antarctic con-
tinent, first near Enderby Land and secondly to the west
of Peter Island. Of supreme importance also was his
fight against scurvy, so that all his crew save one with-
stood this scourge throughout three years of unparal-
leled navigation. It was his misfortune to miss the
great continent which actually surrounds the South
Pole, for he only discovered two outlying isles off
South America. Of these South Georgia is, however,
the chief center of industry in Antarctic waters. The
same cruises were, however, much more successful in

18

EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

placing the islands of the South Pacific on the map,
though that is outside of the province of this brief
study.

PERIOD 1775-1838

As is so often the case in exploration, there was a
period of quiescence after an epoch of great discovery.
For some forty years exploration was confined chiefly
to those seas to the south of America where the whal-
ing industry obtained the illuminating oils of the
period. Americans and British took part in the in-
dustry, but there were many more American ships.
However, a Britisher, Smith, discovered the South
Shetland Isles in 1819, and they were surveyed by a
British sailor, Bransfield, next year. In 1821 the
American, Palmer, discovered the archipelago which
hugs the west coast of Graham Land (see Figure 7),
and next year a Britisher, Powell, found the South
Orkneys, which lie halfway between the South Shet-
lands and South Georgia. There has been a good deal
of controversy as to who first discovered the actual
mountains of Graham Land (or West Antarctica), but
this perhaps is of less importance now that Wilkins has
shown that this large land mass is in turn isolated from
the main continent by Stefansson Strait (Fig. 7).

The splendid voyages of Bellingshausen have never
received the credit which they deserve. He was a
Russian sailor who was commissioned by Emperor
Alexander I in 1819 to circumnavigate the South Pole.
His discoveries much resembled those of Cook. He
sailed from South Georgia to the east on December

19

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

27th. During the next few months he cruised along
the edge of the pack, often within the Antarctic Circle.
He was able to show that no land existed far south
of Cook’s cruises (see A and E, Figure 3) in these
waters. He reached Sydney at the end of March,
1820. After a cruise in the Pacific, Bellingshausen
again sailed south and made a wonderful voyage again
very largely within the Antarctic Circle. On the
twenty-second of January, 1821, he sighted Peter
Island (see Figure 7) and a week later Alexander
Land far tothe east (see P and A, Figure 3). Eiarly
next month he met Palmer and other whalers near
Graham Land, and thence returned to Russia. His
voyage had “lopped off” the projecting unknown areas
which Cook did not traverse; and his discovery of land
so far south as 68° S. remained a record until the
wonderful voyage of Ross in 1841.

One of the most fortunate voyages in Antarctic his-
tory was that of Captain Weddell in a brig of 160 tons.
His main object was to hunt for seals, but finding the
region to the south of South Georgia remarkably free
from ice, he and his consort (a boat of 60 tons) de-
termined to push south as far as was possible. On the
eighteenth of February, 1823, he reached 73° S., and
not a particle of ice was to/be seen (see isure 3),
though they were some two hundred miles nearer the
Pole than Cook’s record. On the twentieth he turned
back at 74° 15’, for his ships and equipment were
not intended for exploration.

The famous merchants, the Enderby Brothers of
London, encouraged the captains of their whaling fleet

20

EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

* YLABiscoe

1 a li ingshay sen

Boundary of
Continent

Fic. 4—CHART SHOWING ANTARCTIC DISCOVERIES WITH
DATES.

Recent British discoveries are ruled or dotted.

to attempt the exploration of new waters. In 1831

Captain Biscoe met with very favorable conditions, so

that he was able to sail for five weeks within the Ant-

arctic Circle. He sailed to the east directly south of
21

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Africa in an area which has hardly been visited since,
though it is the venue of the present Australian
expedition under Sir Douglas Mawson in 1929-30.
On February 25th, 1831, when just on the circle he
saw “‘an appearance of land” about longitude 48°, and
for nearly three weeks Biscoe fought the pack and the
blizzard in an attempt to reach the continent. From
March 1st to the 8th the hurricane lasted without
intermission; the bulwarks were stove in and several
boats lost or broken. On the sixteenth he again saw
the black cape projecting through the icy highlands,
to which he gave the name Cape Ann (see Figure 4).
To the whole coast, which seemed to extend for several
hundred miles east and west (from 48° E. to 56° E),
has been given the name of Enderby Land. This oc-
casion marks the true discovery of the Antarctic con-
tinent. He then made for Tasmania, where he was
rejoined by his cutter, the “Lively,” whose crew had
nearly died of starvation near the site of Melbourne
before they could make the port of Hobart. Buiscoe
returned to England via the southern Pacific route.
Near the Russian discoveries he met with very open
water and so discovered Adelaide Island to the north
of Alexander Land. He also landed on the Palmer
Archipelago, and the vast rocky ranges to the east were
named Graham Land after the First Lord of the
Admiralty.

Another famous captain of the Badevhe whalers
was Balleny. He sailed south from New Zealand and
in February, 1839, he discovered the group of volcanic
islands just on the Antarctic Circle (longitude

22

EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

163° E.) which has been given his name. Some weeks
later some one thousand five hundred miles to the west
he saw an appearance of land in longitude 120° E. to
which the name “Sabrina Land” was given (see Fig-
ure 4). While this is a doubtful discovery, later voy-
ages by Wilkes and J. K. Davis (1911) make it likely
that land lies in just this position.

PERIOD 1837-1843

The first great period of Antarctic discovery resulted
from the national expeditions commanded by Cook and
Bellingshausen. The second notable period was also
due to expeditions dispatched by various governments,
in this case France, United States, and Britain. Since
there was some rivalry between these three expeditions,
it will be well to give in tabular form a summary of
their voyages and discoveries. All the voyages were in
the southern summer, usually in January and February.

D’Urville was sent south by Louis Philippe to ex-
plore the Weddell Sea and if possible to approach
nearer to the South Pole than previous voyagers. His
attempt was not very successful in this respect for he
only reached 63° 39’ S., not far south of South
Orkney. Then he returned to the west and sailed along
the coast of Graham Land. He gave the names of
Louis Philippe Land and Joinville Island to areas
which had certainly been roughly charted by Powell
before. However, these names have been adopted on
all modern maps. D’Urville devoted the next two
years to the exploration of the Pacific, especially to
the ethnology of the primitive peoples, a work which

23

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

appealed to him much more than Antarctic exploration.
However, early in 1840 he decided to win for France
the credit of reaching the South Magnetic Pole. He
left Hobart on New Year’s Day and on January 1oth,
1840, the first land of the continent itself was sighted

DATE West ANTARCTICA East ANTARCTICA

1838 D’Urville (Jan.-Feb.) off
Graham Land.

1839 Wilkes (Feb.) South
Shetlands and _ near
Peter Island.

1840 D’Urville (Jan.) Adelie
Land.

Wilkes (Jan.-Feb.) Adelie
Land and west to Ter-
mination Land.

1841 Ross (Jan.-Feb.) Ross Sea
and Barrier.

1842 Ross (Jan.-Feb.- March)
East of Ross Sea.

1843 Ross (Dec. ’42-Mar. ’43)
Weddell Sea.

due south of Tasmania, to which he gave the name
Adelie Land (see Figure 5). ‘It stretched as far as
the eye could see and was entirely covered with snow,
and it might have a height of one thousand to one
thousand two hundred meters.” Several small islands
were seen in the vicinity and here rocks were collected,
and the adjacent cape was called Pointe Geologie. A

24

EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS

dramatic meeting took place with one of Wilkes’ ships
on the thirtieth of January, but Ringgold misunderstood
D’Urville’s actions and sailed away without communi-
cating with the French. About one hundred and

joe a e '
wore \
P= - auss oe

=a 1902

Fic. 5.—VovyacGeEs IN East ANTARCTICA OF D’URVILLE,
WILKES AND Ross.

X and Y are the doubtful positions of Ringgold Knoll and
C. Hudson.

twenty miles to the northwest of Adelie Land the
French leader sighted an ice barrier about one hun-
dred feet high. To this he gave the name of Cote
Clarie; but this ice was not part of the fired land-ice
for it had disappeared in 1912. The French left Ant-

25

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

arctica on February Ist, 1840, and have sent no later
expedition into these eastern waters.

Although the United States has taken a great in-
terest in Arctic exploration, as was shown in the
Franklin Relief Expeditions and later, she has not given
much official attention to Antarctic seas and lands. Al-
most the sole exception until the present century was
the important expedition dispatched in 1839 under
Commander Charles Wilkes.* His instructions were
to survey the waters frequented by American whalers,
and to make two summer cruises towards the South
Pole south of America and Tasmania respectively. He
was not equipped for lengthy Antarctic exploration.
He sailed on the sloop “Vincennes,” together with
three other small boats, and made two determined at-
tacks on the unknown regions to the south. Early in
March, 1839, they cruised among the islands at the
north end of Graham Land and the “Porpoise’’ was
nearly wrecked on Elephant Island, where Shackleton’s
men were to shelter in 1916. The other two boats
penetrated into the heavy pack west of Graham Land
and the “Flying Fish” (of only 96 tons) reached 70°,
near the region explored by the “Belgica” in 1808,
where it is likely that they mistook high icebergs for
land. In December, 1839, the ships left Sydney for
their second Antarctic voyage. They were most poorly
equipped, and Wilkes records that he felt it was “un-
wise to attempt such service in ordinary cruising ves-
sels, but we had been ordered to go, and that was

1 Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition (London, Whittaker, 1845).
26

PRP LORING ANTARCTIC SHAS

enough, and go we should.” ? On January 13th they
approached the Balleny Islands (see Figure 5), but it
is unlikely that they saw indications of the land for
they were about one hundred miles away. On the six-
teenth several officers were satisfied that land was
visible. “The mountains could be distinctly seen
stretching to the southwest as far as anything could
be discerned. Two peaks in particular were very dis-
tinct.’ Both these discoveries of the thirteenth and
sixteenth were probably errors of judgment, for the
“Erebus” and ‘Terror’ sailed across one “land” in
March, 1841, and the “Discovery” found no sign of
the other in those latitudes in 1904. Yet even here it
may be that Wilkes saw islands like Bouvet Isle which
will elude accurate survey for many decades. It must
be noted that the “Aurora” in 1916 obtained very shal-
low soundings near Wilkes’ doubtful lands. On Janu-
ary 23rd the American expedition reached a deep bay
(in 67° S. and 147° 30’ E.), and obtained a sounding
at 320 fathoms. It seems likely that Wilkes was now
between the Ninnis and Mertz Glacier tongues, which
were mapped in detail by Mawson’s expedition in
IgII-12. On January 30th the “Vincennes” coasted
Adelie Land, noting the black rocks which D’Urville
had examined only ten days before. Wilkes writes, “TI
gave the land the name of the Antarctic Continent.”
On the same day (January 30th) the “Porpoise’’ met
D’Urville farther to the westward, as has been
narrated.

BES. Balch Antarctica Cieoe):
27

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Wilkes was badly handicapped by crippled ships and
the ill-health of his crew, but he stoutly held on to
westward, and after longitude 137° E. again sailed
along the land for sixty miles to the west. In longi-
- tude 131° 40’ he sighted and named Cape Carr on the
seventh, and on the tenth and twelfth he determined
the land to lie in about 65° 20’ of latitude. On the
thirteenth the day was very clear, and he could see
seventy-five miles of the coastline. Many rock speci-
mens embedded in the ice were obtained here. In
longitude 97° 37’ the ice cut off his progress to west-
ward. He had come up against the Shackleton Ice
Shelf (see Mawson’s expedition), and so he turned
northward and sailed to Tasmania (see Figure 25).

Thus closed a very memorable Antarctic voyage,
concerning which there has been considerable con-
troversy. It has been claimed that Wilkes discovered
land on January 13th and 16th and therefore antedated
D’Urville’s discovery of January 19th. But in the
light of later voyages in these regions it seems very
doubtful if any of his observations before January
23rd concerned the mainland, though as stated he may
have seen an-island which has since escaped notice.
Thus D’Urville has priority by four days. On the
other hand, Wilkes’ fine voyage with ill-found ships
apparently along the coast most of the way from longi-
tude 148° E. to 108° E. is an achievement which has
not yet been repeated. Certainly no other ship has
cruised in that latitude from Adelie Land past North,
Sabrina, Budd, and Knox lands, for Wilkes was
favored by an unusually open state of the sea. As to

28

EXPLORING ANTARCTIC.SEAS

whether the name, Wilkes Land, is to be given to all
this coast or to the restricted area (in 134° E.) mapped
on Mawson’s expedition and by him named Wilkes
Land, it is difficult to decide. Even Balch in his
lengthy discussion of the point is unable to say who
first used the term “‘Wilkes Land” in the larger sense,
though he notes that it appears in Stieler’s Atlas pub-
lished in Germany in 1866.

The discovery of the North Magnetic Pole in 1831
by John Ross and James Ross greatly enhanced the
interest of scientists and laymen in earth magnetism.
It was fitting that the official British expedition fitted
out in 1838 and 1839 to investigate the magnetic field
in the Southern Hemisphere should be under the leader-
ship of Captain James Ross, who had studied mag-
netism under Sabine. Hooker, one of the famous trio
of Victorian scientists (Hooker, Darwin, and Huxley),
accompanied Ross as surgeon and botanist. Ross
was directed to establish magnetic observatories at
Kerguelen and Hobart and then he was to sail south-
ward and try to reach the South Magnetic Pole. When
Ross arrived in Australia, he found that D’Urville and
Wilkes had both made discoveries in the region which
he proposed to explore. He therefore boldly decided
to cruise farther east than their tracks, and to try to
penetrate the pack ice where Balleny had reported open
water in 1839 (see Figure 5).

Early in January, 1841, he reached the pack ice and
his stout bomb-ships readily traversed it, for the first
time in history, in about nine days. The magnetic
needle was dipping at 85°, so that the Magnetic Pole

29

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

could not be far away. However, the massive peaks
of the Admiralty Range barred the way to the Mag-
netic Pole and Ross turned southward for 430 miles
along one of the most remarkable scarped coasts in
the world. In spite of its high latitude, it seems
likely that much of the Ross Sea remains open
throughout the year; so that Ross was able to pass
Weddell’s record (74° .15’) on’ January. 22nd,7and
there was still open water to southward. However,
on January 29th he reached the famous volcanic
island crowned by Mount Erebus (thirteen thousand
feet) and since named after himself. The ships now
sailed to the east along the Ross Ice Shelf for some
three hundred and fifty miles near latitude 78° S., a
feat which can in all probability never be beaten else-
where, for it is unlikely that another huge open gulf
should exist in the at present uncharted Antarctic
coasts. He returned to Cape Adare, in the northwest-
ern part of Ross Sea, and reached Hobart again in
April, 1841.

Next summer Ross again journeyed south. On this
occasion he made his southing considerably to the east
of his former route. The ships had a very hazardous
journey through the pack, during which the rudder
of the ‘Erebus’? was rendered useless, and that of
the ‘Terror’? was smashed to pieces. He reached the
head of the Ross Sea not far from King Edward VII
Land. Here Ross gained his farthest south point at
78° 9’, and it remained the record for some sixty
years. On their return they coasted the heavy ice
pack which bounds the east of the Ross Sea, and nearly

30

EXPLORING AN FARCTIC SEAS

met with disaster on March oth. The ships were en-
tangled in icebergs, and in the attempt to avoid one
of these monsters, the “‘Terror’’ collided with the
“Erebus.’’ We may quote Captain Ross’s own words.
“Our bowsprit, foretopmast and other smaller spars
were carried away, and the ships hanging together
entangled with their rigging, and dashing against each
other with fearful violence were falling down upon
the weather face of the lofty berg under our lee,
against which the waves were breaking and foaming
to near the summit of its perpendicular cliffs.” After
extricating themselves the ships just managed to pass
between two giant bergs and gained comparative safety
in their lee. On April 6th they reached the Falkland
Islands.

Ross made a third voyage to the Antarctic in the
following summer, this time to the south of America.
He cruised off the end of Graham Land and Hooker
made some valuable collections of plants, but the at-
tempt to follow Weddell was unsuccessful. Ross pene-
trated to 71° 30’, where he was no great distance from
Coats Land, but he there turned north and the ships
ultimately reached England after their long cruises
in September, 1843.

CHAP IER: AM

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT
PERIOD 1897-1907

FTER the return of Ross from the Antarctic in
A 1843, public interest centered in North Polar
regions. Sir John Franklin, who had, as governor of
the colony, helped Ross materially in Tasmania, took
command in 1845 of a very large and well equipped
expedition of 129 men to explore the Northwest
Passage. Not a soul ever returned, and no accurate
knowledge of their fate was learned until 1859. The
Antarctic has luckily shown no tragedies to compare
with this. In South Polar seas the Norwegian and
Scotch whalers penetrated both the Weddell and Ross
seas in search of whales. In 1893, Larsen discovered
Foyn’s Land on the southeast coast of Graham Land,
while Bruce and Murdoch made their first voyages in
the adjoining seas. Bull and Borchgrevinck made the
first landing on Cape Adare in January, 1895, though
their whaling was not successful.

In 1897 took place the first expedition in which
scientific investigation ranked as importantly as the
charting of new lands. The Belgian, Gerlache, gath-
ered a cosmopolitan crew, many of whom rose to fame
in later years. Amundsen, the Norwegian sailor, Cook,
the American doctor, and Arctowski, the Polish cli-

32

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

matologist, were members of this expedition. They
coasted along Graham Land, making numerous land-
ings in Belgica Strait, and then penetrated west of the
region between Alexander and Peter islands, passing
to the south of the latter island (see Figure 4). Here
they were beset and spent the first Antarctic night
drifting from 80° 30’ W. to 102° W. They seem to
have suffered a good deal from confinement and inade-
quate food, but carried out scientific observations in
many useful fields.

To Borchgrevinck must be given the credit for first
landing on the continent and spending a winter there
after his ship had returned to temperate climes. On
the seventeenth of February, 1899, he landed on Cape
Adare at the northwest extremity of the Ross Sea in
latitude 71° S. The party consisted of seven Scandi-
navians and three Britishers, including L. Bernacchi
and W. Colbeck, who both joined later expeditions.
The locality was unfavorable as a base for sledging,
but valuable meteorological observations were made.
The zoologist, Hanson, died at Cape Adare from some
disease akin to scurvy. In January, rgoo, their ship
picked them up and cruised south to the great Ross Ice
Shelf. On February 19th they made a sledge journey
of a few miles to the south and reached 78° 45’, which
was perhaps forty miles south of Ross’s record in 1842.

With the new century began the most famous period
of Antarctic exploration. From 1772 to 1900 nothing
was known of the interior of Antarctica. An ice-bound
north coast was indicated by Wilkes’ discoveries. A
stupendous mountain coast flanked the Ross Sea on the

33

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

west, and a great barrier of ice blocked it to the south.
But an area greater than Europe lay to the south of
these discoveries, and many folk believed that it might
turn out to be an archipelago of islands like that form-
- ing the polar lands north of Canada. Indeed, we are
not yet certain that such is not the case in part at least
in the huge unknown Antarctic regions, but it is to two
men, Scott and Shackleton, that our main knowledge
of the interior of the new continent is due.

The British Expedition of 1902 was largely a naval
expedition financed by the British Government, but
generously aided by private contributions. The “Dis-
covery” was specially built at Dundee and had a regis-
tered tonnage of 485 tons. Captain Scott was given
command.

On Christmas Eve, 1901, the “Discovery” left New
Zealand and reached Cape Adare on January 8th (see
Figure 6). They coasted down the great mountain
scarp of Victoria Land until the twentieth when they
entered Granite Harbor, which was considered for pos-
sible winter quarters. Thence they sailed eastward
along the great Ice Barrier which constitutes the free
northern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. On January
20th they were south and east of the extreme position
reached by Ross in 1842. Still proceeding eastward
they sighted and named King Edward VII Land, but
found no suitable site for winter quarters and turned
back towards MacMurdo Sound. En route at Balloon
Bight Scott made the first balloon ascent in Antarctica.
On February 8th Scott reached the southwest corner
of Ross Island—and here at Cape Armitage he an-

34

SOUTH, PCLE
10,000

SeolF
Jan 1912.

ackletsn

s
SAsSsssZ~7,
“ wanes

SS

~
>

SON

yy :
Ly
a

ee?
> of

7 foc:
Sar Al: —

ph is
Al!
bapa »-
=

Fic. 6.—Map oF SoutH VictTor1IA LAND AND VICINITY.

The Great Horst (Fault-Block) is shown by heavy ruling, Main
routes of Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen and Byrd are shown. Insets
are fossil fish-plates from Granite Harbor. (According to Gould,
Carmen Land is largely non-existent. )

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

chored the “Discovery” for the long winter. Here he
built the 1902 hut (see Figure 8), but it was not
used as the expedition lived in the ship.

Various short sledge journeys were made, one being
to Cape Crozier, east of Ross Island, to leave a record
of the voyage. On the return some of the men were
caught in a blizzard, and not realizing their danger
tried to reach the ship in the storm. Nine of them slid
down the steep icy slopes below Castle Rock (near
the hut), and one man, Vince, lost his life. Unfor-
tunately he wore fur boots so he was unable to regain
his footing and was dashed into the icy sea.

The return of the sun on August 21st made longer
sledging possible. In October Royds went again to
Cape Crozier and here discovered the “rookery” of the
Emperor Penguins. Early in November Scott, Wil-
son, and Shackleton started their fine journey to the
south, which traversed the first third of the long jour-
ney to the South Pole (see Figure 6). The men were
assisted by dogs, and Scott gained the poorest opinion
of dog sledging on this journey. On December 15th
they approached the Great Scarp (to the west) in lati-
tude 80° 30’, but found their way barred by an enor-
mous chasm some three-quarters of a mile wide. Here
they left a depot and continued southward parallel to
the coast. Symptoms of scurvy developed in Shackle-
ton, but they pushed on to 82° 16’ S.. To the south-
west towered a twin peak some fifteen thousand feet
high, which they named after Admiral Markham. An
attempt to reach the land across the great chasm was
unsuccessful. On the return the dogs were practically

36

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

useless and could barely stagger eight miles a day; in
fact, they ‘walked alongside the sledges.” Scott had
difficulty in picking up their depot, which, however, was
attained on January 13th. The last two dogs (out of
nineteen) were killed near here as they were unable to
pull. Shackleton’s scurvy became rapidly worse and
on January 18th his strength gave out and he was un-
able to help, and indeed for a time was dragged on the
sledge. However, on the twentieth they reached the
depot at Minna Bluff (78° 45’). Shackleton was now
very ill, but Scott and Wilson managed to bring him
back to the ship, which they reached on February 2nd.
They had covered 960 miles in 93 days.

Meanwhile the western party under Armitage left
on November 29th to penetrate the mountains (see
Figure 8). They ascended the Blue Glacier to six
thousand feet and then glissaded down Descent Pass
to a level of two thousand feet on the Ferrar Glacier.
Then they ascended the latter glacier below wonderful
cliffs, which it was my privilege to examine in detail
eight years later. On the twenty-third of December
they reached the ice divide between the two apposed
glaciers, the Ferrar Glacier in the southern valley and
Taylor Glacier in the northern valley. Continuing up
the Taylor Glacier, they reached the Plateau on New
Year’s Day at a height of 7,500 feet, being the first
to achieve this feat. In January, 1903, they reached
nine thousand feet (near latitude 78, longitude 158)
and then returned by the same laborious route up
Descent Pass, not knowing that an easy track down the
Ferrar Glacier lay before them.

37

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

b

Late in January a relief ship, the “Morning,” under
Captain Colbeck, reached MacMurdo Sound. Shackle-
ton returned home in her, being replaced by Mulock.
It was impossible to free the “Discovery” and so a sec-
ond winter was spent in the Antarctic. After several
preliminary spring journeys Scott started on October
12th for his long plateau journey. He arranged for
Ferrar, the geologist, to spend several weeks in these
great glacial troughs. On October 18th Scott dis-
covered that the sledge runners were in very bad
condition and had to return to refit them. On the
twenty-ninth they were once more above Solitary
Rocks, on the Taylor Glacier, and reached their former
depot. Here the gales had resulted in the loss of vart-
ous articles, including Scott’s mathematical tables.
They were held up for a whole week in a blizzard in
this locality. On the twelfth of November they reached
the great plateau and advanced steadily to the west.
Scott found that some of the party were in poor con-
dition and so he sent them back under Skelton, and
he proceeded west with seaman Evans and engineer
Lashley. They marched over an undulating ice sur-
face diversified only by marked sastrugi (snow ridges
due to wind). “These are shaped like the barbs of a
hook with their sharp points turned to the east, from
which direction many look high and threatening.” * On
calculating Scott’s positions on their return it was
found that he had reached 146° 33’ E. and latitude
78° S. (see Figure 6). They had a very anxious

1See Scott’s Voyage of the Discovery, Vol. II, p. 264.
38

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

time on their return journey since they ran out of
food and oil and had no accurate idea of their posi-
tion. They fell down three hundred feet of steep
slope in drifting snow, and found they had actually
approached their glacier depot. A few hours later
Scott and Evans simultaneously fell into a wide cre-
vasse. It was a terrible experience, for Lashley could
not help them, as the sledge from which they were sus-
pended was broken and only held back by his efforts.
Scott climbed out unaided, and soon the party reached
their depot. They then reached the snout of the glacier
later named by Scott after the writer, and returning
down the Ferrar Glacier reached the ship on Christmas
Eve (see Figure 8).

On January sth, 1904, two relief ships reached
MacMurdo Sound but could not get to the “Discovery”
by some six miles. After trying to cut a passage for
the latter with ice saws, they had recourse to explo-
sives ; but the swell from the north finally broke up the
pack ice on February 14th. On the seventeenth the
“Discovery” ran aground in a gale near Cape Armi-
tage, but luckily no great damage was done. On March
2nd they passed Sturge Island in the Balleny group,
and then proceeded west to find Wilkes’ landmarks:
Eld’s Peak, Ringgold’s Knoll, and Cape Hudson (see
Figure 5). Scott writes on March 4th, “I must con-
clude that as these places are nonexistent, there is no
case for any land eastward of Adelie Land.”’ On April
Ist the “Discovery” reached Lyttelton Harbor, N. Z.,
and on the tenth of September, 1904, the ship anchored
at Spithead in the Isle of Wight.

a9

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

ree
D\Sceogy Elephant Is.

South End/of
Wilkins’ ight

12/2

Fic. 7—CHART OF THE WEDDELL SEA (INCORPORATING
WILKINS’ DISCOVERIES ).

W. marks the start of Wilkins’ flight to Charcot Island late

in 1929. (Based on American Geographical Review, July, 1920. )

Drygalski—We must now devote some attention to

the expeditions sent out in the same year, I90I, by

Germany and Sweden. The former was in charge of

40

inn a ———

PRPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

b)

Professor Drygalski in the ship “Gauss,” named after
the famous German authority on magnetism. After
landing at Kerguelen Island in the Indian Ocean, they
sailed south to the region where Wilkes had turned
north in 1842 (see Figure 4). Towards the end of
February they reached shallow soundings and on the
twenty-first saw land some forty-six miles to the south.
Here the “‘Gauss’’ was beset, and the expedition spent
the winter just north of the Antarctic Circle. They
sent out some sledging parties, none of which made
long journeys. A large mass of volcanic rock pro-
jected as a nunatak from the icebound coast and was
called the Gaussberg. On the return of spring the
“Gauss” broke free from the ice and struggled to the
west in the pack for two months. This expedition
added little to the map of Antarctica, but very valuable
records in the domain of oceanography and meteorology
were obtained (see Figure 5).

Nordenskjold—The Swedish expedition was one of
the most adventurous and successful which has ever
sailed to the south. It was commanded by Dr. Norden-
skjold, who was specially interested in the structure
of South America and wished to investigate similar
problems in West Antarctica (Graham Land). They
reached the Falkland Islands on the thirty-first of De-
cember, 1901, and the South Shetland Isles on the
tenth of January, 1902. Nordenskjold tried to pierce
the ice to the south without success, and followed the
edge of the pack to the east to longitude 44° W. (see
Figure 7). Driven back by storms, he decided to
make his winter quarters on Snow Hill Island (64° 30’

Al

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

S.) where there was a promising collecting ground for
fossils. The ship “Antarctic” left them on the four-
teenth of February, 1902, and here the party remained
until the tenth of November, 1903 (see Figure 7).
During October of 1902 they sledged south about
two hundred miles to latitude 66° S., but most of their
time was spent in exploring and collecting within a few
days’ journey of their hut. No ship came to their
relief in December, 1902, and they spent a second win-
ter in the Antarctic. In October, 1903, Nordenskjold
was exploring the region to the west when he met two
begrimed and ragged beings who turned out to be two
of his countrymen, Anderson and Duse, who had tried
without success to reach him from his relief ship early
in 1903. They had therefore built a stone hut at Hope
Bay, some one hundred miles to the north of Snow
Hill; and after a winter there had managed to get in
touch with him. Meanwhile Captain Larsen on the
“Antarctic” had met with dire misfortune, for the ship
was crushed by the terrible pack ice of the Weddell
Sea, and sank on the twelfth of February, 1903. Lar-
sen and his crew of nineteen reached Paulet Island,
about seventy miles northeast of Snow Hill, and here
a third hut was built, and so a third party spent the
winter of 1903 on the coasts of Graham Land.
When the ice broke out Larsen set off in a boat to visit
Hope Bay and then Snow Hill, where he arrived an
hour after the relief expedition sent by the Argentine
government in the ship “Uruguay.’”’ On the second of
December, 1903, they all reached Buenos Aires safely.
While not much was added to the map of Antarctica,

42

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

perhaps no other expedition has been so successful with
its geological and paleontological investigations in
Antarctica. These will be described in a later chapter.

Bruce.—It is natural that Scotland, from which so
many whalers set out year after year, should be in-
terested in polar exploration. In 1892 Dr. Bruce had
made a voyage with the whaling fleet to Graham Land,
and in 1902 he was successful in leading a scientific
expedition to explore Antarctic regions. The “Scotia”’
left Scotland in November and reached the Falkland
Islands early in January, 1903 (see Figure 4). Bruce
made two voyages into the Weddell Sea area in the
successive summers. On February 2nd they reached
the Pack Ice at 60° 28’, whereas Ross found it at
65° and D’Urville at 63° 30’. They visited the South
Orkneys and then pushed to the southeast across the
mouth of the Weddell Sea, gradually getting farther
south as they moved to windward. They were unable
to proceed farther than 70° 25’ on February 22nd,
when they were in the vicinity of Coats Land, though
this area was still to be discovered. For a week they
were nearly beset, and as the season was fairly late
they turned north, making valuable soundings. Bruce
decided to winter in the South Orkneys, which were
practically unknown scientifically and very poorly
charted before his expedition’s advent. On the beach
at Scotia Bay in Laurie Island (see Figure 7), they
built a stone hut for the observers in spring. The
island is about twelve miles long and is cut up by long
bays running northwest and southeast. Silurian grap-
tolites were discovered at the eastern end, and the

43

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

island was found to be wholly built of sedimentary
rocks. This indicates its former connection with a
large continent, and is of much interest, for islands far
distant from land are generally built of coral or vol-
canic rocks.

Late in February, 1904, the “Scotia” again sailed
south, making for the same region she had visited the
year before. On March 1st they found open water
where there had been impenetrable pack. Next day
they discovered a lofty ice barrier and were able to ap-
proach within two miles of it. On the sixth they had
traced one hundred and fifty miles of this coast, which
was named Coats Land after the Glasgow merchants
who had made the expedition possible. Many conti-
nental bowlders were dredged, but no rock was seen
on the barrier. They reached 74° 1’ S. and for some
days the chance of escape from the heavy pack seemed
small, for the ‘Scotia’? was held fast by the bows.
However, on the fourteenth of March they broke loose
and steamed north along the meridian of 10° W., mak-
ing a series of soundings. They made a brief visit to
Gough Island, 1,500 miles from the Cape, and reached
Capetown on May 5th.

Charcot.—In August, 1903, the French expedition
under Dr. Charcot left Havre to investigate the west
side of Graham Land. They entered Gerlache Strait
but could not penetrate the pack near the Biscoe Islands
and so established winter quarters on Wandel Isle in
latitude 65° S. They made detailed investigations of
the geography and geology of the surrounding coasts,
reaching the small Biscoe Islands in a whale boat.

44

ee Ee a ae ee ae

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

The ship was not able to leave Wandel Isle until mid-
December, when they proceeded to the southwest and
discovered Loubet Land to the east. They also ob-
tained a view of Alexander Land (1821) on the
eleventh of January, but were then compelled to steer
north. After an exciting collision with an iceberg
they safely reached American waters (see Figure 7).

1907 TO 1913

In December, 1908, Charcot was again in the Ant-
arctic in the ship ‘Pourquoi Pas,” with a group of
eight scientists and a very complete equipment. He
surveyed the coast in greater detail and added a great
deal to our knowledge of the lands south of the Ant-
arctic Circle. A large gulf lies to west of Adelaide
and Alexander islands. He made a careful study of
the region south of Adelaide Island and climbed Jenny
Island. He reached within a few miles of Alexander
Island and was able to chart approximately a coastline
some two hundred miles long to the east, which he
called Fallieres Land. (This is part of what Wilkins
calls South Graham Land, and is really a large island. )

The ship was unable to find a suitable harbor on
Fallieres Land and sailed north to Lund (or Peter-
man) Isle a few miles south of Wandel Isle. They
made an attempt to explore the region to the east and
climbed a glacier to a height of three thousand feet,
but the rugged topography foiled their efforts to reach
the summit. Late in November, 1900, they left win-
ter quarters and after visiting Deception Island for
stores, they sailed again to the southwest to the seas

45

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

traversed by Gerlache in 1898. Charcot was able to
reach more southern latitudes so that he discovered
Charcot Land in latitude 70° S. and longitude 77° W.
He proceeded to the west, passed Peter Island, and
reached longitude 120° W., where he was well south
of latitude 70° S., and only about seven hundred miles
from Edward VII Land. From the shallow sound-
ings, Charcot was sure that land lay not far to the
south along much of his cruise (see Figure 4).

Shackleton’s First Expedition, 1907—-1908.—No man
has done more to decipher the secrets of the South Pole
than Ernest Shackleton. Of his four voyages the first
under Captain Scott has been described. His second
voyage was by far the most important. His expedi-
tion was financed privately and set sail in the “Nim-
rod.” Murray, a biologist, and Priestley, a geologist,
came from England with Shackleton. They were later
joined by two eminent scientists, Edgeworth David and
Douglas Mawson, from Australia. Adams, Marshall,
and Wild were other notable members. Shackleton,
like Scott, had no belief in dogs, but he made a new
departure in southern exploration by taking eight Man-
churian ponies to Antarctica. They left New Zealand
on New Year’s Day, 1908, and to save coal his ship
was towed to 66° S. by a steamer.

Shackleton had hoped to build his hut at Edward
VII Land, but he was unable to find a suitable site,
and like Scott he turned to the west and made his
winter quarters at Cape Royds, on Ross Island, about
fourteen miles north of Scott’s hut of 1902-3. The
first exploit was to climb Mount Erebus, which tow-

46

oe

ey ee ee

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

ered thirteen thousand feet above the hut to the east.
On March 5th, 1908, six men, led by David and
Adams, started their ascent. They dragged a sledge
up to 2,750 feet, where they camped. On March 6th
they reached 5,630 feet before camping in the oldest
crater of Erebus. They left the sledge here, and, carry-
ing bags and the tent, but no poles, reached 8,750 feet
on the evening of March 7th. The temperature here
was 20° below zero Fahrenheit. Here a blizzard beset
them, and without tent poles they were in a precarious
position. Brocklehurst was nearly frozen to death and
Mackay fainted from mountain sickness near the sum-
mit. Here they found another ancient crater with a
wall one hundred feet high and containing many snow-
cowled fumaroles emitting steam. At their camp at
11,400 feet it was found that Brocklehurst was se-
verely frostbitten, and he lost a toe as a consequence.
The other five men reached the summit at IO A.M. on
March toth (see Figure I1).

“We stood on the verge of a vast abyss, and at first
could see neither to the bottom nor across it on account
of the huge mass of steam filling the crater and soaring
aloft in a column one thousand feet high. After a con-
tinuous hissing sound there would come from below
a big dull boom, and great masses of steam would rush
upwards. . . .’”’. Mawson’s angular measurement made
the depth of the crater nine hundred feet. Beds of
lava or pumice alternated with white zones of snow in
the crater wall. They returned to the hut in two days.

”

One of the most adventurous journeys in polar his-
tory was that which commenced on October 29th,

47

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

1908, with the South Pole as its object. Shackleton
chose Lieutenant Adams, Dr. Marshall, and Frank
Wild for his companions. Each man led a pony sledge
and for a few days a supporting party accompanied
them. They had a bad time with crevasses on the
Ross Ice Shelf where it presses around Minna Bluff,
but thereafter progressed directly to the south. The
pony, Quan, enlivened their journey by eating harness,
ropes, rugs, and all he could reach. On the twenty-
first of November they were south of the 81° parallel,
and here the first pony was shot. Some of the pony
flesh was used for food, being eaten practically raw as
it became too tough when cooked. They were now
approaching Scott’s record and marching abreast of a
new range of mountains. On November 23rd they
made a fine march of almost eighteen miles, and on
November 26th were south of Scott’s “farthest” of
82° 16’. The barrier surface had the form of long
undulations, the width from crest to crest being about
one and a half miles. The second pony was shot at
Depot C and the third at 83° 16’, leaving only Socks.
The mountains showed great granite cliffs six thousand
feet high in places. The range now trended across
their path and Shackleton decided to ascend one of
the many glaciers flowing from the Plateau (to the
west) down to the Ross Ice Shelf. On December 3rd
they climbed Mount Hope (3,350 feet) and ‘“‘from the
top of this ridge there burst upon our view an open road
to the south. We could see the glacier stretching away
south inland till at last it seemed to merge in high in-
land ice.” (See Figure 6.) They climbed two thousand
48

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

feet over a pass and then descended to the foot of the
great Beardmore Glacier. On December 7th Wild was
leading the pony over a snow bridge when “he felt a sort
of rushing wind, the leading rope was snatched from
his hand and he just caught the further edge of the
chasm. Sock’s weight snapped the swingle-tree of the
sledge so that it was saved. We lay down on our
stomachs and looked over into the gulf, but no sound
or sign came to us; a black bottomless pit it seemed
ete.”

They struggled among bad crevasses from December
7th to December 16th for nearly one hundred miles
and had risen six thousand feet up the Beardmore
Glacier. On December 17th Wild found specimens of
coal in the cliffs of Mount Buckley to the north, but it
was not till December 27th that they really reached the
head of this enormous glacier at a height of 9,820 feet.
They were all somewhat affected by the altitude, and
found it severe work to pull 150 pounds per man.
On January 6th they marched thirteen miles against a
strong blizzard with a temperature of 57 degrees of
frost, and on January 9th they reached 88° 23’ S. in
longitude 162° E. No explorer, either north or south,
has ever made so great an advance on previous records
as did Shackleton on this wonderful unsupported march
of 420 miles in unknown and dangerous country (see
Figure 6).

Their return journey for a time was easier, as on
January 19th when they marched nearly thirty miles a
day, helped now by the southern blizzards. Their de-
scent of the Beardmore Glacier was full of dangers,

49

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

and they exhausted all their food on January 26th,
but soon picked up their depot and reached the Ross
Ice Shelf again on January 29th. Early in February
all suffered greatly from dysentery, but on the twelfth
they reached the depot where the pony, Chinaman, was
shot and they feasted on his liver. On the nineteenth
they sighted Erebus and next day reached Depot A.
Marshall became very feeble and was left with Adams
while Shackleton and Wild pushed north to Hut Point
on Ross Island. Here they found open water separat-
ing them from Cape Royds. After some time they
managed to make a signal fire, and on March Ist they
were aboard the ship. Shackleton immediately started
back to bring in Marshall and all the expedition were
united on March 4th.

On October 5th the Magnetic Pole party started with
Professor David as leader. He was accompanied by
Mawson and Mackay. They sledged up the western
coast of Ross Sea, a hazardous journey on the sea-ice
in view of the probable breaking up of the ice without
notice. On October 26th they crossed the mouth of
Granite Harbor, and on November Ist they made a
depot of much of their food and gear at Depot Island
(latitude 76° 40’). This was necessary because they
could only relay four miles a day owing to the load
and heavy surface. On November 11th they reached
the Nordenskjold Ice Tongue and crossed it in two
days (see Figure 6). A fortnight later they first saw
the much larger Drygalski Ice Tongue, that “scaly
horror with his folded tail,’ as David describes it (see
Figure 19). On the twenty-ninth they started to cross

50

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

it, but were foiled for some days by the chasms and
ridges, but made a successful traverse between Decem-
ber 6th and 11th. They halted for a few days here
and killed seals and penguins to supplement their food,
for their further journey of two hundred miles to the
Magnetic Pole. On December 17th they made their
way inland, having a risky time with crevasses which
nearly engulfed the whole party. A difficult track over
the north side of the Larsen Glacier enabled them to
ascend to the Great Ice Plateau, which was reached by
a fairly smooth route on December 28th. By January
roth the Great Ice Plateau had gradually risen to seven
thousand feet. On the fifteenth they were so close
to the daily fluctuating “Pole” that Mawson thought
it might swing beneath them! However, they marched
some miles farther and on January 16th arrived at
72.25", . latitude and 155° 167-2, awhich Mawson
deduced to be the Magnetic Pole (see Figure 2). On
their return they had to make over sixteen miles a day
to be at the coast in time for the relief ship. Descend-
ing the Larsen Glacier they had a very difficult task
in crossing the weathered and crevassed ice near its
junction with the Great Ice Shelf, but on the third of
February they ended their splendid journey on the
coast, just north of the Drygalski Ice Tongue. It was
a dramatic finish that this exhausted party should have
been met by the ship on the very day they reached the
coast, for they would have had little chance of a safe
return to headquarters by their own efforts.

Many other exciting incidents occurred on this ex-
pedition. Thus the Western Geological Party was car-

51

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

ried away for twenty-four hours on an ice floe from
New Harbor towards the open sea and only just saved
themselves at a momentary contact with fixed ice.
Macintosh and a sailor had a wild journey with letters
from the ship off Cape Bird to Cape Royds. The sea
ice broke up into small floes and after waiting some
days on the rocky coast they made their way five thou-
sand feet up the slopes of Ross Island. By some
miracle they escaped the fields of crevasses and reached
the 1907 hut without food or gear on January 12th.

Scott, 1910-1913.—The most tragic of Antarctic
expeditions was that led by Captain Robert Falcon
Scott to the southern continent in 1910. It had two
objects. Firstly, the leader wished to surpass Shackle-
ton’s journey and reach the South Pole. Secondly,
there were many scientists on the expedition whose
special aim was to make detailed surveys in as many
coastal regions as might be found possible. All these
objects were attained, but the tragic loss of the five
members of the pole party involved the deaths of Scott,
the leader, of Wilson, the director of science, of Oates,
the officer in charge of transport, of Bowers, who was
in charge of all stores, and of Evans, the chief petty
officer.

The expedition left Lyttelton in New Zealand on
November 26th, 1910. They experienced a furious
gale which nearly sank the ‘“Terra Nova” in the “Furi-
ous Fifties’ near Campbell Island.* The ship was held
back by the dense pack for some three weeks, an un-

2 This incident is described later on page 108.

52

Pe-PLORING, THE: GREAT CONTINENT

usually long period, for ice extended from 64° 30’ S. to
ga 20 5. On: jatiuary 3rd. Scott tried to land at
Cape Crozier, but this being impossible he sailed up
MacMurdo Sound and fixed his headquarters at Cape
Evans, about halfway between the huts of the 1902
and 1907 expeditions (see Figure 8). Fine weather
enabled the hut to be rapidly built, so that the depot-
laying party and the Western Geological Party were
able to leave on the twenty-fourth of January, IgIT.
Thereafter the ship sailed toward King Edward VII
Land where Campbell’s party was to make a base for
scientific survey. On arrival at the Bay of Whales
they found Amundsen there in the “Fram.’’ Campbell,
therefore, was transferred to Cape Adare, where the
northern party spent the ensuing year (see Figure 6).

The southern party with the ponies, under Scott,
carried a large store of food to One Ton Camp, about
one hundred miles south of Ross Island. They had
many narrow escapes from crevasses, but the most
hazardous experience was when Bowers’ party of three
found themselves adrift after camping on the sea-ice
near the 1902 Hut (see Figure 8). For many hours
they tried to bring off the ponies by jumping the floes,
but finally only one pony was saved. The others fell
into the sea and were devoured by killer-whales. The
first western party under my leadership, with Wright
and Debenham as fellow-scientists, marched up the
Ferrar Glacier making detailed topographic, glacial,
and geological surveys (see Figure 8). We crossed
the Ice Divide at Knob Head and then sledged down
the adjacent Taylor Glacier to its snout, some twenty-

53

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

JOURNEYS OF THE
WESTERN GEOLOGICAL PARTIES

7000:
Cc
= PLaTRAU

I

OEBENHA™M D)
GLACIER

Fic. 8.—Mar oF MacMurpo SouND, SHOWING ROUTES
OF THE AUTHOR’S PARTIES IN EXPLORING THE FOUR GREAT
OUTLET GLACIERS.

. (By permission of John Murray.)

five miles from the sea. The unique snow-free valley
offered most interesting topographic examples of the
way in which the continent was carved by the waning
glaciers. Returning we traversed the Bowers Pied-
mont Glacier and made our way up the pinnacled ice

54

PXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

of the great Koettlitz Glacier. Here a subglacial stream
twenty-five miles long was surveyed. We sledged back
round the breaking Barrier to the old 1902 hut at Cape
Armitage, where we arrived a week later than the
depot party. Here the two parties were held up by
open water from March 15th till April 11th, when we
managed to find a route free from crevasses along the
slopes of Erebus to Glacier Tongue, and so reached
Cape Evans on April 13th (see Figure 8).

The outstanding feature of the winter was the jour-
ney of Wilson, Bowers, and Cherry-Garrard to obtain
data as to the evolution of those primitive birds, the
emperor penguins. These lay their eggs in midwinter
at Cape Crozier, and the party spent five weeks under
almost unbearable conditions with the objective of ob-
taining the eggs. Their only light was either from the
nioon or from a special candle lamp. The temper-
ature fell to —77° F. and was constantly below
—60°. Their tent and gear were blown away in a
furious blizzard and much of it lost. It was so cold
that for weeks they were unable to obtain proper sleep,
and at the end dozed while marching. Well has this
been termed the “Worst Journey in the World.”

On the thirty-first of October, 1911, in the second
summer, Scott left Cape Evans on his last journey.
He had to traverse some nine hundred miles to the
Pole, of which three hundred and fifty miles lay at an
elevation of nearly ten thousand feet above sea level.
Another one hundred and fifty miles was expended in
ascending the Beardmore Glacier, while four hundred
and twenty miles was on the Ross Ice Shelf near sea

55

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

level. The two motor sledges were not very successful
in transporting stores, and unfortunately Scott placed
little reliance on dog sledging. As in the case of
Shackleton’s journey, ponies pulled most of the load to
the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, but south of latitude
83° the sledges were hauled by men. Various support-
ing parties turned back before the Pole was reached.
Thus Day’s party turned near 81°; Meares and the
dogs reached the Beardmore; Atkinson and _ three
others went back from 85° S. at the top of the Beard-
more on December 21st. By the end of the year the
two remaining parties had reached 87° S., and on
January 4th Lieutenant Evans, with Lashley and
Crean, turned back when they were one hundred and
forty-five miles from the Pole. Evans nearly died of
scurvy on this journey, but was saved by the gallantry
of his two companions, who dragged him many miles
on the sledge to safety. By January 8th the polar party
had beaten Shackleton’s record, but very difficult sur-
faces made the last one hundred miles a terrible ordeal.
Sometimes it would take nearly five hours to pull six
miles with a fairly light sledge, for they had depoted
almost all their food by now. On January 16th they
found the cairn and flag of the Norwegian party and
so knew that. they had been forestalled by four weeks.
On January 17th they made their sixty-ninth camp at
the Pole on the high plateau some ten thousand feet
above the sea with a midsummei temperature of
—22° F. Scott writes in his diary, ‘““We. built a cairn,
put up the Union Jack and took a photograph—mighty
cold work, all of it.” (See Figure 6.)
56

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

The homeward march began on January roth. It
was hard work, for they had to rise one thousand feet
in the next week’s marches. However, the stern wind
helped them somewhat. Blizzards slowed down their
speed and the surface ice deteriorated to “‘sandy crys-
tals” with similar results. On February 7th they
reached the head of the Beardmore Glacier after seven
weeks of low temperatures and almost incessant wind.
Here Petty Officer Evans sustained concussion from a
bad fall, and as a result the strongest man of the party
became a drag on their progress. On the seventeenth
of February he fainted and died the same night, just
near Mount Hope at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier.
The journey on the Ross Ice Shelf was marked by head
winds, bad surface and by very low temperatures, so
that a rise to. —20° seemed a great improvement.
Oates was feeling the cold more than the others and
his feet were giving him great pain from frostbite.
On the seventeenth he walked out of the tent into the
blizzard and died in a vain effort to give his comrades
a better chance to reach safety. With a northerly wind
in their faces and a temperature of —4o0°, on the nine-
teenth of March they struggled to their last camping
ground, about eleven miles from One Ton Camp, with
only two days’ food. It is sad to realize that a dog
team with two men had been at One Ton Camp from
the third to the tenth of March, when the food for the
dogs was almost exhausted, and they had to return.
If the plans for relief had not been totally upset by
the illness of Lieutenant Evans, it is probable that a
longer relief journey could have been made and so

57

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

four members of the Pole party might have been saved.
A blizzard held Scott and his comrades to their tent
for nine days and the last message was dated March
29th. Seven months later, when winter had passed,
their bodies were found by a party under Atkinson,
and left there under a giant snow cairn in the Antarctic
solitudes.

A few words must be given to the northern and
western parties. The latter under myself with Deben-
ham and two others spent three months in mapping
in detail the coast line north of our previous journey.
A careful topographic and geological survey of Granite
Harbor was made, and the party sledged up the Mackay
Glacier to Mount Suess, which was ascended (see Fig-
ure 24). Near here coal and Devonian fish were
found. The ship could not pick us up owing to the
heavy belt of pack ice so we traversed the thirty-mile-
wide Wilson Piedmont and were picked up by the ship
on the fourteenth of February, 1912, near the Koett-
litz Glacier. The northern party had not been able to
sledge far from Cape Adare, but made very valuable
records of glaciology and meteorology in this distant
locality. The ship brought them south to the Ice Shelf
north of the Drygalski Tongue. Here they were left
on January 8th, 1912, with six weeks’ food, to explore
the hinterland north of where David had been picked
up in 1909. They made a valuable map of the region
and Priestley found very interesting Permian fossil
trees. The ship was unable to reach this party owing
to the heavy screw pack, so that on March 16th they
started to burrow into a snow drift to form a snow

58

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

hut. Here they dwelt, cursed by darkness and semi-
starvation until October Ist. One of the men was so
ill that it was necessary to drag him on the sledge.
On October 29th they had their first full meal, from a
depot, left by myself on Cape Roberts; and they reached
the hut safely on November 7th after a wonderful
journey, considering their debilitating winter conditions.

Meanwhile the most complete record yet obtained of
Antarctic weather had been made at headquarters by
Dr. Simpson, and it is believed that these and other
voluminous scientific memoirs in geology, glaciology,
topography, surveying, and biology will make this ex-
pedition as notable in the annals of science as it is in
the record of polar exploration.

Amundsen.—This explorer was a member of the
Belgian expedition in 1899 and had since done fine
work in the “Gjoa”’ in Arctic seas. His plan to reach
the North Pole was forestalled by Peary, and so he
decided to attempt the South Pole, before using the
“Fram” to explore the North Polar ocean. He in-
formed the crew of the change of plan at Madeira and
then proceeded to the Ross Barrier Shelf, which was
reached on the eleventh of January, 1911. On the
fourteenth he started to build his station on a portion
of the shelf which appeared to be immovable. Here
Amundsen took a grave risk, which success justified,
for much of the shelf to the west breaks away each
year. Another great advantage was that it was so far
from the Great Ice Plateau that few blizzards, due to
“gravity flow” of the air, hindered their plans. Fur-
thermore, it was much nearer the Pole than Cape Evans

59

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

and was, of course, in touch with the south, while
Cape Evans was isolated in summer from the Ice Shelf
by open water. In the first summer Amundsen laid
a depot to 82° S. and after an uneventful winter they
started for the Pole on September 8th (see Figure 6).
The cold was, however, too severe and they returned
to make a final start on October 19th. Five men
formed the party, Amundsen, Bjaaland, Wisting, Has-
sel, and Hansen. They had fifty-two dogs, who pulled
so willingly that the men either rode the sledges or
were dragged right across the Ross Ice Shelf for some
four hundred miles. They reached the foot of the out-
let glacier on November toth. On November 12th
Carmen Land * was seen, an elevated region which
bounds the Ross Ice Shelf to the southeast.

Amundsen had considerable difficulty in reaching
the Ice Plateau. They ascended two thousand feet to
find that cross valleys blocked their way, and after
reaching ten thousand feet through a maze of glaciers
there was still no clear route to the Plateau. For
twelve days they journeyed through the mountains amid
enormous crevasses and were often shrouded in fog.
They killed all but eighteen dogs, and on December Ist
struggled through to the Plateau. Here they often
made marches of twenty miles a day. In 88° S. they
were over ten thousand feet above the sea, but the
Plateau descended somewhat to the Pole, as Scott also
found on his traverse to the west. The Pole was
reached on December 14th, and after taking careful

3 Dr. Gould reported in December, 1929, that no land occurs
where Amundsen places Carmen Land.

60

EXPLORING THE GREAT CONTINENT

observations during several days they turned back to
the north. On January 6th they were back on the Ross
Ice Shelf, and with plentiful food and active dogs we
get the impression that Amundsen held the dogs back in
order to reach Framheim just on the twenty-fifth, as
he had foretold. The journey of 1,860 miles had taken
99 days, and was a triumph of good arrangement and
adequate transport.

As a scientific journey, however, it was largely a
waste of time, for Amundsen brought back hardly any
cartographic data and practically no geological or topo-
graphic material. When we think of Scott’s party
dragging their invaluable geological specimens back
when they knew they were doomed; or of Bowers’
wonderful navigation data and his meteorological log;
or of the books filled with accurate drawings by Dr.
Wilson; there is little question as to which party had
the true interests of discovery most at heart. A useful
journey by Amundsen’s lieutenant (Prestrud) to the
east resulted in some further knowledge of King Ed-
ward VII Land. On January 16th a Japanese vessel
arrived at Framheim, but the Japanese appear to have
done little of note during their dash to the Antarctic.
Amundsen left the Bay of Whales on January 30th and
reached Hobart early in March, 1912.

With the achievement of the South Pole by two na-
tions we may fittingly close this chapter on Antarctic
exploration, for though there have been half a dozen
noteworthy journeys since 1912, they may well be con-
sidered in a new chapter under the heading of recent
exploration.

61

CHAPTER IV
RECENT EXPEDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC

N the last chapter we have seen how our knowledge

of the great continent was so remarkably advanced
during that short period between 1go01 and 1912. Be-
fore that nothing was known of the interior, and noth-
ing of winter conditions except at two or three localities
at relatively low latitudes. Since 1912 we have had
a reasonably good idea of most of the varying environ-
ments which are to be found in Antarctica, whether it
be High Plateau, floating Ice Shelf, outlet glaciers
of the Great Scarp, or subglacial topography as shown
in the empty valleys west of MacMurdo Sound. Fur-
thermore, five winters have been spent in the latter
vicinity and full weather data obtained for a region as
far south as 78° S.

There still remains nine-tenths of the continent to
be explored and more than half the coast line (see Fig-
ure 34). The outstanding problem of the region be-
tween the Pole and the Weddell Sea—is it lowland,
gulf, or high plateau?—is still unsolved. But apart
from this, we may perhaps say that there are not likely
to be so many novel polar environments still unknown
as were investigated in the “Golden Period of South
Polar Exploration” from I9go0I to 1912. Perhaps one
should extend this period to include the Australasian

62

RECENT EXPEDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC

expedition led by Sir Douglas Mawson during the
years 1912 and 1913, and the voyage of Filchner in
Ig12 to the head of the Weddell Sea. But as I have
stated previously, the conquest of the Pole in 1911-12
seemed a momentous event which separated earlier ex-
peditions from all which took place in later years.

MAWSON

In December, 1911, the ship “Aurora” set sail
from Hobart with Mawson and his expedition on
board. He hoped to have four parties at far distant
bases, whose meteorological results could be compared.
Three of these were actually established. The first
was placed on Macquarie Island, which lies some nine
hundred miles southeast of Hobart. Here Ainsworth,
from the Melbourne Weather Bureau, and four com-
panions maintained wireless communication with Aus-
tralia. Valuable geological and biological collections
were also gathered on this sub-Antarctic island.

Twenty-six men, largely young graduates from Aus-
tralian universities, were landed at Commonwealth Bay
in Adelie Land (in latitude 67° S. longitude 143° E.)
on January 8th (see Figure 2). Here a rocky “oasis”
amid the encircling ice was discovered on which the
hut was erected. This patch of rocks was only about
a mile long, and no similar area seems to exist along
the hundreds of miles of coast explored by Mawson’s
Expedition. The ‘Aurora,’ under Captain Davis,
sailed west to land the party of men under Wild. On
the twenty-fourth of January high land was sighted
(near longitude 135° E.) to which Mawson gave the

63

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

name of Wilkes Land. Totten Land seems to have
been wrongly placed by Balleny if it exists. On Feb-
ruary 7th Davis found his progress blocked, as had
Wilkes, by the great ice shelf of Termination Land.
But he considered that an open sea might lie to leeward
and was rewarded for his acumen by discovering Davis
Sea. Here he landed Wild on February 15th in Queen
Mary’s Land some 1,200 miles west of Adelie Land.
(See Figure 25.)

The expedition encountered an environment of bliz-
zards far more violent than in any other polar region.
The average wind force for the year was fifty miles an
hour, more than five times that experienced in the
United States. In spite of this disability many re-
markable journeys were made. On November oth
Mawson with Ninnis and Mertz started on their trav-
erse to the east over the margin of the great Ice
Plateau. They found their route crossed by two tre-
mendous glaciers which projected far into the sea as
the Mertz and Ninnis ice tongues. These were fifty
miles apart and gave rise to terribly crevassed country.
On December 13th they had sledged two hundred and
eighty miles. Mawson and Mertz were ahead when
Ninnis with his dog team and nearly all the food was
engulfed in a-tremendous crevasse. Only ten days’
food remained for the two men and nothing for the
dogs. They turned back, on a more southern track,
hoping thus to escape many of the crevasses. Mertz
rapidly weakened, and on the seventh of January he
became delirious and died. Mawson was still one hun-
dred miles from the hut, and his march has never been

64

pee ts EX PRDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC

surpassed for difficulty and endurance. On the seven-
teenth he fell completely into a crevasse and only with
the utmost difficulty managed to reach his sledge.
Thereafter he carried a rope ladder to enable him to
climb out of any future crevasses. When five miles
from the hut he was held up in a small ice cave for
seven days, but he reached headquarters safely on the
eighth of February, 1913. (See Figure 2.)

A party of three men under Lieutenant Bage jour-
neyed toward the Magnetic Pole and covered a dis-
tance of about three hundred miles before turning
back. They reached within about one hundred and
seventy-five miles of David’s position in 1909, careful
magnetic observations being made by Webb (see Fig-
ure 2). They obtained a dip of 89° 43’ with the needle
and estimated that they were only fifty miles from the
Magnetic Pole. The Ice Plateau was here 5,900 feet
above the sea. A fine coastal journey over the dan-
gerous sea-ice was made by Madigan and two comrades
to the east. They found a number of outcrops of
gneiss and crossed the tongues projecting from the
Mertz and Ninnis glaciers. In spite of the risk of the
ice breaking away, they proceeded eighty miles to the
east and discovered Horn Bluff, where dolerite sills
penetrate a sandstone resembling the Beacon sandstone.
(See Figure 2.)

The western party, under Wild, built their hut just
a few miles north of the Antarctic Circle on the ice
shelf named after Shackleton. In August, Ig912, a
depot was laid twenty miles to the east amid granite
outcrops. In this region men were lifted from the

65

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

ground by the blizzards and flung twenty feet. One
party endured a blizzard which held them in their tents
for seventeen days. In November Wild led a party
to the east, where two great glaciers entering the
Shackleton Ice Shelf were discovered and named the
Denman and Scott glaciers. Immense chasms four
hundred feet deep prevented their progress to the east.
Another party under Jones marched west for two
hundred miles, and on December 22nd they reached
the Gaussberg, where relics of the German expedition
of 1902 were found. The party was relieved on Feb-
ruary 22nd, 1913, and taken back to Australia. (Fig-
ure 25.)

Mawson had not returned in time to be relieved at
Commonwealth Bay, missing the “Aurora” after his
terrible journey by a few hours only. With six com-
panions he carried on work during a second winter.
On February 15th wireless contact was made with
Macquarie Island, and on February 22nd messages
were sent to Australia. On December 12th the
“Aurora” returned and picked up the remainder of
the expedition. On her cruises the “Aurora” had
done much oceanographical work and Davis discovered
Mill Rise—a submerged mountain, some two hundred
and fifty miles south of Tasmania.

FILCHNER

Filchner in command of a German expedition suc- —
ceeded in establishing a record in the Weddell Sea,
which so far has not been broken. He left Grytviken
in South Georgia on the eleventh of December, 1911,

66

RECENT EXPEDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC

and after being held up for a time in the pack ice he
made rapid progress to the south down the east side
of the Weddell Sea (see Figure 7). Apparently this
region is at times kept fairly free of ice, owing to
the dominant easterly winds. On the thirtieth of
January he saw the Continental Ice in latitude 76° 48’.
Ice cliffs about sixty feet high bounded an ice cap
margin some eight hundred or one thousand feet high.
He followed this coast to 78° when he was blocked by
an ice shelf like that in the Ross Sea (see Figure 7).
This is named after Filchner and the bight at the
junction after Captain Vahsel, who died six months
later on the ship. Filchner followed this barrier over
one hundred miles to the west. He attempted to make
his winter quarters near the barrier, but on February
18th a high tide broke the ice loose, and he lost much
of his material. On the eighth of March his ship was
beset in 73° 43’ S. by the pack ice, and drifted to the
northwest. In the last week of June Filchner with
two companions made a sledge journey of one hundred
miles to the northwest to see if Morell Land lay in that
direction (as stated by Morell in 1823). He found
no sign of land, however. In the autumn months they
drifted north, and in October the westerly winds north
of 65° S. drove them irregularly to the northeast.
They escaped from the pack on the twenty-seventh of
November in latitude 63° S. Filchner was given no
opportunity to return to the south, but his voyage is
especially noteworthy from the discovery of the shelf
which blocks the head of the Weddell Sea.
67

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

SHACKLETON, I9QI4

The most remarkable of all Antarctic voyages as
regards dangers encountered and vanquished is that
of Shackleton in the “Endurance.” He planned a
trans-Antarctic expedition, which involved the land-
ing from the “Endurance” of a party of men on the
Filchner Shelf who were to march across the continent
to depots laid down on the Ross Sea side by sledging
parties from the “Aurora.” On December 5th, 1914,
the “Endurance’’ left South Georgia for the Weddell
Sea and entered the pack near the Sandwich Isles on
December 7th. The ship made a fair voyage to the
south through the pack ice and on New Year’s Day
was just north of 68° S. The explorers were blocked
by the ice early in January near latitude 70° S., but
on the 8th reached open water and soon passed the
record of Ross (1843) and then came in sight of
Coats Land in 72° 34’ S. They obtained shallow
soundings here, of 155 fathoms, with a bottom com-
posed of igneous pebbles (see Figure 7). They dis-
covered new land (named after Caird) between Coats
Land and Leopold Land. The most prominent feature
is a gigantic ice promontory which projects some fifty
miles from the continent. This mass of ice is fifty
miles wide and is probably floating, as the sea is 1,300
fathoms deep hereabouts. Two great glaciers were dis-
covered just to the south.

On the eighteenth of January, 1915, the “En-
durance” was beset off the north end of Leopold Land.
The whole of February was spent off Vahsel Bay about

68

ReCenN TT EXPEDITIONS ‘TO THE ANTARCTIC

latitude 77°. During March the ship drifted to the
northwest, and this course was maintained during the
next three months. The ship’s track made curious
zigzags first north and then west quite regularly over
the shallow continental shelf, which lay about two
hundred fathoms below the surface of the sea. After
July 1st (latitude 74° S.) the drift was to the north,
and the effects of pressure on the pack ice became more
apparent. On August Ist the floe surrounding the
ship broke up, and the ship listed to starboard. During
the last days of September the roar of the pressure-
movements grew louder. On October 18th the “En-
durance” was thrown over on her side, and on Oc-
tober 27th, in latitude 69° S., crushed by the driving
pack. She sank on November 2tst, after a drift of
some 1,500 miles, leaving the explorers 346 miles from
Paulet Island, the nearest place where food was avail-
able (see Figure 7).

They shifted their stores to a thick old floe forming
Ocean Camp. They had great difficulty in getting
enough food from the ship and were always rather
short of flour and biscuits. In December they at-
tempted to march nearer land, but were only able to
proceed seven miles for the ice was too broken for
travel. They therefore formed Patience Camp on a
large floe. By the middle of February even the flesh
foods became short, but luckily they caught a few seals
and some penguins. On April 2nd all the dogs were
shot for food. They had now drifted well north of
Graham Land into latitude 62%2° S. and indeed had
seen Joinville Island on March 23rd, but the ice was

69

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

too close-set for boats and too open for sledges. On
April 8th they saw Clarence Island and Elephant
Island (latitude 63° S.) and next day they took to the
three boats for their hazardous trip to Elephant Island.
At nights they camped on a floe, which broke right
under them on one occasion, Holness being rescued
from drowning while in his sleeping bag. The tem-
perature was close to freezing point, and the men lay
in each other’s arms for warmth. To add to their
troubles they had no fresh water, having had no time
to get fresh ice from a berg when launching the boats.
As they approached Elephant Island they found it
flanked by icy cliffs, fragments of which alleviated
their thirst. On the fifteenth of April they landed on
the Island, but transferred their camp to a gravel spit
some seven miles to the west.

On April 23rd Shackleton with a crew of five made
an adventurous boat journey of eight hundred miles
in the stormy seas of the “Furious Fifties’ to South
Georgia. His journey of sixteen days was one of
“supreme strife amid heaving waters.” The boat was
nearly sunk by a gigantic wave on May sth. After
they had sighted land, they met with one of the worst
hurricanes ever experienced by any of the sailors. ‘“The
wind simply shrieked as it tore the tops off the waves.”
On May roth they landed on the barren west coast of
South Georgia. A most dangerous journey of thirty-
six hours across this mountainous island, which was
covered with glaciers, crevasses, and rocky arétes,
brought Shackleton and two of his companions to the
whaling stations on the east side of South Georgia.

79

PEeEN tt EXPEDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC

The last chapter of this Antarctic epic deals with
Shackleton’s gallant efforts to relieve the twenty-two
men on Elephant Island. After trying unsuccessfully to
reach them in the steel whaler “Southern Sky” from
South Georgia, he made two other equally unsuccessful
efforts from the Falkland Islands and from Puntas
Arenas. At last the “Yelcho” succeeded on August
30th, 1916, finding Wild’s party with only four days’
supply of food in hand.

The Ross Sea party under Captain Macintosh left
Hobart on December 24th, 1914. Their main object
was to lay a large depot at 83° S. for the benefit of
Shackleton should he succeed in crossing the Antarctic
continent. They reached MacMurdo Sound on Janu-
ary 16th. After some short journeys to the south, ten
men united at Cape Evans on June 2nd to spend the
winter there. Early in October they started to lay
the main depots to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier
(see Figure 6). On the twenty-sixth of January they
reached the site of the final depot and here came across
some of Scott’s sledges. Early on the return Spencer-
Smith’s condition became alarming, while Macintosh
was so weak he had to be dragged on the sledge. Later
Hayward also became affected badly by scurvy. On
March oth Smith died and was buried on the Barrier,
and two days later they reached the 1902 hut on Mac-
Murdo Sound. They marched 1,561 miles betweer
September 1st and March 18th, which is a wonderful
performance under Antarctic conditions.

On May 8th Macintosh and Hayward tried to cross
the young sea-ice to the main (1910) hut at Cape

71

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Evans. They were caught in a blizzard and drowned.
The “Aurora” had been anchored in the Sound off
Cape Evans, but on May 6th, 1915, the ship, helplessly
fixed in ice, drifted to the north. On June 14th they
were off Nordenskjold Ice Tongue. Still drifting in
the pack, they experienced heavy pressure on July 21st
which smashed the rudder like matchwood. On August
6th they sighted Cape Adare, and on September 22nd
were between Oates Land (of which a sketch was
made) and the Balleny Islands, and for two months
the ship was still near these islands (see Figure 5).
For a time Wilkes’ elusive Cape Hudson seemed in
sight, but later disappeared. A very shallow sounding
of 194 fathoms was obtained on the Antarctic Circle
on November 17th. All through December and Janu-
ary the ship was still beset, and finally broke out of the
ice on February 12th, about latitude 65° S., and on
March 14th cleared the last of the pack ice in latitude
62° 27’ S. She reached New Zealand on April 2nd,
adding another spectacular voyage to the journals of
the second Shackleton expedition.’

In January, 1917, the “Aurora” under Captain
Davis (with Shackleton on board) was again at Cape
Evans and brought back the seven survivors from Ross
Island.

CoPE

On the twelfth of January, 1921, a party of four
under J. L. Cope, of Shackleton’s former expedition,

1 See the account and map in the Geographical Journal (Lon-
don), September, 1921.

72

Pecwnt EXPEDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC

was landed by Norwegian whalers at Andvord Bay,
a little north of Charcot’s bases, in latitude 64° 48’ on
the west coast of Graham Land (see Figure 7). Their
object was to cross the mountains and continue the
exploration of the Weddell coasts south of Nor-
denskjold’s survey. Unfortunately they were unable
to scale the glacierized slopes with their sledges and
dogs. Hence Cope and G. H. Wilkins ? returned to get
further supplies, while Lester and Bagshawe spent the
winter in a hut made out of a boat. They stayed there
for a complete year, but were obviously unable to do
much more than collect geological specimens in the
vicinity and keep a simple weather log and tide record.
On their return they made an interesting survey of
Deception Island, the headquarters of the whalers in
West Antarctica.°

SHACKLETON, 1921

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last expedition started late
in 1921 in the “Quest,” a small ship of only 125 tons.
He planned to explore the coasts which lie south of
Africa, of which only the small region discovered by
Biscoe in 1831 had been charted. Trouble with the
engines and gear was experienced all the way to South
Georgia. Here Sir Ernest died very suddenly on the
fourth of January, 1922, and his grave was dug
on the icy slopes above the whaling station of
Grytviken, where he finished his perilous traverse
in May, 1916. Captain Frank Wild now became

2Later Sir Hubert Wilkins.
3 See Geographical Journal, September, 1923.

73

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

leader. On January 17th they sailed eastward and
entered the pack, between Coats Land and Enderby
Land, in longitude 15° 21’ E. The ‘Quest’? pushed
south against heavy difficulties until February 12th
when they reached 69° 17’ S. Here a sounding of
1,089 fathoms was obtained. They were unable to
proceed farther in their small boat and returned across
the Weddell Sea to South Georgia on April 6th.

WILKINS, 1928-29 *

Just as the years 1841 and 1903 were wonderful years
in Antarctic exploration, so December 20th, 1928, was
the most wonderful day, for in ten hours Sir Hubert
Wilkins settled more problems and sketched more new
coast lines than any other expedition had accomplished
in West Antarctica. He had been twice before in Ant-
arctic waters, once with Cope in 1920 and again with
Shackleton in 1922, and was well known for his re-
markable flight across the North Polar region. In
November, 1928, he reached Deception Island on the
whaler “Hektoria’” with two Lockheed-Vega mono-
planes. Lieutenant Eielson with three others consti-
tuted his party. They hoped to use the sea-ice of the
drowned crater as a runway, but it was found to be
abnormally thin. They therefore cleared a runway half
a mile long on land over the volcanic ash (see Figures

Aandv7y)

4 These accounts of the work accomplished by the Wilkins and
the Byrd expeditions are based mainly upon the articles in the
Geographical Review for April and July, 1929. See also Joerg’s
Brief History, 1930.

74

Peer NT EXPEDITIONS TO. THE ANTARCTIC

At 8:20 a.m. on December 20th they were headed
for the south and at 9:50 were crossing the flat plateau
of Graham Land between Bransfield Strait and Dry-
galski Bay. Several great fiords were discovered en-
tering this bay which were named the Hektoria Fiords.
Soon below them were the giant crevasses of the
Nordenskjold Shelf “broad bottomless yawning blue
abysses . . . into which our machine could have fallen
and left no trace.” Exactly on the Antarctic Circle
lies Crane Channel, a circuitous strait which apparently
divides Graham Land into two parts and opens on the
west into Matha Bay. (The writer suggests Wilkins
Land as a more suitable name than South Graham
Land for this southern island.) To the south of this
channel the rocks appeared to contain seams of coal
near latitude 67° S. A mighty mass of mountains
was named after the Lockheed Company, and at lati-
tude 69° 30’ S. they reached a broad channel some
seventy-five miles across, which was nearly filled by
the large Scripps Island in the north and the group
of small Finley Isles in the south. “A smooth slope,
wide and unbroken, reached southward. We called the
strait Stefansson Strait and the land beyond it Hearst
Land. The edge of Hearst Land, which we believe
to be part of the great Antarctic continent, was dis-
tinguishable to the eye by a comparatively low ice
cliff, which failed to show in the photograph. To the
east . . . the edge was marked with a few small low
nunataks . . . far beyond in the dim distance I could
see huge tabular icebergs, and concluded that they must
have been at one time afloat.’’ Their furthest point was

75

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

estimated to be about latitude 71° 20’ S. and longitude
64° 15’ W.

On the return they met with south winds at first,
then winds from the east, and then they entered a calm
belt. They landed safely at Deception Island after an
epoch-making journey of 600 miles each way, the whole
being accomplished in ten hours. A flight of 250 miles
on January 10th, 1929, confirmed the data obtained in
the northern portion of their earlier flight. In Decem-
ber, 1929, Wilkins flew south from his ship over Char-
cot Island, and was able to define 300 miles of coast.
This is shown approximately on Figure 7.

Byrp, 1928-30

On December 25th, 1928, Commander Richard E.
Byrd’ (like Wilkins, famed for his North Polar
flights) reached the Ross Ice Shelf with a large expedi-
tion prepared to stay two years. He fixed his
headquarters near the Bay of Whales but some-
what to the east of Framheim. Commander Byrd was
supplied with several aeroplanes for which this site,
the calmest so far known in the Antarctic, is particu-
larly well suited. On the twenty-eighth of January,
1920, the first long flight was carried out to the north-
east along the Barrier edge (see Figure 6). Scott’s
Nunataks and the Alexandra Mountains were sighted,
and also King Edward Land, which may perhaps be an
island. About fifty miles west by south from Scott’s
Nunataks a new range was discovered and named Rocke-

5 Now Rear-Admiral Byrd.
76

recent EXPEDITIONS ‘TO THE: ANTARCTIC

feller Range. Fourteen peaks of about two thousand
feet elevation were distinguished. On February 1oth a
second flight was made to the east, and the Rockefeller
Range was reached. From here more mountains, per-
haps ten thousand feet high, could be seen to the east
beyond the British area (which extends to 150° W.
longitude) in a region which Byrd claimed for the
United States and called Marie Byrd Land. To the
south the land sighted by Amundsen in 81° 30’ was
seen in the distance.

The exploits of these last two expeditions show
clearly how valuable is the aéroplane in polar recon-
naissance. But there are limits to its uses, for a rapid
aeroplane survey, without landing, will do little to ex-
tend the detailed knowledge of the polar environment
of a kind which I have tried to summarize in the
present book. Moreover, as I stated in an article
published in August, 1928, in the London Times, it is
difficult to see how the aéroplane can be anchored to
withstand the blizzards, whose chief feature is their
sudden development and extreme force. Byrd’s expe-
dition is facing these difficulties. Already one of his
planes has been destroyed in a blizzard, luckily without
loss of life. Early in March, 1929, Gould, the geolo-
gist, with a pilot and radio man, flew to the Rockefeller
Range to commence a local survey. They had barely
arrived when a blizzard developed, reaching an esti-
mated velocity of 120 miles per hour. This tore away
all the anchors of the plane, and it was dashed to match-
wood. After ten days’ bad weather Byrd managed to

77

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

fly out and search for them. He accomplished their
rescue and two days later all were safe at their camp
in Little America. However, in spite of this loss of
one of their planes, the American expedition in 1928
observed from the air some forty thousand square miles
of new territory.

THE FLIGHT TO THE SOUTH POLE

During November, 1929, Byrd completed his plans
for flying to the Pole. A geological party under Gould
had already set out with sledges to the Queen
Maud Range, which Amundsen had discovered 450
miles south of Byrd’s base at Little America in 78°
30’ S. Before describing the flight we may well
consider some of the difficulties which faced Byrd in
the air. The Ross Ice Shelf along this route varies in
height from nine hundred feet near Byrd’s headquar-
ters on its northern edge, to sixty-three feet just before
the mountain scarp is reached. In places crevassed
areas are encountered, especially near latitude 81° S.
It is, however, in surmounting the great mountain range
that aviators will always experience great difficulties
and dangers. Not many scarps are so pronounced as
that forming the eastern face of the great Antarctic
Horst. A number of the peaks reach fifteen thousand
feet and hang like the Himalayas over the plains be-
neath. The great glaciers which enabled Amundsen to
reach the plateau rise much higher than the Beard-
more used by Scott, for the ice divide at the top of
Liv Glacier and Axel Heiberg Glacier seems to be well
over ten thousand feet. Thereafter there is a descent

78

Poerw ) EXPEDITIONS TO. THE, ANTARCTIC

to the surface of the “Devil’s Dancing Floor” at 7,600
feet. Again the icy plateau rises to 10,300 feet in lati-
tude 88° S. to fall once more to nine thousand at the
Pole.

Another great difficulty in Antarctic flying, especially
in dull weather, is to gain an adequate idea of distance.
For instance, I have at times been at a loss in Antarctica
as to whether a snow hollow before me was three feet
or thirty feet deep. This renders it very difficult to
make a safe landing with an aeroplane on the icy sur-
faces of the southern continent. The greatest difficulty
is naturally due to the sudden changes in wind velocity,
and my own experiences may be worth recording.
Thus, on the last day of May in 1911 there had been
a perfect calm for several hours. Within ten minutes
the wind rose to a howling gale of forty or fifty miles
an hour. Nearly as rapid a rise occurred a few months
later on the first of September. Lastly, there are
special difficulties in navigation in flights near the
South Pole. It is, of course, only possible by astro-
nomical measurements to tell when the South Pole is
attained. It is merely an unmarked spot on an illimit-
able ice plateau. Moreover, at the South Pole, all
routes lead north, and a slight error in returning will
land the aviator in the wrong section of Antarctica.
Furthermore, at the South Pole “time’’ has a special
meaning since here all lines of longitude meet. Thus,
if the aviator flies around the Pole, he theoretically
passes through twenty-four hours of time, though it
may take him only as many minutes.

Food for three months and sledging equipment to

79

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

give the party a chance of return were placed on board.
On November 18th Byrd had made a depot of fuel and
food at the foot of the Queen Maud Range in 85°
of latitude. Finally, on November 28th the local
meteorologists at Little America and also wireless in-
formation from Gould, then approaching the moun-
tains, indicated fair weather. At 3:29 p.m. Byrd set
out on his most hazardous flight. The great Ford
plane passed over Gould’s sledges at 8:15, dropping
mail to them. His plane was so heavily laden that it
was not expedient to climb above twelve thousand feet,
and obviously he had not much margin in crossing the
ice divide at eleven thousand feet. On reaching the
great scarp Byrd decided to attempt the valley occupied
by the Liv Glacier, which lies just to the west of the
Axel Heiberg Glacier used by Amundsen. As they
climbed between the giant walls of the cafion it was
found necessary to lighten the plane. Byrd, accord-
ingly, risked his safe return and threw overboard nearly
half the store of food. He was flying only about three
hundred feet above the crevassed glacier. By mid-
night they had safely reached the plateau and were
approaching the South Pole last attained by Scott’s
ill-fated party of five in January, 1912. Around 1:30
A.M. Byrd cruised about the Pole in order to be sure
of covering the exact region. In returning Byrd had
two checks on his direction. He could use the sun
compass, which was based on the known position of
the sun at the time of observation. He could also use
the magnetic compass, which was fairly reliable at that
distance from the South Magnetic Pole. The south-
80

RECENT EXPEDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC

seeking end of the needle pointed, of course, to the
latter and so picked out one “north direction” out of
the infinite number radiating from the South Pole.

On the return they could fly higher and reached
thirteen thousand feet. As they approached the “up-
thrust block” of the Queen Maud Range, they saw
towering mountains to the east which seemed to reach
twenty thousand feet. However, Captain McKinley’s
mosaic of aérial photographs should help to decide this
matter. Byrd descended by the Axel Heiberg Glacier,
meeting with dangerous air eddies and currents. At
4:33 A.M. he landed at the depot on the Ross Ice
Shelf at sea level, and here spent an hour refueling the
plane. On rising he made a detour to the east, cover-
ing new ground and helping to fix the eastern limit of
the great Ross Ice Shelf. The Charles Bob Mountains
in latitude 83° 30’ were more closely surveyed and then
Byrd headed for Little America, where he landed safely
at 10:10 A.M. on the twenty-ninth of November. His
wonderful journey of 1,600 miles had only occupied
nineteen hours and had made him the flying conqueror
of both the North and South Poles.

Dr. Gould, the geologist with Byrd, made some re-
markable discoveries on his sledging journey in Decem-
ber, 1929. Mount Fridjof Nansen stands between the
lower slopes of the Heiberg and Liv glaciers. Gould
climbed up 6,000 feet, and found the cap-rocks to con-
sist of Beacon Sandstone with carbonaceous layers.
Sledging eastward he demonstrated that there is no
Carmen Land as Amundsen supposed (see Figure 10).
Hence there may be a strip of low land or even in parts

SI

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

sea-ice connecting Ross Sea with the Weddell Sea.
(The writer suggested this on his map in the Geograph-
ical Journal, November, 1914, p. 366.)

Mawson, 1929-1930

Sir Douglas Mawson is in command of an expedition
whose main purpose is to explore the shallow seas and
coasts south of the Indian Ocean. Captain John King
Davis is in charge of the ship, which is Scott’s old
vessel the “Discovery.” They left Cape Town on Octo-
ber 19th, 1929, and called at the Crozet group and
then at Kerguelen and Heard islands. On December
20th the ship crossed the Antarctic Circle in 73° E.
On the last day of the year she was on the Circle in
65° E. longitude, and here the scout aeroplane was
put in use. Land could be seen about fifty miles to
the south, flanked by a narrow belt of open water. The
explorations are still in progress. A full equipment
for sounding and dredging is carried, including an echo
sounding machine.°®

6 Based on W. L. Joerg’s Brief History of Polar Exploration
(New York, 193c). (This deals with Polar flights only.)

CHAPTER. V

THE CONTINENT, ITS GEOLOGY AND
RELATION TO OTHER LANDS

BuILp oF ANTARCTICA

N the writer’s opinion no theory concerning the

general arrangement of the continents is so sug-
gestive as that propounded by Lowthian Green * in 1875
and strongly supported by J. W. Gregory’ in 1899.
I refer to the Tetrahedral Theory, which seeks to show
that the earth is a flattened sphere (geoid) slightly
modified toward the shape of a tetrahedron or pyramid.
The antipodal arrangement of land and sea, shown by
more than go per cent of the land surface, was ex-
plained by this theory long before we knew anything
at all about the condition of the surface at the poles.
It was Scott’s expedition as late as 1902 which revealed
the fact that the Antarctic area consisted essentially of
a gigantic plateau, and it was only by Nansen’s drift
in the “Fram” (1893-96) and Peary’s soundings near
the Pole (1902-1909) that the equally interesting
phenomenon of a deep Arctic ocean could be demon-
strated (see Figure 9). Thus the essential feature of
the “World Plan” is clearly this fact of antipodal ar-

1 Lowthian Green, Vestiges of the Molten Globe (London, 1875).
2J. W. Gregory, “Plan of the Earth,’ Geographical Journal,

1899.
83

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

rangement, whereby the lands and seas are opposed, as
indicated in the following table:

Antarctica opposite Arctic Ocean
Eur-A frica “ Pacific Ocean
America p Indian Ocean
Australia-E. Asia ? Atlantic Ocean

The narrow southern portion of South America is
the only notable exception to the general rule. Hobbs ®
has pointed out that if we add the drowned continental
margins, then the land areas are increased by ten mil-
lion square miles, and in some respects the antipodal
arrangement is emphasized. Around Antarctica the
continental shelf presents some special features, show-
ing evidence of greater drowning than usual, as we
shall see in a later chapter. On the other hand, the
Arctic Ocean is surrounded by a remarkably broad
and shallow series of shelf seas. It may be mentioned
that when a hollow glass sphere is blown by the glass-
maker it has a strong tendency to collapse to a per-
ceptible tetrahedral shape as it contracts on cooling.
Something of this sort may have given rise to the plan
of the earth. It is clear that the mobile waters of the
oceans would accumulate on the “faces” of the tetra-
hedron, since here the gravity pull is greatest. So also
the projecting edges of the tetrahedron would con-
stitute the main land masses. This is possibly the basis
of the ring of lands round the Arctic Ocean, and of the
three south-pointing land masses of Eur-Africa, Amer-

3'W. H. Hobbs, Earth Evolution (New York, 1921).
84

THE CONTINENT

ica and Austral-Asia. It also accounts for the ring of
oceanic waters surrounding the Antarctic Plateau.

Let us now consider where Antarctica fits in among
the continents as regards structure (see Figure 9).

ov e =
——

S
S OBS
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NN It ra ¢

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Fic. 9.—SYMMETRY OF THE WORLD ABOUT AN AXIS OF
EPEIROGENIC (EN MASSE) UPLIFT, FROM ANTARCTICA
THROUGH AFRICA TO GREENLAND. (ON MOLLWEIDE
EguaL AREA PROJECTION WITH ANTARCTICA ADDED. )

Note the order of the structures: (1) axis; (2) shield; (3)
down-warp; (4) folds; (5) oceanic deeps.

W. M. Davis* has long ago pointed out that North
America and Eur-Asia have many features in common,
but arranged more or less symmetrically on each side
of the Atlantic Ocean. Thus the Laurentian Shield

4W. M. Davis, International Geography, London, 1903.
85

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

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86

THE CONTINENT

parallels the Scandinavian Shield. The Great Lakes
are like the Baltic Sea and Lakes. The Appalachian
Mountains resemble the Hercynian chain in Europe.
The great mountain arcs of the West Indies are akin
in time and shape to those surrounding the Mediter-
ranean Sea, etc., etc. These two continents are there-
fore closely allied. Perhaps we may compare the
southeast of Asia, with its huge plateau, block faults,
mountain arcs and festoon islands, with the western
portion of North America.

Far different from these is the solid resistant block
of Africa, with barely a sign of late folding through-
out its vast extent. It lies perhaps at the other extreme
of continental ‘build.’ Australia and South America
form another pair, somewhat symmetrical about the
Pacific Ocean. Thus the great Brazilian Shield may be
equated with the Western Shield in Australia. The
long geosyncline (down-warp) from Adelaide north
to the Gulf of Carpenteria resembles the lowland belt
from Buenos Ayres to the Orinoco; the humble East-
ern Highlands of Australia with their drowned neigh-
bors to the east are due to crustal ripples probably
moving outward from the Pacific, just as are the giant
ranges of the Andean Cordillera. We can perhaps
show this secondary symmetrical aspect of the world
plan in tabular form. (See Figure 10.)

I have ventured to insert Antarctica in the above
table as a continent more akin to Africa than any of
the other continents, and like it, to some extent, lying
between, though to the south of, associated pairs of
enantiomorphs. Just as we find Africa characterized

87

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

ARTESIAN E.AUSTRA
SYNCLINE one oe

H
ie STS

Pe

V CITI OS
SHACKLETON
SHELF y_

SUBMARINE
PLATEAU

' Extension
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OCEAN

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SANDWICH pos
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Vy, ~=-

Wii

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8000 ™. \

S.GEORG

Fic. 10.—GENERALIZED DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING THE SA-
LIENT FEATURES IN THE “BUILD” OF ANTARCTICA AND
ADJACENT CONTINENTS.

Gould’s discovery (Dec., 1929) of the extension of the Ross
Ice Shelf is indicated.

by high plateaus and by great fault scarps, with only
a fringe of earth ripples in one corner (Morocco, etc.),

so also Antarctica is preéminently a great plateau
88

THE CONTINENT

bounded in places by great fault scarps, and only in one
segment, Graham Land, exhibiting anything like the
characteristic foldings of the late Tertiary crustal
buckles. Moreover, Wilkins’ recent exploration seems
to show that this Antarc-Andean folding of Graham
Land dies away at latitude 70° against the low plateau
of Hearst Land. On the other hand, there may be
a line of folded ranges extending from South America
to New Zealand which have been crumpled from the
Pacific against the solid resistant shield of East Ant-
arctica. It is precisely in this region between the
Weddell Sea and Edward VII Land that we know so
little. We have some assurance for believing that the
African and Australian quadrants of Antarctica form
one solid Plateau Shield (see Figure 10). The Ameri-
can quadrant includes a great drowned mountain range
akin in origin to the Andes. But what is the build
of the hypothetical Pacific quadrant, most of which is
entirely unknown from Charcot Land to Edward VII
Land? It is an interesting speculation, but worth
suggesting, as I did in 1914, that the West Australian
Shield, the Australian Horst,® the Tasman Sea and New
Zealand are to be equated with similar structures in
the South. These are the Great Ice Plateau (shield?)
of East Antarctica, the South Victoria Horst, the
Ross-Weddell depression and the Graham Land—
Edward Land Folds.

Geology.—In two regions only has there been ade-
quate mapping and collecting of the geological data.
These two areas are those to the west and southwest

5 Horst: An elevated crustal block bounded by scarps.

89

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

of the Ross Sea, and the islands in the vicinity of
Graham Land. It is a curious and gratifying fact that
the two localities are largely complementary. Thus the
Ross area is rich in Paleozoic rocks and fossils, but
offers little to help in the deciphering of Mesozoic and
Tertiary deposits, while Graham Land has a fine
sequence of rocks of precisely these ages.
Summary.—The accompanying geological sections
(see Figure 11) show in a somewhat generalized fash-
ion the main features of Antarctic geology. They are
both due to Sir Edgeworth David. Commencing with
the section across MacMurdo Sound (in East Ant-
arctica) we see that the basal portion of the continent
here consists of granites, gneisses, and other meta-
morphic rocks such as various schists. Probably this
series of rocks is more or less universal throughout
Antarctica. The oldest sedimentary rocks of which
we have much data are limestones of the Cambrian
Age, in which the writer was able to identify the coral-
loid organisms Archeocyathine in 1910. These fossils
have since been found near the Beardmore Glacier in
I9gII and in rocks dredged from the Weddell Sea.°®
Above the Cambrian limestones is a tremendous series
of nearly level-bedded sandstones and shales which
extend probably throughout later Paleozoic time and
quite probably into early Mesozoic time without much
deformation or great breaks in the sequence. This
is the remarkable Beacon Sandstone formation which
probably extends from Mount Nansen (85° S.) and

6W. T. Gordon, Archeocyathine from the Weddell Sea (Roy.
Soc., Edin., 1920, pp. 681-714).

go

THE CONTINENT

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ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

the Beardmore Glacier right across to the Weddell Sea.
It contains Devonian fish, Permian ferns and probably
Triassic tree remains. No further deposits of impor-
tance occur in the MacMurdo region, though there are
many eruptive rocks which will be described later.

On the American side of Antarctica in the vicinity of
Snow Hill, there are basal rocks of granite and gneiss
which are capped by Jurassic shales and sandstones
containing many fossil plants. Above these are ma-
rine Cretaceous beds, and lower Miocene sediments
with fossil penguins and fossil leaves of trees allied
to the beech and giant conifers (Sequoia) of Cali-
fornia. In this same richly endowed district are late
Pliocene conglomerates containing Pectens and other
fossil shells.

DETAILED GEOLOGY IN EAst ANTARCTICA

Metamorphic Rocks —H. T. Ferrar showed in
1901-4 that the coast line of South Victoria Land from
Granite Harbor to the Koettlitz Glacier consisted of
a foundation series of metamorphic rocks. Towards
the plateau the great glacial valleys rise so rapidly that
the basal rocks are soon hidden beneath the later sedi-
mentary and igneous rocks. No good junctions of
metamorphic and later sedimentary rocks have been
observed. To the south of New Harbor the meta-
morphics form the tops of hills at five thousand feet,
but to the northward their summits appear to be about
one thousand feet above sea level. They are older
than the granites, for fragments are often included in
the latter. (See Figure 8.)

Q2

THE CONTINENT

Crystalline limestones, coarse and of a white color,
are the most noteworthy of these metamorphics. They
occur at Heald Island, where they are eight hundred
feet thick, and at Salmon Hill, north of Davis Glacier,
they are about five thousand feet thick and dip steeply
to the northeast. Another good example occurs near
the Suess Glacier in Taylor Valley. Here I “washed”
in a miner’s dish the débris at the junction of this
limestone with augen-gneiss, in the vain hope that some
gold might be present. These limestones are rich in
chondrodite‘ and spinel. In Granite Harbor Deben-
ham also found similar limestones.

Pyroxene granulites were found included in granite,
at Granite Harbor and elsewhere, as erratics all along
the west coast of the Ross Sea. Hornblende schists
seem to be associated with them. Tilley has described
a rock from Eyre’s Peninsula in South Australia of
similar character which is due to the metamorphism of
impure dolomites. A similar origin is likely in Ant-
arctica.

Crystalline Schists——These occur with a thickness
of two thousand feet in Heald Island where muscovite-
schists rich in graphite are common. Many other out-
crops occur in the Kukri Hills and nearby, where a
garnet-sillimanite-schist is common. In places lenticles
of biotite amphibolite probably represent metamor-
phosed basic dykes. (See Figure 8.)

Gneisses.—These rocks grade into gray granites in
very many localities in South Victoria Land. They

7 Chondrodite is a fluo-silicate of magnesium, somewhat re-
sembling olivine.

23

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

may represent intrusions into the limestone series, and
may have given rise to the chondrodites mentioned
earlier.

David and Priestley believe these rocks to be pre-
Cambrian in age, since the Cambrian limestone of the
Beardmore Glacier with Archeocyathus is quite un-
metamorphosed and therefore presumably younger
than the crystalline limestones. Further, the granu-
lites are like those of Brittany, which are considered
to be pre-Cambrian, and are so like the series from
South Australia that they may be considered to be of
the same pre-Cambrian age. Near Terra Nova Bay
(latitude 75° S.) Priestley found rocks of much the
same type, mostly in moraines but sometimes im situ.
It is clear that the glaciers cut through a basement
series of metamorphic rocks, chiefly biotite-gneiss,
granulites, or graphitic mica-schists.

Slate Graywackes.—In the region of Robertson Bay,
near Cape Adare, in latitude 69° S. Priestley has de-
scribed a series of sediments which differ very con-
siderably from those found so far in other parts of
the Ross Sea area, or even in Mawson’s area to the
northwest. The oldest rocks near Cape Adare appear
to be a series of sediments ranging from fine-grained
slates to a coarse graywacke.* They are of a greenish-
gray color. The main cleavage lines run north and
south, and the bedding is indistinct. The series is
thrown into anticlines and synclines, the axes of which
are approximately meridional, and has been observed

8 Graywacke is a cemented aggregate of small fragments of
quartz, slate, etc.

04

THE CONTINENT

in situ for some thirty miles along the west of Robert-
son Bay. These rocks present characteristics usually
associated with Paleozoic or Algonkian sediments, and
resemble the Ingleton series of Yorkshire to some ex-
tent. The grains of the rocks appear to be angular,
indicating frost-shattering, but they are evenly graded,
which to some extent suggests wind rather than ice.
Priestley suggests that they are shore deposits laid down
in a dry cold climate, under conditions like those at
present prevailing in parts of the polar regions.
Cambrian Limestones.—On Shackleton’s journey on
the Beardmore Glacier, in 1908 and 1909, some frag-
ments of a limestone breccia were obtained about eight
miles south of Mount Hope (latitude 84° S.). This
was examined in Australia in 1910, and then handed
over to me, since it seemed to contain fossils belong-
ing to the Archeocyathine family. It is a curious
coincidence that I should have spent 1908 and 1909
at Cambridge University studying these fossils (from
a huge fossil coral reef in South Australia) just before
my two years’ experience of Antarctic conditions. The
sketch appended (see Figure 12) shows that these
organisms resembled corals in structure, while they
were somewhat spongelike in general form. Three or
four genera (and several species of one genus) were
identifiable. In 1911 Wright (on the last Scott ex-
pedition) collected a finer specimen of Archeocyathus
from somewhat the same locality. No fossils have
been found in situ of this age, but David is of the
opinion that the original limestones may occur in basal
beds of the huge Beacon Sandstone Formation. Some

95

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

such occurrence was described by Shackleton’s party
from Buckley Island (latitude 85° S.) at the head
of the Beardmore Glacier. Debenham, however, thinks
Mount Bell (84° S.) is a more likely locality.° Below
the summit of Mount Nansen (latitude 75°) there ap-

Fic. 12.—GOMPHOCEPHALUS, THE LARGEST ANIMAL OF

ANTARCTICA (I MILLIMETER LONG). BELow: ARCHEO-

CYATHUS, THE OLDEST FOSSIL IN ANTARCTICA, WHERE
DWARF FORMS, A FEW MILLIMETERS WIDE, OCCUR.

peared to be limestones older than the Beacon Sand-
stone, which David suggests may also be of the Cam-
brian Age. They are present in Coats Lands, as we
shall see later.

Beacon Sandstone.—The structure of the whole
“horst”’ block, which bounds the Ross Sea and the

9 Sedimentary Rocks of South Victoria Land (British Museum,

1921).
96

THE CONTINENT

Ross Ice Shelf on the west, consists of a series of
tabular mountains.

Their horizontal structure is due to the level-bedded
character of the main sedimentary formation of sandstone,
which has been stiffened by massive intrusions of a later
dolerite in the form of very extensive sills. Since the base
of this formation has been proved to be of Devonian age
at least, we have to regard the whole area as one of great
stability and freedom from lateral earth movements. The
sandstone formation has an enormous extension, for it is
found in Adelie Land in latitude 68° S. and judging
from Amundsen’s photographs probably also in latitude
86° S —DEBENHAM, 1921.

The sandstone is very uniform in composition,
though the lower beds in this huge formation are less
pure as thin beds of limestone and shale are to be
observed. Apparently the sandstone rests on a level
surface of granite, but generally the junction is masked
by intruding sills of dolerite. However, the latter seem
in places to have lifted the level sandstones bodily off
the granite. In the scarp below Mount Lister (thirteen
thousand feet) the sandstone with its included sills of
dolerite is at least five thousand feet thick.

Ripple marks and sun cracks seem to indicate shal-
low lakes or pools during sedimentation. The cement
is either calcareous or siliceous or even bituminous in
places. Charring of included woody stems is to be
noticed, but this may be due to the intrusion by the
dolerite, perhaps in Cretaceous times.

Coal has been found in the Beardmore outcrops and

97

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

also by my party near Mount Suess (latitude 77° S.).
Dr. Gould has reported carbonaceous shales near the
foot of Liv Glacier. The Mount Suess seams appear
to occur with dark shales near the base of the sand-
stones. It is a hard bright coal with a large amount
of ash. Probably it has been baked by the dolerite
sills. The Beardmore coal, however, contains 14.5
per cent of volatile constituents and has not been
baked to the same extent. Here Frank Wild recorded
three hundred feet of coal measures containing seven
seams of coal, from one foot up to seven feet in
thickness. Fossil wood was obtained in the vicinity in
1908, which appears to belong to a gymnospermous
plant, but much finer specimens of fossils were brought
back by Dr. Wilson in 1912, and found near his body.

The fish remains collected by Frank Debenham and
the writer on the moraine below Mount Suess in De-
cember, I9II, consist of dermal plates and scales.
They are all isolated and scattered, showing that the
fishes were disintegrated before burial, but the frag-
ments are beautifully preserved, and in transparent
sections their histological structure is perfectly ob-
servable. The plates appear as whitish or bluish-gray
patches on the gray rock, and were so polished in some
cases that the writer was reminded of the elytre of
beetles. Woodward states that Ostracoderms, Elas-
mobranchs, Teleostomi and Dipnoi are all represented.
One specimen, Bothriolepis, is a common Upper De-
vonian fossil both in Europe and North America. (See
inset in Figure 6.)

98

THE CONTINENT

Of greater importance still were the fossil speci-
mens obtained by Scott and Wilson at the head of the
Beardmore Glacier under Mount Buckley. Here Scott
wrote on February 8th, 1912, “The moraine was ob-
viously so interesting that when we got out of the
wind I decided to camp and spend the rest of the day
geologizing. We found ourselves under perpendicular
walls of Beacon Sandstone, weathering rapidly and
carrying coal seams. From the last Wilson with his
sharp eyes has picked several pieces of coal with
beautifully traced leaves in layers.’’ These were speci-
mens of Glossopteris indica (see Figure 2) which,
as Seward remarks, is one of the few genera which
can be identified with confidence from fragmentary
specimens. Their occurrence only three hundred miles
from the Pole throws a light on the remarkable changes
of climate which have occurred in the past history
of the globe. Seward reconstructs the environment
as follows: “The granites and gneisses from which
the material of the Beacon Sandstone was derived,
were in all probability exposed to the disintegrating
action of wind-blown sand in a climate sufficiently
mild to permit of the existence of Glossopteris and
other plants. Fragments of leaves and twigs with
larger logs of wood were carried by rivers or marine
currents and buried in the barren sand that was being
piled up on the floor of an Antarctic Sea, to be sub-
sequently uplifted as vast sheets of sedimentary strata,
which at a later stage were penetrated by the products
of a widespread volcanic activity.” These latter were
the enormous dolerite sills already referred to.

99

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

This genus Glossopteris ranges from Upper Car-
boniferous to Rhaetic (Upper Triassic) period. Prob-
ably at Mount Buckley the beds are of Permo-Carbon-
iferous age just as they occur in the coal measures of
Australia. At the end of Carboniferous times, en-
vironments changed all over the world so that the old
Lepidodendron flora (of Lower Carboniferous days)
branched into two different types; one without much
change in the Northern Provinces (Canada, Europe,
China); and the other developed into the southern
Glossopteris flora of India and the three southern con-
tinents. In most of these latter localities glacial de-
posits are commonly associated with the Glossopteris
ferns. Marked rings of growth occur in the trees of
Permo-Carboniferous times, indicating strong changes
in the seasons during the year. These are absent in the
Lepidodendron floras. Thus we are led to believe that
in the southern hemisphere and in India the configura-
tion of the land favored the growth of glaciers and
icebergs while in the northern province there were
extensive swamps and ice-free hills. Seward does not,
however, think that the paleobotanical evidence is fa-
vorable to a view involving an alteration in the position
of the earth’s axis. But he inclines to a belief in an
Antarctic land on which were evolved the elements of
a new flora which spread in diverging lines over a
Paleozoic Continent (generally known as Gondwana-
land).

Sir Edgeworth David has endeavored to estimate the
extent and possible value of the coal reserves in Ant-
arctica. The Beacon Sandstone is proved to cover

TOO

THE CONTINENT

twelve thousand square miles of available territory, but
it is unlikely that coal measures are developed through-
out. Our parties found no coal in the Ferrar-Taylor
valleys. Possibly a great deal of coal exists under the
Polar Ice Cap at a lower level than in the South Vic-
toria Horst, where alone it has been observed so far.
Probably it lies two or three thousand feet below the
surface of the ice. If this hypothetical coal field were
700 miles long by 143 wide, and if the seams were only
12 feet thick, there are coal reserves here second only
to those of the United States. (See Figure 11.)

Granites—We may devote some space to a con-
sideration of the eruptive rocks in Victoria Land.
There are several types of granite, each associated with
various dyke rocks. Gray granite occurs near Mount
Larsen (latitude 75° S.) and near the Beardmore Gla-
cier. Mawson thinks this is somewhat older than the
pink granites, while both are perhaps younger than
the diorites and gabbros which occur at intervals along
the same coast. Somewhat similar granites and schists
characterize Edward VII Land. The gray granites are
low in lime and magnesia and high in potash and soda.
This chemical composition of the older granites and
porphyries is widely different from that of the Pacific
type, and is essentially an Atlantic type of rock. So
also the dolerites and Kenytes belong to the same gen-
eral facies, though the diorites and quartz-dolerites (in
David’s opinion) have some resemblance to Pacific
types of rock. David quotes the following differences
as distinctive:

IOI

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Atlantic type—microperthitic intergrowths in fel-
spar, felspathoid minerals, quartz only in acid
rocks, soda-bearing amphiboles, etc., mica and
garnets common.

Pacific type—zoned felspars, no felspathoids, quartz
in intermediate rocks also, diopside and common
hornblende abundant, mica not common except in
the more acid rocks.

Quartz dolerites, as already stated, occur in the form
of huge sills, which have penetrated both the granites
and the Beacon Sandstone series throughout South Vic-
toria Land. The rock in its amount of potash closely
approaches to essexite. The commonest pyroxene is
hypersthene but enstatite is also present. Interstitial
patches of granophyre are common, and the whole
facies of the rock resembles that forming the sills of
Tasmania. The Tasmanian occurrences have intruded
Trias-Jura rocks and are themselves intruded by ter-
tiary basalts. The Antarctic quartz-dolerites may
therefore also be classed provisionally as Cretaceous in
age. Somewhat similar rocks in South Africa are per-
haps a little older. The famous Palisades near New
York are stated by Dr. Prior to be of a very similar
character. (See Figure 11.)

Kenytes and Basalts——These volcanic rocks belong
to a series of Tertiary eruptions, and are found very
abundantly along the west coast of the Ross Sea, espe-
cially on Ross Island, which is almost exclusively vol-
canic in composition. There is a series of trachytes on
this island consisting often of sanidine and aegyrine.

102

THE CONTINENT

The basalts occur as dykes or flows chiefly on the
flanks of Mount Erebus and Mount Bird. The same
series is found also on the mainland, notably near Cape
Adare. Interesting magnetite basalts are met with at
Cape Barne and Tent Island in the west of Ross Island.
Jensen is of the opinion that the heavier lavas, such as
the basalts, flowed from fissures in the sides of the
main crater, tapping lower portions of the magma.
The upper portions gave rise to the lighter Kenytes,
which are the most typical eruptive rocks of East Ant-
arctica. (See Figure 8.)

Mount Erebus and Its Kenytes—No description of
the geology of the Ross Sea area would be complete
without some reference to the dominating volcano of
Erebus. This towers over thirteen thousand feet above
the Ross Sea and together with its extinct neighbor,
Mount Terror, practically forms Ross Island. The
main bulk of the cone is built of the remarkable lava
called Kenyte, which is closely allied to the rhomb
porphyries of Norway, and also to Gregory’s series
from Mount Kenya in East Africa. The chief char-
acteristic of the Kenytes is the presence of large crystals
of anorthoclase felspar, usually about one inch long.
On almost all the outcrops these felspars weather out
of the fine-grained ground mass under the action of
frost so that the surface of the Kenyte resembles a
medieval church door studded with huge nailheads.
The chief constituents as given by Prior are silica 56
per cent, alumina 21 per cent, soda 7 per cent, and
‘potash 4 per cent. Data as to the period of the initia-
tion of these eruptions are wanting. They are con-

103

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

nected with the great tectonic movements of middle and
late Tertiary times in this portion of the globe, but no
fossils have been discovered of Tertiary age in the
Ross Sea area which might furnish an answer to this
question. (See Figure 11.)

Detailed Geology in West Antarcticaa—We owe to
_ Sir Edgeworth David a comprehensive discussion of
the geological data from this sector of Antarctica, and
the writer has made much use of it in the following
brief account. There is clear evidence of a close con-
nection between the rocks of Graham Land and those
of South America. The basement rocks contain in-
trusive gabbros and granodiorites which exhibit the
most characteristic Andean affinities. Hence they be-
long to the Pacific types of eruptive rock. In South
Georgia, which appears to arise from the submarine
ridge already described, the rocks are formed chiefly
of old schists in which no determinable fossils have
been found. In the South Orkneys on the same ridge,
Dr. Bruce’s expedition discovered Ordovician grapto-
lites and phyllocarids. Just to the southeast of these
islands a specimen of Cambrian limestone containing
Archeo-cyathine has been dredged, which shows that
Cambrian rocks must occur in the vicinity (see Figure
7). :

Overlying these old rocks in Graham Land are strata
of Mesozoic age which are folded mostly from west
to east. At Hope Bay (63° 15’ S.) beds containing a
rich Jurassic flora rest on coarse conglomerates which
in turn repose on current-bedded sandstone with ob-
scure plant remains. Among the plants are Clado-

104

Vike CON FINENT

phebts, Pterophyllum, Sagenopteris, Thinnfeldia, etc.,
all of which also lived in Australia in Jurassic or
Triassic times. This would seem to indicate a land
connection between the two continents in Mesozoic
times. The plants were found in a hard slaty rock,
and show a lacustrine rather than a marine environ-
ment (see Figure I1).

At Snow Hill Island, one hundred miles to the south,
Dr. Nordenskjold collected abundant Cretaceous fos-
sils. These imply the existence of a mild climate with
comparatively warm ocean currents at this period.
Corals are abundant, such as Cycloseris, Parasmilia and
Oculina. Cephalopods like Phylloceras, Lytoceras and
Desmoceras have been described by Kilian from this
locality. From Seymour Island close to Snow Hill
comes a suite of Tertiary fossils of which the leaves of
Araucaria and Fagus are specially interesting. These
show that the relatively warm conditions persisted into
Oligocene or Miocene times. In marine strata of about
the same age numerous bird bones were discovered,
which have been referred to five new genera of
penguins. They seem to be akin to the penguin bones
et Eocene“ Age from, -Oamarn (N.‘Z.): Finally. at
Cockburn Island, near Snow Hill, Anderson found a
conglomerate 160 meters above sea level containing
numerous Pecten shells. This is probably of the Plio-
cene Age.

Adelie Land and adjacent areas. The region ex-
plored by Mawson’s parties seems to exhibit much
the same geological formations as were found near
MacMurdo Sound. At Horn Bluff (150° E.) cliffs

105

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

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U999yJ

THE CONTINENT

one thousand feet high are composed of red ( Beacon?)
sandstone containing coal and carbonaceous shales.
They are capped by an immense thickness of dolerite
sills. Here also gneisses and granites are common and
constitute the basal beds. The Gaussberg to the far
west is an extinct volcano built of leucite basalt. Even
off Enderby Land (49° E.) dredgings by the “Val-
divia’’ revealed much of the same series of rocks.

We may conclude this chapter on Antarctic geology
by a table indicating the dominant geological forma-
tions so far discovered.

CHAPTER VI
SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

SCENERY

EFORE discussing in some detail the characteris-
B tics of the topography in Antarctica—and it was
to study these that I took part in the 1910-13 Expedi-
tion—it may be of interest to describe various aspects
of the landscape and seascape which impressed them-
selves vividly on my memory. I should like first to
mention the storms which are so characteristic a fea-
ture of the ‘Furious Fifties’ * and the “Shrieking Six-
ties.’ Three days after leaving New Zealand, the
“Terra Nova” was nearly sunk by a violent gale. After
being some twenty-four hours exposed to its fury all
the pumps refused duty, and the hold and engine room
were rapidly filling. Only a Gustavus Doré could do
justice to the scene which ensued. We bailed out that
boat of five hundred tons with buckets by hand labor
in a fashion which has rarely been duplicated. Three
successive iron ladders led from the floor of the engine
room up to the poop deck, and this was occupied for
twenty hours by a bucket gang chiefly consisting of
scientists. Outside was the sound of the booming gale

1The “Roaring Forties,” “Furious Fifties,’ and “Shrieking
Sixties,” refer to the winds in the latitudes concerned.

108

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

shrilling through the shrouds and ratlines in one con-
tinuous shriek. While the upper end of the “chain”
of buckets was in an Antarctic atmosphere, down be-
low the steaming waters which had risen over the
furnace bars filled the engine room with heat. Hence
the workers at the lower end of the chain were naked
as the imps in the nether regions. The toll of the gale
was heavy, as we lost several of the ponies and dogs
and much of the port bulwarks was carried away by
the waves.

A week later we were beset by the pack ice and re-
mained without making much progress therein for
three weeks. Let us climb onto the crosstrees at mid-
night and survey the unusual environment presented
to us. All around lies the pack no longer like pan-
cakes, but much thicker and (keeping to homely
similes) now resembling shortcake. The ice is crossed
by the meandering lines of the open “leads’’; to the
north the heavens are banded with arcs of salmon cloud,
while the sea in our rear is a vivid brownish-pink with
an oily sheen reminding one of moist putty. Across
it runs a long dark line extending indefinitely to the
north. This is the shadow of the ship due to the
midnight sun. He “sets’’ due south and “rises” in the
same spot, for we are just on the Antarctic Circle.
Far ahead of us two geysers shoot into the tranquil
air and seem to touch the golden edge of a low bank
of purple cloud. They come from two whales which
are piloting us on our voyage to the south.

Early in January we caught our first glimpse of the

109

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

great Ross Ice Barrier” near Cape Crozier. In the
far east where the “ribbon” of the ice wall reached the
horizon, there was a marked difference in the sky to
north and south respectively. To the north it was
dark gray with heavy cumulus, but southward in a
definite arc over the great Ross Ice Shelf this was
changed to a pearly gray and the clouds were almost
white. I saw nothing so striking as this “Ice-Blink”
on any other occasion on our journeys. Just below
the great wall of ice, here sixty feet high, were bands
of brash ice. On this bobbing and rotating surface
sported flocks of penguins, performing marvelous feats
of equilibrium and nowise disturbed by the huge bulk
of the ship towering over them. The Barrier front
was deeply undercut by the waves at the water level
and small berglets were constantly dropping off above
this line of weakness.

At the end of January we were gaining our first
experience of sledging up one of the giant glaciers
which carry the ice from the Plateau down to the Ross
Sea. Let us compare this glacier valley with a valley
in more familiar lands. There is no vestige of green
anywhere, no sign of life present or past. Owing to
the absence of men, trees, or houses it is impossible
to estimate distances, for there are no familiar stand-
ards. Time and again explorers have decided that a
point for which they are making is only a mile or so
away, to find that they have underestimated the distance

2 This structure is a barrier to a ship, but morphologically is an
ice shelf. The latter term is preferable and should replace the
older term.

IIo

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

two or three times. So here in the Ferrar Glacier
Valley it was difficult at first to realize that it was
four miles wide, and that the cliffs at the side were
four or five thousand feet above the glacier. Very
characteristic were the smooth walls of the valley, free
from any of the ridges or spurs which partly block the
view ina river-cut valley (see Figure 15). It was as if
a gigantic carpenter had planed off every projection
on the great walls. And indeed the Ice King with his
glacier had done precisely that bit of crustal shaping!

Yet it must not be thought that the scene lacked.
variety or even color effects. ‘The cliffs were built up
of alternating layers of reddish granite, black dolerite
and yellow Beacon Sandstone. Below these appeared
the broad belt of dark brown talus, contrasting with
the flashing white surface of the great glacier. As for
the latter, every few yards often exhibited fresh ice
structures. Here were deep irregular bowls with their
floors covered with fan crystals of ice. Alongside were
topsy-turvy icicles joined at the lower ends only. Far-
ther on, the solid ice was marked by glassy arabesques,
probably where stones had sunk into the glacier. Again
there were dome-shaped roofs covering pools of water,
through which one fell at frequent intervals. Bound-
ing the glacier was a colonnade of ice pinnacles some
thirty feet high. The sun glistening on the ice minarets
made a most impressive sight.

A week or two later we explored a most unexpected
region in the Antarctic. Below the Taylor Glacier
lies a huge valley, some twenty-five miles long and
several miles wide, in which there is hardly a vestige

III

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

of snow or ice, except a few small glaciers on the
steep slopes at the side and a few frozen drainage lakes
on the floor (see Figure 13). Carrying our food and
gear on our backs, we marched mile after mile down
this great valley which had never before been traversed

Fic. 13—PLAN AND SECTION OF TAYLOR VALLEY SHOW-

ING TWO RIEGEL.

(Scale of miles.)
by man. The floor was covered with tumbled debris
of all shapes and sizes of ground moraine, with here
and there patches of gravel and examples of soil-flow.
No better opportunity for studying the way in which
a great glacier has eroded the earth’s crust can be
imagined, and many pages of notes and sketches re-
sulted from our journey down the Taylor Valley, which
will be referred to later in the chapter (see Figure 15).
One last glimpse will serve to show how the Ant-
arctic in 78° S. appeared in the middle of winter. On
the twenty-second of June, when the sun was farthest

II2

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

north and had not been seen for eight weeks, I took a
walk in the vicinity of Cape Evans. There was a hint
of twilight to the north, appearing as a gray-blue sky
extending across the outlet of MacMurdo Sound. This
gave some little light which was reflected by the uni-
versal covering of snow. It was impossible to make
out ridge or hollow on the snow surface, in the dim
light; but a distant black object like Tent Island was
faintly visible, while a snow cliff just ahead could not
be detected. There happened to be no wind, though
the temperature was —25° F., and so I was able to
walk for a time without a helmet. The most pictur-
esque time in Antarctica, however, is when the sun
is just setting and rolls along the horizon like a great
golden football. Thus late in March I noted that the
landscape, in place of a monotonous white, now glowed
a rosy-pink where the sun glanced on the snow fields.
The open water appeared salmon or buff in color, while
the newly frozen ice was iridescent like tar. The
shadow of Brown Island to the south was lemon-green,
changing to purple in the distance over Mount Dis-
covery. For a few minutes our own shadows were the
most vivid bright blue!

TOPOGRAPHY

In this section I propose to describe principally those
features of the topography which give it its special
facies and differentiate it from a region undergoing
normal erosion by rain or rivers. I shall follow some-
what the order in which an investigator would meet
with the examples, i.e., the coastal features come first,

113

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

the inland valleys and cliffs next, and the nunataks,
etc., last. I shall deal mainly with the Ross Sea area.

Islands—The geographer is always interested in
small islands, for from them he may often learn much
as to the relative movements of land and sea. Un-
fortunately in the Antarctic no very definite evidence
of elevated beaches, notches, caves, etc., was apparent.
This was partly no doubt due to the fact that the more
or less permanent sea-ice prevents the formation of
many beaches and allied features. The steep-to cliffs
of some of the islands in the southwest of the Ross
Sea indicate fairly late subsidence, and this, if gen-
erally true of the locality, naturally hides most of the
evidence of marine erosion.

Shore lines —No doubt the usual shore line of the
Antarctic consists of the inhospitable ice-front of the
great Plateau ice cap. This permits no study of the
underlying topography. The writer was fortunate,
therefore, to be stationed in MacMurdo Sound (see
Figure 8). Here on a coast line of about two hun-
dred miles, from Cape Bird to Gregory Island, the
following varying shore lines occur:

Approx.
Ice miles
(a) Vertical ice walls over 50 feet high, usually
moving ice 14
(b) Vertical ice walls 5- ot Fike atten? stapes
Mant Wee. : : : . 75
(c) Low glacier snouts, ard ice ; Saas
(d) Ancient sea-ice : . : a
TOTAES is : : : : , «| SBF

II4

SCENERY, AND TOPOGRAPHY

Rock
(e) Steep rocky cliffs or headlands over 500
feet, 7, : ; steak tai
(f) Capes and crags 50-500 feet . ee:
(g) Low-angle morainic shores , eee:
Cie}, Beaches” : : ; : 3
TOTAL ave ; 73

The writer only examined three small beaches in all
this stretch of coast. At Botany Bay, in Granite Har-
bor, a beach occurred about half a mile long composed
of granite bowlders. These were undoubtedly water-
worn, and nearby such bowlders extended fifty feet
above sea level. Perhaps here we have evidence of
uplift. David and Priestley describe raised marine de-
posits near Mount Larsen which may have been thrust
up by movement of large glacial masses. On the whole,
however, the shore lines seem to indicate subsidence,
as witness the drowned cirque at the head of Granite
Harbor. (See Figure 24.)

Capes.—The importance of lists of capes as given
in the old-style geography is to be discounted, but it is
apparent that the capes in Antarctica are perhaps the
most important portions of the continent. Some are
historic, such as Cape Adare, Cape Armitage, Cape
Royds and Cape Evans. The occurrence of capes is
due, of course, to the presence of more resistant mate-
rial, while the less resistant has been hollowed out and
in general is still overwhelmed by the covering of ice.
Yet there has been very little marine erosion, so that
the coasts of Antarctica are characteristically linear or

its

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

broadly curved. Possibly the original fault planes are
better preserved in Antarctica than they would be along
a coast subjected to river and marine erosion. Most
of the capes around MacMurdo Sound stand out as
rounded headlands, generally fifty or one hundred feet
above the sea. In the vicinity of that curious “desert”
locality, the lower Taylor Valley, the headlands are
free from snow or ice for a distance of several miles
from the sea, but as we proceeded north this bare area
became more and more restricted by the increase in the
width of the ice sheet behind.

On the east side of MacMurdo Sound, Cape Royds
had a rocky hinterland which extended a mile from
the sea and three miles along the coast. In the lakes
in this hinterland the geologists of the 1907 expedi-
tion made many surprising discoveries of frozen but
living fresh water fauna and flora (see Figure 8).
Cape Evans was triangular in plan, each side being
about half a mile. It exhibited very interesting fea-
tures in the shape of débris cones from five to thirty
feet high, which were proved to be the erosion relics
of giant erratics. Cape Armitage promontory is about
nine miles long and one and a half miles wide, but only
about three miles of the southern end is partly free
from ice. Here were fine examples of solifluction, usu-
ally in the form of pentagonal patches of gravel marked
out by narrow grooves, the patches being some twenty
feet across. Curious gullies ran around the slopes
near Hut Point, along the contours. They were prob-
ably due to peripheral streams flowing around the edge
of the Ross Ice Shelf, when it occupied successive posi-

116

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

tions from three hundred feet down to one hundred
and twenty feet above sea level. (See Figure 8.)

The cliffs around Granite Harbor and on the Kukri
Hills were given special attention, to see how they had
been affected by the glacial covering which had just
receded from them. They were generally formed of
granite and were characterized by a pronounced shoul-
der between the upland surface and the cliff proper.
Everywhere were couloirs or gullies either snow-
filled or empty. Usually these widened at the top, and
their sides were covered with fragments of the ad-
jacent rock. On sunny days they often contained a
considerable amount of thaw water which carried down
a slushy mixture of stones, gravel and snow. In my
opinion we have here the initial conditions which often
lead to the development of a cirque, if the general
temperature conditions remain satisfactory for a long
enough period. This problem, however, will be dis-
cussed at more length a little later.

Only in one or two localities have caves been dis-
covered. The writer’s party found one in Granite
Harbor which was about fifty feet high and thirty feet
deep. Priestley describes another from Robertson Bay.
They are obviously very rare on the east Antarctic
coasts.

Lakes and Tarns.—To the student of erosion, lakes
indicate an interruption in the normal cycle, and in a
glaciated region they are of special interest for even
if frozen they show that relatively large masses of
fresh water are possible in the region. We observed
many types of lakes or tarns. In the ground moraine

117

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

there were lake-filled hollows which seemed in general
to be due to the melting of extremely ancient masses
of ice, once covered by the moraine. These were com-
mon on the west side of the Koettlitz Glacier, where
Alph Lake was nearly a mile long, and is in part still
walled in by ancient ice. Others were due to moraines
which blocked the outlet of the valley, as, for instance,
below the Garwood Glacier, where the lake was two
miles long. Lake Bonney below the Taylor Glacier

Fic. 14.—D£EBRIS-CONES BETWEEN EREBUS GLACIER AND
THE SEA-ICE, NEAR CAPE EVANS.

Successive stages shown by a, b, c, d, e. The cones are from
5 to 15 feet high.

is also two miles long. It seemed many feet deep and
full of alge, but we had not time to cut through the
ice surface and investigate it more fully. There ap-
pears to be a rock sill between Lake Bonney and the
sea, for the defile at its eastern end is over one hundred
feet above the sea (see Figure 13).

David and Priestley describe at length many of the
small lakes near Cape Royds (see Figure 8). These
were investigated during the winter by means of
trenches. Most of them lay in the hollows in a long

118

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

shallow glacier-cut depression extending along the hin-
terland from Cape Barne to Cape Royds and beyond.
Blue Lake was about six hundred yards long, the others
being much smaller. Green Lake was about one hundred
yards across and about five feet deep. Below the ice
was found a reservoir of liquid brine with the low
termperature of 25~. Ff. The temperature of the ice
at the bottom was —2° F., while it was —23° F.
near the surface. Clear Lake was a little larger, and
the ice was eight feet thick. At this lower level the
ice was +29° F. while the air outside was about
—10° F. There was four feet of water at the bottom
with a temperature of +35° F. Blue Lake was fif-
teen feet deep, and at the bottom growing algze were
found which contained living rotifers (see p. 218).
This indicates that the suspension of animation in these
organisms must extend over many seasons, for it can
be only very rarely that Blue Lake melts to the bot-
tom. Farther south, near Cape Barne, is Sunk Lake,
whose ice surface was twenty feet below sea level and
whose floor was some fifty feet below the sea, which
was only one hundred and fifty feet distant. Ice-Dam
Lakes on Cape Evans, resembling in miniature the
Glenroy Lakes of Scotland, are described in the writ-
er’s large monograph.

Débris Cones.—A few days after our arrival at Cape
Evans the geologists were advised to inspect what our
informants described as “‘little volcanic craters,’ which
were seriously stated to be parasitic cones on the low-
est slopes of Mount Erebus. These cones were scat-
tered all over the rock platform between the low

IIQ

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

promontory of Cape Evans and the icy mantle which
covered most of Erebus. They consisted of conical
piles of kenyte fragments from five feet up to twenty
feet high. It was not for some months that we had
the opportunity to investigate distant examples, and
then their origin was quite clear. About one mile south
of Cape Evans, near Lands End, we found all stages
of these cones. There was Seal Rock (see a, Figure
14), a solid mass of kenyte about ten feet high, but
in all probability an erratic block. Higher up the
slopes was Thumb Cone (0) with a mantle of débris
just beginning to form at the base. Nearby was an-
other cone about twelve feet high (c), with only a
small portion of the original erratic left at the top.
In the vicinity also were small cones where none of
the original erratic was visible (d and e). I cut into
a débris cone behind Cape Evans and found a solid
core of homogeneous kenyte within. Here “‘thaw-and-
freeze’ erosion (nivation) had obviously been pre-
vented from acting upon the central portion of the
base of the erratic. At Mount Suess we found a com-
posite cone which was twenty-five feet high (and about
fifty by thirty yards in plan). It was surmounted by
a block of sandstone lying on edge and about two feet
high. But the southwestern end of the same cone was
formed of fragments of basalt which were partly covy-
ered by sandstone fragments. Evidently here two
monoliths of different rock lying side by side had
weathered simultaneously.

Moraines.—All types of these structures occur in
Antarctica but they differ in quantity largely from

120

SCR NERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

those of temperate regions. Thus visitors to the Alps
in New Zealand see the lower mile or two of the glaciers
completely covered by surface moraine, so that the ice
is invisible. Débris is falling on to the moving glacier
and gradually building up lateral and medial moraines.
“Glacier milk’? pours out of the ends of the glacier
owing to the grinding of the floor by the mobile glacial
“plane.” But none of these phenomena is to be seen
in Antarctica. The glaciers are practically free from
débris. Their glacial streams, as far as I saw them
in two summers, were practically clear. Nowhere in
two hundred miles of Antarctic coast line did I find a
well-defined terminal moraine, though there were half
a dozen possible sites. But the ends of the glaciers
were all of clear ice, except for a few silt bands and
occasional fragments of larger rock. This condition is
not so marked, I believe, in glaciers nearer the Ant-
arctic Circle, but in 77° and 78° S. the climate is much
too cold for the maximum effects of glacial erosion to
be developing to-day.

Behind Cape Evans I was unable to find any very
clear indication of a terminal moraine. Only in two
small areas was there any definite arrangement of heaps
a few yards long and a few feet high, which could be
differentiated from the general tumbled heaps of débris,
no doubt partly ground moraine, which littered Cape
Evans. At the head of Granite Harbor was a small
moraine across Cuff Cape. It was about five hundred
yards long and about fifty feet thick perhaps. The
most favorable site for a huge moraine would be at
the snout of the Taylor Glacier—which lies some

I2I

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

twenty miles from the sea (see Figure 13). But
its terminal moraine is an irregular heap of débris some
twenty-five feet high and about one hundred yards in
length. So also at the end of Hobbs Glacier (see
Figure 8), where the face-of the ice is sixty feet
high, there occur only two curious terminal “piers” of
_ silt about thirty feet high and one hundred feet long.
These had the appearance of “‘eskers,’’ but may be
the relics of a former continuous terminal moraine,
though I think it unlikely.

The small glaciers occupying the numerous cirque
valleys to the south of the Ferrar Glacier were also
practically free from surface moraine, nor were there
any terminal moraines anywhere near their present
snouts. At the mouths of the cirque valleys, where
they joined the main Koettlitz Valley, there were in-
definite heaps of morainic material across these cirque
valleys. JI was never quite able to decide if these
moraines were terminals due to the former earlier
cirque glaciers or were merely portions of the ancient
lateral moraine of the mighty Koettlitz Glacier, ete.
The occurrences of morainic material won the present
elaciers (which occasionally were met with in our
traverse) will be described in the chapter dealing with
glaciology. (See Figure 17.)

Sections across the Taylor Valley.—This region
probably represents better than anywhere else so far
investigated in Antarctica the subglacial topography
of the continent. It is shown in a somewhat diagram-
matic fashion in Figure 15. Starting from New Har-
bor at the mouth of the valley, the latter presents the

I22

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

typical catenary cross-section of a glacier-cut valley.
A splendid pair of walls with the characteristic slope
of about 33° defines the glacier trough. There is no
terminal moraine near the sea, which seems to denote

Snout of Taylor Glacier
ee ee itch Heat tooo
FA fe oF
22 <2 ZAR ‘

Qs

Solitary Racks
Matterhorn 5000

EP Sto are the Apposed Valleys 9
the bore Taylor Glaciers (Looks 75. Wet)” is

Fic. 15.—BLock DIAGRAM SHOWING THE ICE-FREE TAYLOR
VALLEY, 18 MILES LONG, AND THE ICE DIVIDE BETWEEN
THE TAYLOR AND FERRAR GLACIERS.

(By permission of John Murray.)

a fairly uniform and perhaps rapid retrocession of the
glacier. About six miles from the coast a narrow
defile appears on the north side, but a rounded valley
floor rises gradually to two thousand feet over the
greater part of the trough. West of this point there
is a sudden drop from this great rock barrier (which
I called the Nussbaum Riegel *) into the next bowl of

3 Riegel is used in the Swiss Alps to indicate such a rock bar.
123

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

the valley. This is filled with morainic material to the
depth of a hundred feet or so, for the drainage of the
bowl is away from the sea to the salty waters of Lake
Bonney. The defile previously mentioned is about
1,500 feet deep, and would seem to be a water-
cut gorge denoting an interglacial period. Lake Bon-
ney is separated into two portions by a granite bar
five hundred feet high. This also is traversed by a nar-
row gorge on the northern side of the trough, and is a
smaller edition of the Nussbaum barrier or riegel.
Then about half a mile west we reach the snout of the
Taylor Glacier, which appears to be over-riding mo-
raine material at its extremity. (See Figure 13.)

Visitors to Switzerland will recognize how closely
the alternation of gorge, riegel, and bowl recalls the
classic glacial valley between Airolo and Biasca. It is
the writer’s opinion that similar forces of erosion have
produced these similar but far distant topographies.
The evolution of this peculiarly complicated structure
in the floor of the large glacier-cut troughs of the Fer-
rar-Taylor Glaciers is to be explained in my opinion
by a study of cirque-erosion.

Cirques-—These land-forms are very abundant
throughout the glacial topographies of the world, and
it is rather surprising that their origin was not at all
understood until the research of certain American
geologists in the western United States about Igoo.
The cirque is a peculiar valley which has been com-
pared in shape to an armchair. It has a more or less
circular base and steep bounding walls on three sides,
being open on the lower fourth side. The scarp of

124

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

Mount Lister (thirteen thousand feet) shows some of
the finest cirques in the world. The summit itself, as
viewed from the east, appears to have small cirques on
two sides while another at nearly the same level ap-
pears on the sky line to the right. Then there is a row

§1S* STAGE

Overflow from

Solita ry Rocks
!

\ Cwm Ice Nussbaum
Riegel

Sea Level

Nussbaum Riegel
aci ‘

Sea Level
Fic. 16.—SECEIONS ILLUSTRATING THE EVOLUTION OF THE

RIEGEL IN TAYLOR VALLEY.

Stage 1 shows hypothetical cirque (or cwm) valleys, later over-
whelmed as in stage 2. (Geog. Journal, 1914.)

of four cirques immediately below this series. Finally

five or six cirques are packed together in the lowest

rank immediately above the foothills at the head of the

Blue Glacier. Cirques are of all sizes from the small

drowned cirque in Granite Harbor to the giant Wal-

cott Cirque just south of Mount Lister, which is eight
125

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

miles across and has a rear wall some eight thousand
feet high. The absence of any collecting ground at
the head of many of these cirques certainly indicates
that they are not due to normal glacier erosion. My
Antarctic experience led me to believe that nivation
(1.e. thaw-and-freeze chipping) as described by Hobbs
in his book, Existing Glaciers (1911), is the major
process involved. I give a full discussion, based on
local examples, in my book, Physiography of Mac-
Murdo Sound (1922).

Charles Darwin advised young naturalists to seek
for evidence of evolution in a given group of organisms
among the specimens themselves. If enough samples
are present there are, said he, likely to be many differ-
ent stages represented. Applying the same principle in
Antarctica, I believe that I can see varying stages in the
evolution of the topography of the Taylor Valley indi-
cated in adjacent land-forms (see Figure 8). Thus
all along the Royal Society Range to the south is a suite
of eleven cirque valleys extending over some thirty
miles in length, which constitutes a “Fretted Upland,”
as Hobbs terms it. These usually contain small stag-
nant glaciers, which the first observers called “Ice
Slabs.”’ Such glaciers are situated at the heads of the
valleys concerned. Above these lower cirques are sev-
eral series of smaller cirques in the scarp of Lister
itself, in shape looking as if a giant had pressed his
thumb repeatedly into a slope made of putty. The
writer believes that this type of cirque topography is
the first which developed on the onset of the Ice Age.

126

SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY

The subsequent phenomena are described in terms of
the Palimpsest theory.

Palimpsest Theory.—lf{ now we turn to the great
outlet valleys, such as those occupied by the Taylor or
Ferrar glaciers, we find evidence of a similar cirque-
cut topography drowned by the overflow of plateau-ice
from the hinterland. This is made clear in the dia-
grams annexed. In the upper figure (see Figure 17)
we see several cirque (or cwm) glaciers burrowing into
the sloping land surface. One lies below Solitary
Rocks and one below Nussbaum Riegel (see Figure
16). Later the Taylor Glacier overflows from the
Plateau and pours down over the cirques, cutting away
part of the Solitary Rocks and Nussbaum Riegel.
These barriers on recession are still visible. The con-
strictions in the valley and occasional steeper falls in
the Ferrar Glacier are probably due to the same cause.
Thus on recession we see somewhat faintly preserved
the relics of the cirque-erosion cycle in the shape of
bars across the floor of the valley, which on the whole
is due to normal glacier planation. This combination
of topographies is expressed in the term palimpsest,
which means that older writing can be observed on a
parchment below the present scrip. The pre-glacial
stage, the stage of cirque-erosion, and the ice-flood
stage are all indicated in Figure 17.

Nunatak and Nunakol.—These are rock “islands”
surrounded by a sea of glacier ice. The term nunatak
means “like a land’ and it expresses an irregular
rocky residual, too hard to be eroded completely, and
still towering above the glacier. But in Antarctica and

127

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

elsewhere there is another type of rock-residual which
has been very markedly smoothed off by overriding ice

Be
ig. om, Se

<a ~ sll lt tny Ly

ca i= Fae
NU S aS) SO&, sess Le —— ay aS
eM — = Fes =i aS

—_ aia

Fic. 17—BLocK DIAGRAMS ILLUSTRATING THE “PALIMP-
SEST THEORY’ OF GLACIER EROSION APPLIED TO THE ROYAL
SociETY RANGE.

In the upper figure the pre-glacial topography is suggested; in
the central figure the advancing hemicycle with much cirque-ero-
sion by headward recession; in the lower figure the period of
ice-flood when the outlet glaciers were at their maximum. (K. F. T.
indicate Koettlitz, Ferrar and Taylor glaciers.)

which has since retreated. My Norwegian colleague,

Gran, suggested the Icelandic term nunakol (lonely

rounded ridge) as suitable for this land-form, which
128

SCENERY, AND TOPOGRAPHY

has had a very different history from the nunatak.
Examples of both types are to be seen in the block
diagram of the Mackay Glacier (see Figure 24).
Thus Mount Suess is a nunatak. I doubt if the main
glacier ever surmounted it, though it is quite likely that
cirque-cutting gave rise to the sharp ridges and peaks
of its summit. To the north is Gondola Ridge, a
typical nunakol which was littered with moraine and
has only recently been freed from its ice covering.
Just to the southeast is Redcliff Nunakol of a similar
nature.

Water Erosion.—We may conclude this chapter by
a brief reference to the agents which have cut out
the Antarctic topography. Wind has not much power
in a land covered with ice and snow, though I give
a number of examples of wind transport and erosion
in my memoir. But I was especially struck with two
facts in my study of the Ross Sea area. Firstly, most
of the ice is stagnant nearly all the year round and
cannot therefore be eroding much. Secondly, although
the average air temperature was only 25° F. in the
warmest months, yet there was a great deal of running
water at far colder air temperatures. Thus on Sep-
tember 17th, 1911, I noticed snow melting on black
rock when the air temperature was 25° degrees below
freezing. So that numberless examples of water
erosion were visible, such as gullies, meanders, terraces
and small deltas at mouths of streams. One of these
streams was twenty-five miles long and flowed under
the Koettlitz Glacier ice until the middle of March,
when the air temperature was —8° F. (i.e. 40° below

129

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

freezing). So that it seemed to me that the present
ice-cut topography dated back largely to much warmer
conditions, while the chief erosion at present (at
78° S.) was possibly due to normal water erosion and
nivation, of course confined almost wholly to the
warmer parts of the year.

CHAPTER: VIL
ICE SHEETS AND GLACIERS

THE ConpDITIONS OF MAXIMUM EROSION

HAVE investigated glacial conditions in many

countries both in the northern and southern hemi-
spheres, and my studies have led me to certain perhaps
novel conclusions with regard to the real meaning of
the onset of an ice age. Any one who has done much
flying knows that there is an environment in many ways
suited for an ice age within a mile or two of any
temperate city. It occurs, of course, vertically over-
head. It is profitable, therefore, to look upon the
approach of an ice age as essentially due to the lower-
ing of certain isothermal zones or layers from an
overhead position until such zones intersect more or
less of the land surface concerned.* These zones have a
slight slope from the equator to the Pole. If we travel
from New York to the North Pole or from Sydney to
the South Pole, we reach latitudes where this Ice Age
layer comes down to sea level, at about 60° of latitude
in both cases. This layer corresponds essentially to the
permanent snow line. No part of the world perhaps is
better suited for a study of the optimum temperature

1 Fluctuations in the amount of snowfall are of secondary im-
portance.

131

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

for glacial erosion than the lands bordering the south-
west corner of the Pacific Ocean. For in Australia we
have Mount Kosciusko (7,328 feet) with its clear evi-
dence that the erosive agents of the Ice Age had only
operated for a short time when the favorable glacial
environment vanished (see Figure 18). There is Tas-
mania with its low mountains of three thousand to five
thousand feet showing much more markedly the results

I

"as L
i
Fic. 18.—DIAGRAM SHOWING POSITIONS OF THE LAYER OF

MAXIMUM NIVATION AT PRESENT, AND IN THE PLEISTO-
CENE. PLEIOCENE CONDITIONS ARE MERELY SUGGESTED.

of a less brief visit of the Ice Age. There is New Zea-
land with small glaciers in the North Island, and large
glaciers (very much greater than most others in tem-
perate lands) around Mount Cook (12,345 feet) in the
South Island. Finally, there are the record glaciers of
Antarctica to be included in the comparison.

I do not propose to dwell on these comparisons, but
no glaciers show active glacial erosion to-day better
than those of the Mount Cook region in the center of

132

iCE SHEETS AND ‘GLACIERS

the South Island of New Zealand. Here the conditions
of a plentiful snowfall are combined with a suitable
position of the isothermal layer of 32° F. It is this
last control, the environment where freeze-and-thaw
action is naturally most active, which is all-important
in eroding a landscape by the action of ice. Each time
the temperature sinks below freezing point (32° F.)
a wedge of ice is formed in every crevice of rock. This
may crack off a fragment of rock, which falls away
when thaw sets in. When this is repeated day and
night during many months, the amount of erosion must
be tremendous. The actual wearing away of a valley
fioor by a glacier is, no doubt, more striking and on
a larger scale. But it only affects a relatively small por-
tion of the topography, whereas nivation (freeze and
thaw) attacks the whole landscape. So also the river
only cuts out its bed, but the rains and rills wear away
fragments from an infinitely greater area.

A good deal of rather ill-defined evidence in the Ant-
arctic indicates that movement of the ice (and conse-
quently glacial erosion) is much more active in the
summer months than in the winter. Even Cape Adare
(in latitude 71°) has only one month above freezing
point, while at Cape Evans (latitude 78°) the hottest
month has an average temperature of only 25° F.
The writer has formed the opinion that temperatures
fluctuating around 32° F. are the most favorable for
pronounced glacial erosion, but we have no accurate
measurements in Antarctica on this question of seasonal
variation in erosion. However, in Greenland Ryder

133

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

found that the Upernivik Glacier moved one hundred
and twenty-five feet a day in August (40° F.) and only
thirty-three feet a day in April (12° F.). The follow-
ing table (partly based on Hess)’ gives the velocities
of various glaciers. It is obvious, however, that the
velocity depends largely on the size and slope of the
glacier concerned—as well as on the temperature con-
ditions.

VELOCITY
GLACIER Country |LATITUDE

(usually yearly average)
Karajak ye ts Greenland | 71° N. |59_ feet per day
Wiatrl 27 wee sed Alaska 60° N. | 7. feet per day
Mer de Glace ....| Switzerland| 46° N. | 1.6 feet per day
Rhone Glacier ... 46° N. | 1 foot per day
Hintereis Glacier. a 46° N. | 0.5 foot per day
LASIEAG 2 0.1 oe os New Zealand! 44° S. | 1.5 feet per day
Franz Joseph ...:| “ e 44° S. |16 feet per day
Wraehay oa. 58s we Antarctica | 77° S. | 2.8 feet per day (summer)
Barne Glacier iy 77° GS. 130. feet per year
(Payot es oak ot 2 78° S. |Stagnant
Berar cis: ex 78° S. |32 feet (Feb. to Oct.)
Ross Barrier .... x 80° S. | 1.4 feet per day
Beardmore ...... ~ 85° S. | 3. feet per day (?)

In the preceding diagram (see Figure 18) I show
five typical glaciated regions: Kosciusko is in Australia
and Mount Field in Tasmania, Ruapehu and Cook are
in New Zealand. Mount Lister is on the west side of
MacMurdo Sound in Antarctica. The heavy black
line shows the present position (in latitude and eleva-
tion) of the temperature layer of 32° F. (the “Niva-
tion Layer”). Hence cirque-cutting is occurring to-day

2 Hess, Die Gletscher (Brunswick, 1904).
134

ICE SHEETS AND‘ GLACIERS

quite actively on Mount Cook and Ruapehu which are
intersected by this layer. The lower sloping line (on
the right) shows where this nivation layer was situated
in Pleistocene times. It had in fact descended about
one thousand five hundred feet below its present posi-
tion, and cirques were being actively cut on Kosciusko
and Mount Field at that period. It will be noticed that
neither of these “layers” intersects the Antarctic
mountains. But we have a good deal of evidence
that world temperatures were warmer in Pliocene times
than they are to-day. Jt is possible, therefore, that
the cirques of Antarctica were cut several million years
ago, possibly during late Pliocene times.* At any rate
the cirques high on the slopes of Mount Lister have
a present-day temperature of —25° F. On no theory
of glacier erosion can the cirques be due to the tem-
perature or snowfall conditions obtaining there to-day.

CLASSIFICATION OF GLACIERS

There have been a number of different categories
proposed for the differing types of glaciers. It is
quite clear, as Hobbs has pointed out, that classes
which depended on knowledge gained in the European
Alps were quite unsatisfactory. The Mer de Glace
is merely the dwindling relic of one limb of the mighty
glacier which formerly filled the huge Chamonix Val-
ley. Hobbs in his book, Existing Glaciers, produced
a useful classification which took into account the

3 See the writer’s paper on this aspect of glaciation in Proceed-
ings of the Pan-Pacific Scientific Congress (Tokyo, 1926); with
five block diagrams.

135

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

method by which the glaciers were nourished, and also
the relation of relic-glaciers to their original shape and
size. Priestley and Wright in their large memoir
(based on their research while on the Scott expedi-
tion of 1910-13) have welded previous classifications
into a comprehensive scheme, and this, with some
- modifications, the present writer believes to be the best
advanced so far.

Priestley and Wright divide glaciers into three major
classes :

CLass A
FORMATIONS OF THE AREA OF PREDOMINANT SUPPLY
Types Synonyms

Ice cap type (Hobbs)

Continental Ice ...... or
Greenland type

Island Ice

Highland Ice

Sindh oe ove Nivation (Hobbs)
poowernr lice... os... Glacieret (Taylor)

Crass B
FORMATIONS OF THE AREA OF PREDOMINANT MOVEMENT
Types Synonyms

(a) Wall-sided glaciers (a) Curtain glaciers (Taylor)
(b) Valley glaciers (0,) Dendritic Hobbs
Transection
Outlet (Taylor)
(b,) Alpine type (Heim)
Cliff (Taylor)
136

ICE SHEETS: AND GLACIERS

Crass C
FORMATIONS OF THE AREA OF PREDOMINANT WASTAGE
Types Synonyms

Expanded Foot Ice
Ice Tongues Afloat
Piedmont Ice Alaskan type (Werth)
Confluent Ice
Avalanche Ice
Ciass D

Type Synonym
Shelf Ice Barrier Ice

These classes are illustrated in Figure Io.

Continental ice in Antarctica is of gigantic size,
probably covering four million square miles. No other
similar example occurs, though the ice cap in Green-
land is of the same general form. Smaller examples
occur in Iceland, Norway and the Arctic Islands.

Highland ice is defined as a comparatively thin ice
sheet conforming to the undulations of the land be-
neath. It is not common in East Antarctica, but an
example occurs near Cape Adare. (See Figure 19.)

Island ice is a sheet of ice covering an island, usually
with a regular domed surface. They are common off
Queen Mary Land.

Cirque ice may be confined to the nivation hollow
which has been sapped into the side of a scarp, or the
snowfall may increase and hence the cirque glacier may
spill down hill. Cirque-erosion is due primarily to

137

HIGHLAND JCE

—_— CpN Gath Tat Ait, 4,

CIRQUE ICE
cD #Y_AND SPILLOVER

VIEW OF =

CURTAIN GLACIERS
HANGING ON WALL

CROSS SECTIONS.
G- VALLEY GLACIER
H- CURTAIN GLACIER

BiG. 19.—SKETCHES ILLUSTRATING THE CLASSIFICATION
OF GLACIERS.

All are sections, except F, J, K and L. (Mainly based on
Priestley and Wright.)

ICHh SHEETS AND GLACIERS

nivation and not to pressure or rasping by the glacier.

Curtain Glaciers—Examples are present on the north
side of the Taylor Valley near Solitary Rocks. The
glaciers are usually stagnant, and often override de-
bris, instead of excavating a valley (see Figure 19
ae ey.

Valley Glaciers Apparently Priestley and Wright
include both large and small glaciers, which have
carved out a valley, under this general head. The pres-
ent writer prefers to subdivide them according to their
size and slope, etc. Thus we have among valley
glaciers :

Outlet glaciers—large glaciers of significance in drain-
ing the surplus of the Continental Ice to the sea.
Transection glaciers—tributaries which have linked
adjacent outlet glaciers, e.g., near Knob Head and

south of Mount Suess.

Dendritic glaciers—Hobbs’ terms for small tributary
glaciers, more or less isolated from the main valley
glacier, to which they originally were feeders. These
may be graded if they have cut down their valleys
to the level of the main valley, or discordant if they
hang above the main valley. Many cliff and curtain
glaciers are of this latter type. It is clear that some
glaciers are intermediate in character and can be
classified differently according to the stress laid on
one or the other criterion.

Expanded Foot Glacier.—The ice expands below the
main outlet valley into a vacant valley below. This

139

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

form is present in the empty main valley below the
Taylor Glacier. Blue Glacier (see K, Figure 19) to
some extent expands on entering the sea.

Ice tongues need little description. They may be
simple or end in several “tonguelets,’’ or may be asym-
metrical as at the snout of the Ferrar Glacier (see K,
Figure 19).

Piedmont Ice-—Broad areas of ice at low level
usually fed by one or two valley glaciers. Their
crevasses are generally along the long axis of the ice
sheet. Sometimes (as in Bowers Piedmont) they are
relatively stagnant, without supply from glaciers.

Confluent Ice-——lIce sheets due to the confluence of
several ice tongues but held together by a land barrier
(see L, Figure 19). They are not common.

Shelf ice or ice shelf is a broad sheet of ice due
to extensions of land ice, with or without interstitial
sea-ice; or it may be due to the accumulation of snow
upon old sea-ice. In Figure 19, at M, is shown an early
stage of the composite type (with land- and sea-ice).
At N is a later stage when snow has obliterated the
difference in levels. At O is an example which has col-
lected mainly upon banks or low islands.

THE GREAT OUTLET GLACIERS

In my sledge journeys during the summers of IQII
and 1912 I investigated the characteristics of four
outlet glaciers, each of which presented features of
special interest. Thus the Mackay Glacier was un-
usually broad, and flowed through an “archipelago” of

nunataks and nunakols. It reached the sea by several
140

fee Shae ho AND GLACIERS

snouts, one of which formed the Mackay Ice Tongue.
The Ferrar Glacier was simpler in plan and occupied
the finest valley. It offered a relatively unbroken slope
to the Plateau and was joined in Siamese-twin fashion
to the Taylor Glacier. The latter was stagnant and its
empty lower valley has already been referred to. The
Koettlitz Glacier was the largest of the four and of-
fered an unrivaled study of the effects of thaw-waters
and surface weathering on a broad surface of rela-
tively stagnant glacier. A detailed description of a
traverse of the Ferrar Glacier will give a good
idea of their characters (see Figure 8).
Their positions and dimensions are as follows:

oh Approx. Approx

Megie Position, | Length, | Width, |Height of i iets

S) Pat Miles Miles | Plateau, |**“°T#8°

ees Slope

Moettlitz.....| “78. 30'— 45 5 to. 12 5000 I in 45
77° 50°

Pesrat <2. 7 AE 50 6 6000 PtoaeG

Sy ROT 2's se 77° A 30* 5 to 12 6000 I in 30

Mackay 2...) 37 30 6 to 10 4000 I in 40
* Has retreated 20 miles from the sea.

It will be noticed that the grades are by no means
steep. Usually for long stretches the glacier is nearly
level, and then a considerable rise is encountered where
the glacier flows over some sub-glacial and nearly
worn-down bar (riegel). Here are numerous cre-
vasses, which also occur opposite the tributary glaciers,
owing to the thrust of these latter upon the ice of the
main glacier. Were it not for these icefalls and tribu-

IAI

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

tary crevasses, the ascent of these outlet glaciers would
be a comparatively easy task. |

THE FERRAR OUTLET GLACIER

We were landed by the “Terra Nova’ off Butter
Point on the twenty-seventh of January, I911. We
sledged westward over sea-ice for four and one-half
miles until we reached the center of the snout of the
Outlet Glacier. The latter was only three feet above
the sea-ice at this point. The peculiar tongue of the
Glacier along the Bowers Piedmont is shown in Figure
ro at kK

The valley of the lower Ferrar Glacier is about four
miles wide and extends southwest for about thirty
miles. The northern face is a marvelous wall-like cliff,
two thousand to three thousand feet above the glacier,
as stated previously, as straight and smooth as if planed
by a giant carpenter. On the south side the wall is
breached by tributary glaciers coming in from the
Blue Glacier and the snow slopes of Mount Lister.

The chief features of the lower portion of one of
these huge glaciers can best be realized by a description
of a traverse of the Ferrar Glacier across the snout.

Center to South.—At its mouth the Ferrar Glacier
is bounded by -bare cliffs with the normal angle of
about 33°, which reach a height of three or four thou-
sand feet. The glacier end is from three to six feet
above sea level and is obviously not contributing much
in the way of icebergs. Our camp was on the sea-ice
at the junction. From the camp I made a rapid trav-
erse to the southern slopes which further proved that

142

ICE SHEETS AND GLACIERS

the glacier was nearly stagnant, though it seems to
me that some differential movement is shown. Indeed,
some movement was indicated by the stakes inserted
by Wright and Debenham level with Cathedral Rocks,
but the condition of the southern portion of the snout
would seem to indicate that it is not transmitted in this
portion of the glacier. The surface was seamed by
numerous channels and cut into small pinnacles and
thaw pools in a manner which showed that it had not
altered its position for many years. On the northern
side, however, there was a striking ridge of heaped
up pressure-pinnacles which lead me to believe that
there is motion in this moiety of the glacier. The
sea-ice was free from the pressure ridges which we
saw in Granite Harbor, hence the movement is less
than in the Mackay Glacier.

After walking for about half a mile over the sea-ice,
south from our camp, I was surprised to find a pro-
longation of the Glacier extended as a lateral tongue
for four miles along the southern shores. It was neces-
sary to cross this to reach the hill slopes. After cross-
ing half a mile of the tongue, I reached the first mo-
raine heap. There was no very definite arrangement
of the débris along continuous ridges, but here and
there oval piles of stone and gravel were scattered
about the glacier. The ice was usually melted into a
pool at their bases. The first moraine heap was seventy
yards long and about ten feet high. It showed an ex-
traordinary mingling of powder and large blocks, of
which the latter were all somewhat rounded. Among
the stones were specimens of gneiss, dolerite, felspar,

143

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

porphyry, “Shap granite” and a few bowlders resem-
bling troctolite. A few small striz were visible on
some bowlders. The latter varied in size from four
feet in diameter down to fine powder. At the side
were pools filled with yellowish water. Here was one
of the few occurrences of fine silt which I observed.
Other heaps occurred close by, of irregular shape and
not quite so high. About seventy yards away to the
west appeared another ridge and between were a few
big blocks. Possibly there was moraine between cov-
ered by the ice, but the lack of débris on other glaciers
makes me doubt it. The southern margin of the glacier
was intersected by numerous small streams. Here on
January 28th, 1911, the main stream was two feet wide
and about one inch deep. There was, however, much
greater flow along the northern bank of the glacier.
There was an interesting zoning in the character of
the débris covering the valley slopes hereabout. Next
to the glacier was a belt at a low angle consisting of
clayey silt containing stones one or two inches long.
A hundred yards south this deposit had become a sort
of gravel meal which is very characteristic of Ant-
arctic surfaces. Then came a belt of sharp shingle or
angular gravel, each piece being about two inches long
with very little powder visible. Above this (to the
south) were the coarser blocks, which became fairly
continuous at about four hundred yards from the gla-
cier edge. Here I was about two hundred feet above
the ice. Just below the granite erratics, which were
up to four feet in length, though mostly less than one
foot, was a large patch of moss about sixty feet long

144

(Ch SHEETS AND GLACIERS

and fifteen feet wide. There were apparently two gen-
era present, one reminding me of the alga Ulva.

Next day I climbed up the hill slopes just north of
the snout of the Ferrar Glacier to a height of two
thousand five hundred feet. The rock was a flaky
gray granite with numerous dark dykes. The diabase
morainic material of the ancient Ferrar Glacier seemed
to reach about 1,900 feet above the present surface of
the glacier, and in the lower portions of the climb were
numerous erratics of garnet gneiss, pegmatite and
varieties of basalt (see Figure 15).

At my highest point I was well above the “shoulder”
of the Kukri Hills though not near their summit,
which is here about 3,500 feet. I could see that the
hanging “curtain” glacier alongside originated in a
nearly level snow field. A sharp arete separated its
snow field from another to the west. Undoubtedly the
upper slopes of the Kukri Hills form a sort of very flat
roof-ridge. The resemblance is indeed very close to an
old roof of galvanized iron where the individual sheets
have sagged down between the rafters. Each of the
depressions is a snow field occupying a shallow, elon-
gated cirque. In fact these are evidently the senile
cirques of the Ice Flood Age.

Traverse up the Center—Here as elsewhere the
lower glacier surface is much dissected by thaw water,
etc., while the upper reaches are of hard blue ice. The
glacier ice is in wide undulations and the surface drain-
age runs diagonally from south to north across the
glacier. About five miles above the snout on the
twenty-ninth of January there were four shallow

145

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

streams crossing the glacier in this fashion, with
water three inches below the surface. This diagonal
direction is probably due to the aspect of the midday
sun, which eats back the “‘alcoves’”’ dissected in the ice
and ultimately produces a north-south channel.

Above the four small drainage streams, the surface
degenerated. During the first mile we traversed three
well-marked undulations, which were nearly abreast of
the Overflow Glacier on the south side of the Ferrar.
About one mile higher up was a relatively deep snow-
covered valley crossing the glacier. On both sides were
numerous crevasses, but the widest was less than three
feet across. Most of them had definite snow bridges
across. At our second halt we found a dead seal.

The slope higher up was not steep, only 3° as
measured roughly with my Brunton level, and the
crevasses were insignificant. The lateral moraine be-
came more prominent on the lower slopes as we
ascended the glacier. Five miles above the Overflow
the clear ice began to show through the snow cover.

At 9:00 P.M. we reached the main moraine on the
south side of the glacier between Descent Pass and
Cathedral Rocks. Here we made a depot, and pro-
ceeded west to reach the Taylor Glacier. The chief
features hereabout were the beautiful tessellations on
the north side of the Ferrar. These products of soli-
fluction indicated that a heavy moraine covered the
base of the northern cliffs. (See Figure 8.)

We then had a stiff pull up the glacier, about 5°
for a mile. The glacier ice was split into rough rec-
tangles by cracks, which, however, did not hinder our

146

(CE SHEETS AND GLACIERS

progress. A fine low-level tributary enters at grade
just beyond Cathedral Rocks. The majority of the
other tributaries have not entered at grade since the
main glacier was some two thousand feet thicker.

On the evening of the thirty-first of January
we reached the top of the steeper portion of the Lower
Ferrar and found ourselves on a small plateau about
3,200 feet above sea level. On the south it received
its main supply from the South Arm. From the west
it receives no supply, as all the ice from the upper
glacier seems to enter the Taylor Glacier (see Figure
a

There is no rock outcrop along the Ice Divide
which separates the Lower Ferrar drainage from the
Taylor Glacier drainage. The older maps showing
the so-called Upper Ferrar* draining into the Lower
Ferrar are quite incorrect, though it is possible that
a little ice may flow almost due north from South Arm
into Taylor Valley as Priestley suggests.

In my opinion the two glaciers are “apposed”’ like
Siamese twins. No doubt at some earlier period there
was a flow across the divide and at a later date the
two moieties, Ferrar and Taylor, will be quite dis-
connected as they were in the earlier phases of the
glacial hemicycle.

THe BEARDMORE GLACIER

No account of Antarctic glaciation should omit
some reference to the largest glacier in the world. The

4The so-called Upper Ferrar Glacier is really the upper half
of the Taylor Glacier. (See Figure 15.)

147

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

length of the Beardmore is about one hundred miles
from Mount Hope at the base of Mount Darwin (see
Figure 6). Its breadth varies from about eight miles
near the bottom to twenty-five miles at the top. On the
plateau the Ice Divide, where reached on the four trav-
erses so far made by means of these outlet glaciers
~ which cut through the horst, is only a few hundred
miles from the coast. Hence most of the ice of the
Plateau must escape on the other coasts, i.e. to the
west of the horst, and not by way of glaciers like
the Beardmore. A very noticeable feature is the gran-
ite bar or knob of Mount Hope which lies in the outlet
of the’ glacter jand is 2,750 feet high. Its origmgis
obscure. The slope of the glacier is not very steep,
being only seven thousand feet in one hundred miles or
seventy feet to the mile. Markedly crevassed areas
occur northeast of the Cloudmaker (84° 30’) and south-
east of Mount Darwin (86° 40’). Wright believes
that the velocity of the glacier is less than three feet
a day in its most swiftly moving part. Little moraine
material is visible on the glacier surface. Only small
tributaries are received on the west side, but Keltie and
Mill glaciers bring large supplies of ice from the east
side near the upper portal. It is of interest that cirques
occur in the region north of the Cloudmaker, and some
of these, in Wright’s opinion, have been overwhelmed
by the great glacier.

THe HERBERTSON CLIFF GLACIER

This may be taken as a type of the “dendritic”
tributary glaciers (see Figure 20). It enters ap-
148

ICE SHEETS AND GLACIERS

proximately at grade, and still supplies some ice to the
Ferrar Glacier just south of its snout. Its supply of
snow and ice occupies a saddle-hollow or large cirque
above the valley slope, down which it descends with
some crevasses and falls. It reaches the Ferrar Glacier
in a series of large ice steps. Apparently it is strong
enough to push the main glacier to one side for about
one hundred yards, and it here raises a series of low

Fic. 20.—THE HERBERTSON GLACIER PRESSING INTO THE
FERRAR GLACIER ON THE LEFT.

Looking east from the hill slope.

ridges in the main glacier. However, there are in-
dications that a permanent tide-crack or stream sepa-
rates the two, and it is in the arrangement of the pres-
sure-ridges that the chief interest lies.

The snout of this small glacier is about one quarter
of a mile wide, and along its western side is a well-
marked silt-fan or delta. The lower portion of the
Herbertson Glacier was at an angle of 27° and it was
broken into steps each about twelve feet high. In the

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ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

main Ferrar Glacier there were three or four low
ridges due to the lateral pressure, which were about
six feet only above the general level and very broad.
These pressure ridges in the Ferrar Glacier were di-
rectly opposite the Herbertson Glacier, and not some-
what downstream as one would expect if the Ferrar
were moving. Evidently the Ferrar Glacier is nearly
stagnant along this wall, as indeed the ice tongue fixed
to Bowers Piedmont a little lower down also indicates.

I have elsewhere drawn attention to the similarity
in structure between these “ice-steps’’ and ridges due
to lateral pressure against the Ferrar and the fault
blocks and graben of southeast Australia. It may be
that pressure from the direction of New Zealand
against the resistant shield of Western Australia has

broken the Victorian Highlands into a similar series .

of fault blocks or horsts, as the topography indicates.

GLACIER TONGUES

Four of these peculiar structures were examined
by the writer in some detail. Six miles south of Cape
Evans is the well-known tongue which is probably the
sole example on Ross Island and may therefore be
called the Ross Island Tongue (see J, Figure 19).
Across MacMurdo Sound is the tongue forming the
southeast extremity of the Ferrar Glacier. It differs
considerably from the other three in that it is stagnant
and asymmetric. In Granite Harbor on the southern
coast is the small Harbor Tongue which is connected
with the Wilson Piedmont. Finally the most impres-
sive of the four is the Mackay Tongue which occupies

150

E—

ICE. SHEETS AND GLACIERS

a large portion of inner Granite Harbor. Much larger
examples are known to the north of MacMurdo Sound;
i.e. Drygalski in latitude 75° S. and the enormous
tongues explored by Mawson’s expedition near the
marareciic Citcle (66°. S.). “(See L, Figure: to.)

The chief dimensions, etc., of some of these Tongues
are given in the table following:

Name | Locality |/eneth,/Breadth,/Meight) Origin
Ross Island |nr. C. Evansinow 4 | 1% too |Glacterand drift
Reerar i. .. «. ag? 2G S, 314 1 (av.)| 50 |Chiefly relic
machen. 2... 77° S: 1% \% 20 |\Glacierand drift
Moeckay) ...1 76° 57'S. ome ee 200 /|Glacier end
Nordenskjold| 76° 10’ S. Se ee 100 at,
Mrvealsky | 75° 30 S. 38 |14 200 y niaZ
Minnis ..... ba S. 80 |18 200 a te

Tue Ross IsLtanp TONGUE

Early in 1g11 this tongue was about six miles long
and from one to one and a half miles wide (see J,
Figure 19). For a large part it was about one hundred
feet above the sea, but this elevation varied consider-
ably, for the surface is by no means level, but consists
of a series of regular undulations running across the
main axis. The difference in height between the top
and bottom of these undulations may be as much as
fifty feet. The sides are also as a rule lower than the
central axis, and where a furrow reached the side it
might be only fifteen or twenty feet above the sea-ice.

The surface of the tongue consisted chiefly of solid
ice with comparatively few crevasses on the south side

151

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

but more on the northern side. On the twenty-fourth
of January, 1911, I crossed it near the end and noted
that it was cracked into large hexagonal areas and I
wrote in my notebook, “It is marvellous that it has
not gone out.” On the first of March, 1911, about one
and one half miles broke off and drifted across Mac-
Murdo Sound to remain for a while on the western
coast near Granite Harbor. (See Figure 8.)

We crossed it again without difficulty about halfway
along its length on the eleventh of April, 1911. We
found only a few crevasses more than one foot wide.
Some areas were much worse than others and small
irregular crevasses had made it look like a dish of
drying starch. But there was no “Skauk” (or field of
crevasses) as at the root of the Mackay Tongue. The
snowdrifts piled up against the sides during winter but
these were carried away with the sea-ice in the summer.
This tongue helps to lock the sea-ice into the bays near
its head.

The undulating surface is probably connected with
the method of formation of the tongue. Perhaps it is
due to the ice “plug” being pushed through a restricted
rocky gully or cirque at its root. It is difficult to ac-
count for these undulations as due to the blizzard drifts,
for the drifts take the form of beautifully smooth
wedges. The undulations are from ten to eighty feet
high, and there are four or five of them to the mile.

It seemed possible at first that each undulation might
be the expression of a year’s forward movement, for
the motion is probably greater in summer. But this is
not the full explanation, for Scott was of the opinion

152

ICE SHEETS AND GLACIERS

that it had not altered much since 1902. Considerable
accretions were, however, due to snowdrifts. This was
evident in the fresh cross sections of the stranded
tongue which we saw later near Cape Bernacchi. The
snow sections showed great folds in the layers but
were possibly only marginal accretions built up from
ancient cornices.

I am of the opinion, however, that the tongue is
partly a relic of piedmont-ice buttressed by a submarine
ridge or moraine near the coast. For the most part it
is floating, as there is no tide crack between it and the
sea-ice. In the past it was moving outwards and we
see signs of this in the large undulations, but there
seems no “‘driving-power” to cause these nowadays,
for there is little ice immediately behind the tongue.
Blizzard snows contribute somewhat to its substance,
but do not obliterate the deep furrows which form
the typical indented margin of the tongue. (The
structure of the Drygalski Tongue is referred to in
the next section.)

fue Ress lee-SHEetr

This structure has aroused more interest than any
other single glacier unit in Antarctica. No colossal
sheets of ice of this type are known in Arctic seas,
possibly because the temperatures and conditions of
snow supply are very different in the north. Little is
known of the other two large examples, i.e. the Filch-
ner Ice Shelf at the head of the Weddell Sea, and the
Shackleton Ice Shelf near Mawson’s West Base (longi-
tude 100° E.). The Ross Shelf occupies the southern

153

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

end of the Ross Sea (see Figure 6). It is triangular
in plan and is about five hundred miles wide by five
hundred miles deep. The terminal face runs nearly
east and west in latitude 78° S. Here it effectively
bars the progress of ships and here only is the term
Ross Barrier really applicable. This “sea wall’ varies
in height from six to one hundred and sixty feet above
the sea.

The northern edge is floating for most of its extent,
as is shown by the fact that the “Nimrod,’ when
moored to the ice, moved up and down with the tide in
unison with the ice shelf. Captain Scott in the hut
called our attention to the extreme tenuity of this
sheet of ice. For if it be assumed that it is about seven
hundred feet thick, this is a very small dimension com-
pared with its extent of one hundred and fifty thousand
square miles. He compared it in shape to a sheet of
paper floating on the surface of the sea. The surface
is slightly undulating, but where it approaches land at
the margins, or where glaciers enter it, it is thrown into
pressure waves some forty feet high and one or two
miles from crest to crest. Its rate of movement has
been determined from the movement of a depot laid
down by Scott in 1903. The rate is about four hun-
dred and ninety-two yards a year in the portion one
hundred miles south of Ross Island. Here also it was
determined that eight feet two inches of snow (with
a density of 0.5) had been deposited in six and one
half years. :

Sir Edgeworth David has given a good deal of at-
tention to the origin of the Ross Ice Shelf. He bases

154

a Se

i Ss eee eee

fer. SHEETS AND GLACIERS

his conclusions largely on the character of the confluent
ice just north of the Drygalski Tongue (see L, Fig-
mre 19).

Here the Larsen, Reeves, Priestley, and Campbell
glaciers all send down ice which unites to form a
more or less uniform sheet with the northern edge of
the Drygalski Tongue. Strains have produced vertical

ye a eres
ae heft on Fluenf- se IEP
! tater ‘ce pricar Maron Key NW,

DRYGALSH
> TONGVE

450 miles eae

Fic. 21.—A VERTICAL SECTION THROUGH “CONFLUENT

ICE” AND DryGALSKI TONGUE (SEE Fic. 19 aT L). B.

VERTICAL SECTION ALONG FRONT FACE OF Ross ICE SHELF,
LOOKING NORTH.

(Both after David.)

cracks in this sheet, and in places it seems to be com-
posed only of thin sea-ice, for David found salt water
at the base of certain curious gullies or dongas in
the ice surface. In the confluent ice, the thicker por-
tions correspond to where the ice streams enter from
the glaciers behind the sheet (see A, Figure 21).
David considers that the Ross Ice Shelf is merely
confluent ice on a grander scale. He shows a cross

155

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

section of the Ross Shelf (see B, Figure 21), which
suggested that the higher portions of the shelf are
sunk deeper in the sea. The highest point noted on
the Barrier in 1908 was 240 feet above the sea. If we
assume that the density of the ice is eight-tenths that
of water, then the lower edge of the ice will be deep
sunk in the water as shown in the diagram. If the
density is greater (nine-tenths of water), then the
lower edge of the shelf is shown by the lower broken
line. These higher portions may therefore represent
the portions directly fed to the Ross Shelf by huge
outlet glaciers of the south, such as the Barne, Shackle-
ton, and Beardmore glaciers. The regions between may
be largely composed of snow, which fell on the shelf,
or in part of frozen sea-ice. He compares the whole
structure to a shield formed of a wickerwork frame and
covered with hide. Here the rods represent the glacier
tongues, the smaller osiers the pressure-ridges, while
the drift and fallen snow represent the hide. This
theory agrees with the section shown in Figure 19 at N.
Obviously portions of the Ross Shelf may resemble (or
have formerly resembled) Figure 19 at M. Where
Amundsen’s and Byrd’s headquarters are situated, it
seems likely that the structure locally is like Figure 19
at O. The whole front has retreated about thirty miles
since the survey of Ross. At the Ice Flood Epoch it is
likely that the Barrier was one thousand feet above sea
level, and at that time it was probably resting largely on
the sea floor. This point is also discussed in the next —
chapter.

GHAPTER: VITI
OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

BATHY METRY

N the following brief account of various character-

istics of Antarctic oceanography obviously only a
few of the leading features can be discussed. Perhaps
the most complete work in this field is that done by the
German expedition of 1902 under Professor Drygalski,
and much of the following data on currents is derived
from his research. The effect of conditions in Ant-
arctica upon the climates of the settled lands of the
world, more particularly those in the south temperate
areas, is profound. We have seen that with the ex-
ception of the South Victoria Horst, the continental
coast as a whole consists of the icy margins of the
huge Ice Cap which end in abrupt walls. From these
margins break off the great tabular icebergs, to be
considered later. Fringing these walls in winter is a
belt of pack ice, which breaks away in summer and is
carried north to chill the waters of the South Pacific,
South Atlantic, and South Indian oceans. Currents
carry this chilled water almost to the equator, notably
on the western coasts of the southern continents. There
is every indication, that the changes from drought
years to good years in southern settlements are in no

157

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

small degree controlled by the train of events in distant
Antarctica.*

Mawson has pointed out that soundings are espe-
cially valuable in connection with the possibility of
islands in Antarctic waters. Where sea and land are
covered with ice it is very easy to miss an island, but
soundings should show where such land-forms are
probable. (I have already referred to the shallow
soundings near the site of Wilkes’ doubtful landfalls. )
Sonic depth-finders, using electrical signals and the
time of return of their echoes, are especially suited for
such work. Moreover, the delineation of the sub-
merged continental shelf gives a real indication of
the boundary of the rock areas beneath the great con-
tinental ice cap, and this again can be ascertained with
some accuracy by careful soundings.

The soundings in East Antarctica reveal some curi-
ous features. I have based the diagrams in Figure 22
on that invaluable map published in 1928 by the Ameri-
can Geographical Society. The shelf around Antarctica
seems to be submerged distinctly deeper than those
around most other continents. Off the Weddell Sea
the sharp angle between the gentle continental slope
and the steep dip to the abyss lies between six hundred
and one thousand meters below the surface of the sea.
In the diagram the submarine contour for five hundred
meters is charted, so far as our data permit, for three
especially interesting regions. In general this contour

1 See my discussion, “Climatic Relations Between Antarctica and
Australia,” Problems of Polar Research (Amer. Geog. Soc., New
York, 1928).

158

OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

{Nitin
OT

|

Fic. 22.—-BATHYMETRIC MAPS OF East ANTARCTICA.
(Based on the large map produced by the American Geographical

Society in 1928.)
159

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

lies less than fifty miles from the coast, or at any rate
from the edge of the ice cap. But in the three localities
mapped, off Queen Mary Land, off Adelie Land, and
in the Ross Sea, these shallow soundings extend much
farther out to sea. Furthermore, in all three cases
there is deeper water separating a more or less wide
submarine ridge from the coastal shelf. Off Queen
Mary Land this ridge is three hundred miles long and
thirty miles wide. A similar structure with similar
dimensions lies off the coast of Adelie Land. A large
part of the Ross Sea is unusually shallow for southern
waters. Here a large submerged plateau or bank 500
miles by 140 miles extends from Cape Adare to Edward
VII Land, with several knobs on its surface which
approach within some 250 meters of the surface. I
have ventured to name these interesting land-forms
after Captain J. K. Davis, Sir Douglas Mawson, and
Commander Harry Pennell, R.N. The latter com-
manded the “Terra Nova’’ on her Antarctic voyages,
carried out much oceanographic work in the Ross Sea,
and died in command of his ship early in the World
War.

The reason for this condition of the sea floor is not
obvious. Possibly these shallow areas, which roughly
fringe the continent, are of the nature of vast terminal
moraines, deposited when the great ice sheet extended
from one to three hundred miles farther from the
Pole. It is rather a coincidence that the largest ice
shelf and the largest glacier tongues are associated with
these abnormally shallow seas. Thus off Queen Mary
Land is the Shackleton Ice Shelf, which ends in an ice.

160

OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

tongue two hundred miles from the main Ice Cap (see
Figure 22). At the other end of the submerged ridge
is a large ice shelf to the west of Davis Sea. Off
Adelie Land is that curious pair of giant tongues, the
Mertz and Ninnis glaciers, of which the latter is so ir-
regular that it has some of the appearance of a relic of
a sheet of ice shelf. So also the great Ross Ice Shelf
lies just south of the submerged plateau of the Ross
Sea. At the Ice Flood Epoch possibly the sea waters

LLILL

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60 50 4
Fic. 23.—VERTICAL SECTION OF OCEAN NORTH OF GAUSS-
BERG, SHOWING STRATIFICATION OF WATER.

Warm waters are dotted. Depths in meters. (After Drygalski.)

were locked up in the enlarged ice cap to such a degree
that the shallowest part of the Pennell Bank was only
two hundred feet below the then level of the sea. There
is little doubt that the much larger Ross Ice Shelf at
that epoch would be driven high out of the water over
this shallow bank.

OcEAN CURRENTS

Drygalski shows that the effective cooling of Ant-
arctic waters is confined to certain layers of the
southern ocean. He gives a section of the Indian

161

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Ocean, from Mauritius to the Gaussberg (approxi-
mately along longitude 80° E.), which I reproduce in
the adjoining figure. There is seen to be a massive
intermediate layer of warm water from the tropics,
which separates cold layers above and below both flow-
ing from the Antarctic to the equator. There is an
upper cold layer (of temperature —1.8° C.) about
four hundred meters thick which gradually sinks below
the warm surface waters to the north of 55° S. latitude
to a depth of one thousand meters. Then, below this
is a layer of tropical water possibly some two or three
degrees warmer which is about 1,200 meters thick.
Then below this again, reaching to the bottom, 4,000 to
5,000 meters, is a mass of somewhat colder “bottom
water” due to a mixing of the very cold upper layer
with the tropical water. It is slowly making its way
toward the equator. The warm layer reaches to the
shoulder of the continental shelf, but does not touch the
icy walls of the ice-cap some fifty or one hundred miles
farther south. Its salinity is considerably higher than
that of the cold layers. There is a thin indefinite layer
of surface water, which differs from place to place in
regard to temperature and salinity. It is derived in
part from the melting of pack ice and icebergs.

The dominant winds play a great part in the direc-
tion of the upper layers of water. Around the Ant-
arctic these blow fairly steadily from east to west.
The Ferrel Effect also tends to deviate the currents to
the left. Hence this cool surface layer about two hun-
dred meters deep tends to hold the drift ice together,
and to keep it near the continent. As regards deep sea

162

es ~ =F

ae ae eee

OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

deposits, there is a special southern zone of glacio-
marine sediments, which have been deposited from
glacier ice, icebergs, etc., during several hundred thou-
sand years. This zone extends as far north as the ice
drifts. Diatoms are very plentiful in Antarctic waters
but they are shrouded by the larger bulk of the glacial
débris. However, just north of this latter zone is a
belt of diatom-ooze, which in its turn extends some-
what farther northward below cold currents. The
warmer waters supply globigerina (foraminiferal)
ooze, and this extends farther south below warm cur-
rents. To quote Drygalski, “the distribution of the
bottom sediments furnishes evidence of the develop-
ment of the present and former currents.”’

FORMATION OF SEA-ICE

According to C. S. Wright, the first stage in the
formation of sea-ice in the open sea is the production
of myriads of small ice plates in the body of the water.
These form a thick scum, and are akin in origin to the
frazil ice which forms in fresh-water rivers, or at-
tached to ropes in cooling sea water. The ice is much
less saline than the sea water, and the saltier water is
squeezed out, as it were, and sinks. This frazil ice
appears on the surface of the Antarctic seas about the
end of March. The crystals are squarish in shape and
up to half an inch across. The layer of horizontal
plates grows thicker and forms a feltlike mass. It is
not rigid owing to included layers of salty liquid. The
writer vividly remembers Captain Scott jumping up
and down on new sea-ice, only three or four inches

163

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

thick, to test its strength. The ice undulated like rub-
ber, but did not break.

Later ice crystals in the sea develop as vertical plates
having a somewhat triangular form. Often there is a
layer of square plates about two inches thick above a
layer of more or less vertical plates which is some
eight or ten inches in thickness. It is these wedges of
vertical plates which give rise to the fibrous appearance
of new sea-ice, and this is partly due to the layers of
air entangled between the crystals. A very important
result of this structure is that sea-ice tends rather
readily to break into cakes along these vertical planes of
weakness. On the under side of older ice there is a
great tendency for melting to occur irregularly. Holes
one or two inches deep penetrate the ice, primarily along
these planes of weakness, where the ice is particularly
saline.

David and Priestley recorded the history of the sea-
ice in MacMurdo Sound off Cape Royds in 1908. At
the end of February Pancake Ice developed from
countless ice crystals which had given the sea the ap-
pearance of paraffin wax. “Little by little these crystals
felted themselves together into small cakes, which
jostled by the gentle breezes continually collided along
their growing edges. The latter being very flexible
became gradually turned up to form raised rims, and
the whole pancake became slightly saucer shaped.”
Often a large pancake would be formed from a lot of
little pancakes jammed together.

Very curious structures called “ice flowers’ develop
during a sudden fall of temperature, when the sea-ice

164

OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

freezes rapidly. On March 16th the sea was at a tem-
perature of 20° F. while the air was about 6° F. The
sea was covered with frost smoke ‘as though it had
been boiling.’ On March roth the temperature fell to
—o9° F., the surface froze rapidly, and a splendid crop
of “flowers” resulted. Later as the temperature rose
the centers of the flowers melted, for they were formed
of saline solutions squeezed up from below, while the
“tips” of the flowers persisted longer as they were due
in part to the frost smoke. Some of the “petals” of
the flowers were plates two inches across.

The ice over MacMurdo Sound was nine to ten
inches thick during the early days of March, 1908, but
blew out with the blizzard mentioned above. The next
ice layer grew to a thickness of eighteen inches, when
it was removed early in April, except a patch which
held in near Cape Royds. A few days later tue final
freezing occurred which persisted all the winter. The
sea-ice was about five feet thick at the end of July, and
grew to a thickness of six or seven feet by the end of
September. Thereafter the cold air had no great effect
on the water beneath the ice, which protected it from
further cooling. It stayed at a temperature of about
29° F. although the air only six feet above it was
ae tetaperature Of — 51° F., i.e. S0° colder. Durmeg
the winter I often thought that a diving-bell would be
a very comfortable dwelling place, at any rate as far as
temperature was concerned.

165

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Bay Ice or Fast Ice

The general principles governing the formation of
bay ice are much the same as in the case of pack ice.
But owing to the proximity of land, a number of
special forms are developed. These include pressure
ridges, shear cracks, and cloven-hoof ice. The ice foot
also may be briefly considered here. All these features
were well shown in Granite Harbor, from which the
following examples are taken.

A prominent feature in the sea-ice (near land) is
the presence of permanent breaks to which Scott and
Wilson gave the name “shear crack.” These are due
primarily to the tension in the sea-ice existing between
two islands, or an island or cape or an ice tongue and
cape. The sea-ice is of course raised or lowered by
the tide, and is affected no doubt by currents and winds
to a lesser degree. Thus there were numerous fairly
permanent examples off Cape Evans. Their features
were all much the same. The two edges of the broken
sea-ice (somewhere near six feet thick) would grind
together and large fragments would fall between the
moving masses. In places the adjoining edges were
pressed together so strongly that the edges upturned,
forming a wall of ice six feet high. Even in the
middle of winter one could always see open water in
these shear cracks, which were accordingly favorite
places for seals.

An interesting series of nearly a dozen shear cracks
due to the pressure of the Mackay Tongue was ob-
served in Granite Harbor. They are shown in Figure

166

————————————

OCEANOGRAPHY, AND SEA-ICE

24. The Mackay Tongue moves in summer nearly a

yard a day. Such motion obviously prevents bay ice
from being locked to the land, and makes it probable
that much of the bay ice is not more than a few seasons
old. The crack running northwest from Cape Geology
was up to twenty feet wide in places with islands of
ice floating within it, which made it possible to cross

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Fic. 24.—BLock DIAGRAM OF GRANITE HARBOR-
(By permission of John Murray.)

with sledges. Some cracks had peculiar deeply serrate
edges which indicated where they had been torn apart
by the tension.

PRESSURE RIDGES

These were very interesting structures due to the
pressure either of land-ice or sea-ice upon capes, ete.
The writer made a careful study of a set of fifteen

167

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

such ridges just off Cape Geology (see Figure 24).
They were from one hundred to three hundred feet
long and from three to ten feet above the level of the
ice. Each ridge closely resembles a capsized canoe, and
they recall the earth folds in the Juras or Appalachians.
Between the ridges were their complements, the Pres-
sure Pools, where the sea-ice was warped down below
water level. The largest ridge was where the pressure
was greatest, i.e. where Cape Geology projected far-
thest. The ridges were parallel to each other, with
their axes about northeast-southwest, or nearly at right
angles to the shear cracks described above. This six-
feet ice can be buckled into remarkably sharp folds—
but usually the apex of the fold cracks under the strain.
These ridges changed somewhat in form during the
month we were surveying Granite Harbor. Other ex-
amples have been noted on a larger scale where the
Ross Ice Shelf presses onto Cape Crozier, and just
south of Cape Evans where a small glacier enters the
Bay Ice near Turk’s Head.

In very sheltered bays, such as the drowned Punch
Bowl cirque in Granite Harbor (just southeast of the
Flat Iron in Figure 24), or again on the southeast side
of Cape Roberts, I came across peculiar forms of bay
ice, which do not seem to be described elsewhere. Here
a mass of old ice shaped just like a hoof has been
driven up into the bay presumably by pressure from
the later sea-ice. In accommodating itself to the smaller
width of its new position it has split down the center,
hence the name Cloven Hoof. In the Punch Bowl
cirque the sheet of ice was about six hundred yards

168

—

OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

wide and eight hundred yards long along the central
split. The inner end had been shoved up some six
feet by pressure from the east. The whole structure
was floating. Another example occurred just south-
west of Cape Roberts. (See Punch Bowl, Figure 24.)

Ice Foot

This structure is a narrow shelf of ice adhering to
the coast line. It varies in width from a foot or two
to a belt of ice one hundred yards wide. It forms best
on shores which have a gentle slope, and roughly speak-
ing the width depends on the extent of shallow water
within the one-fathom line.

Its formation is closely bound up with the position
of the tide crack, and with the direction of the pre-
vailing winds. As the sea-ice becomes thicker the dis-
tance of the tide crack from the shore tends to become
larger, for the maximum shear in the ice is, of course,
just where the moving sea-ice reaches the solid rock.

The sea-ice between the tide crack and the rock is,
of course, held firmly by its attachment to the latter,
and this fixed belt of sea-ice constitutes the ice foot.

From the above considerations it will appear that
the ice foot is in general wider where the shore is
shallow, and this is generally true. Also where the
shore consists of a vertical cliff there is rarely an ice
foot, and the reason is obvious, for the cliff itself forms
the logical boundary between moving ice and fixed
coast.

But the above simple explanation is complicated by
the action of wind and spray. In gales, when the tem-

169

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

perature is well below 28° F. (the freezing point of
sea water), the water congeals as soon as its motion
is arrested, and this occurs when it has been dashed
on to the ice foot. The natural consequence is that on
all exposed coasts the ice foot becomes much thicker,
often much broader and in general much less level and
less like an esplanade.

Since the ice walls at the front of a glacier are al-
most universally vertical, when they happen to reach
the sea, there is never an ice foot along a glacier coast.

Moreover, there is a very considerable elasticity in a
glacier, even though it be five hundred feet thick.
Hence there is usually no tide crack at the distal end
of a floating glacier tongue. As the proximal end is
approached, where it merges into the fixed ice over the
land, the tide crack begins to appear and close to the
root of the tongue it is as wide and striking a feature
as along a fixed piedmont glacier or a rock coast.

WIDTH OF THE Pack ICE

This varies very greatly from year to year, and this
is perhaps the chief difficulty in determining programs
of an expedition’s work. Thus the “Nimrod” in Janu-
ary, 1908, met with no pack at the mouth of the Ross
Sea, though enormous fleets of bergs were passed in
the latitude of the pack. In December or January the
pack ice is here found between latitude 66° S. and
latitude 72° S., though these limits have been exceeded
at times. When the “Terra Nova” entered the pack on
the ninth of December, 1910, we hoped to be through
it in a few days. But we were still within it on

170

|
|
|
|

OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

Christmas Day, and at times the ship (in spite of all its
buffeting of the pack) was farther from Antarctica on
a succeeding day owing to the general northward drift
of the pack. On the twenty-seventh of December we
were still drifting aimlessly in the thick pack, for
Scott was afraid to waste coal by raising steam if no
sign of a “lead” were apparent. However, towards
the evening of the twenty-ninth we began to hope that
the pack was showing similar features to those we met
on entering. Very beautiful were some of the piled-up
pressure-blocks. [I remember one of the nature of a
glacier-table. A flat-domed slab some three feet across
was perched on a slender support above the floe. Pend-
ent from the table were numerous long icicles, conse-
quent on the warm weather. The lower surface of the
table owing to repeated reflection was a beautiful ultra-
marine, which was seen through a curtain of icicles.
The whole structure reminded me of one of those
resplendent medusze which float placidly on a tropic
sea with their tentacles hanging from the fringe of
the “umbrella.”

Hereabouts the floe became thinner and more uni-
form. It was broken into wide subangular pieces with
vertical sides, and at nine o’clock we entered a wide
lane where the calm water of the “leads’’ was replaced
by short choppy waves. Then we met an area of “pan-
cake ice’ with rounded outlines and upturned edges,
and finally just at midnight we crossed several belts
of east-west brash ice and at long length entered the
open Ross Sea in latitude 69%4° S. We had traversed

175

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

490 miles of ice, though the average is 288 miles at
this season, while in 1915 the “Aurora” only met with
one mile of pack.

As experience in traveling through the pack ice has
accumulated, it is clear that the worst conditions occur

32 OF
SOUTH=

Oo
_
19)

§

Fic. 25.—VARIATIONS IN WIDTH OF PACK ICE OFF QUEEN
Mary LAnp.

Note the Shackleton Ice Shelf, possibly buttressed by glacier
ice. (After Mawson and Davis.)

on coasts facing the east and the dominant winds.

The drifts of the three ships, the ““Deutschland,” “En-

durance,”’ and ‘Aurora,’ show clearly that the ice

moves to the northwest and tends to pile up on the west

coast of the Ross Sea and on the west coast of the
ype

“Ciel ale,

Pe ee Oe a

OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

Weddell Sea. This led to the “‘marooning”’ of Scott’s
northern party at Terra Nova Bay in 1912, and made
it impossible to pick up the writer’s western party on
the same coast—though the latter party managed to get
back the shorter distance to the hut before the advent
of winter. It seems clear that ships entering either
of these seas should keep down the east side of the seas,
where open water remains much later than on the
western side.

As Priestley points out, the weather which produces
most pack ice is rather a stormy winter than a cold
winter. In Robertson Bay he watched pack ice torm-
ing and then being blown north again and again. He
states that sufficient ice to fill the Bay at least five times
was produced in 1911. In a calm cold winter, only
one layer of pack ice is formed and then freezing prac-
tically ceases. It seems likely that the excessively
windy conditions of IgII, 1912, 1913 would result in
an unusual width and massiveness of the pack ice.
Captain J. K. Davis reported continual broadening of
the pack ice off Adelie Land and westward between
I9g12 and 1914. This is shown in the annexed figure,
and elsewhere (see footnote p. 158) I discuss the bear-
ing which this change in the volume of the pack ice
may have on the climate of Australia.

Turning to the other side of Antarctica a valuable
table has been compiled by R. G. Mossman’ which
shows how the bay ice varied in Scotia Bay in the
South Orkneys during the twelve years 1903 to 1914.

2See the Geographical Journal (London), December, 1916.
173

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

This is in latitude 61° S. and the bay is two miles wide
and faces to the southeast.

YEAR ScottA Bay CLOSED | MonTHS
1 (oc es een April to November | 8
RIMGAG Ss, hiee sss May to January | 9
eRe Jit Pol May to September | 4
POMOOE Se ieicvsic ic oid June to December 7
RET GE Ste June to January | 8
LOD Lh 5. eee July and August 2
TOU e «i eee June to October 5
TOIO! 202 eee: August to November 4
TUE cst ores July to September 3
VORA 7s yn elke June to January 8
i 0) Re ae oa” June to November 6
TOMA So Ute siee June to December 7
ICEBERGS

On the evening of the eighth of December, Ig1o,
in latitude 63° 30’ we saw our first icebergs in the
shape of two silvery pyramids glistening in the setting
sun. This was about seventy miles north of where we
met the pack ice. At two o’clock on the next day there
were twenty-seven bergs visible, and this number rather
decreased as we moved south. The bergs expose more
surface both to currents and winds than does the pack
ice, which is the reason why they outstrip the pack ice
in their march to the north. Occasionally a berg
reaches Australian waters, and one was seen right in
the Australian Bight by Captain Grant Smith (in 1926,
I believe). In Arctic seas there are practically no icy
coasts as in Antarctica, and the bergs are the result
generally of the outflow of relatively small glaciers.

174

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OCEANOGRAPHY AND SEA-ICE

Hence they are much more irregular and crevassed
than the southern tabular bergs. Still the southern
examples are often tilted, owing to fragments breaking
off asymmetrically; or they may be domed and derived
perhaps from the undulations of a small glacier tongue.
Many of the bergs are traversed by huge vertical cracks,
between which portions seem to have slipped down
forming “graben,” in geological language. (These
cracks originated in the land-ice as already shown in
Figure 21.) On one occasion I saw a huge isolated
column rising one hundred feet into the air just like
the “Old Man of Hoy” and like that rock resulting
from wave erosion acting on vertical cracks. It was
attached to the adjacent tabular berg by the submerged
“ram” of the iceberg, which is such a danger to ship-
ping. Often the cracks weather into caves.

Many bergs are grounded near the Antarctic coast
and several of these were closely examined near Cape
Evans. The wonderful Tunnel Berg, of which the
photograph by Ponting has so often been reproduced
nad a varied life history. When we first saw it in
January, 1911, the berg projected about one hundred
feet above the sea-ice and was pierced by an oval tunnel
about fifty feet high and twenty feet across. I have
little doubt that this picturesque tunnel was a thaw-
water channel (cut out of the original glacier) of the
same type as we saw on the Koettlitz Glacier. This
mass of ice broke away and floated so that the “bedding
planes” (as we may term them) were now nearly ver-
tical, as also was the tunnel. During the winter we
may assume that a large fragment broke off the south

175

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

of the berg, and so it had taken up a new position by
September. The old water line on the berg is usually
indicated by a smooth concavity cut by the waters under
the surrounding pack ice.

No bergs seen in the Arctic rival those of Antarctic
seas in size. On the last voyage of the “Terra Nova”
in January, 1913, Captain Pennell passed close to a
berg twenty-one miles long (in latitude 64° 15’ S.).
But perhaps the largest recently seen was that meas-
ured by Mawson in 1912 off the Mertz Glacier, which
appears to have been forty miles long. It was seen
again next year about fifty miles to the northwest of
the glacier. Most of the bergs are formed of “cloudy
bubbly ice’ (in Priestley’s phrase) of which the typical
ice tongues are formed. The ice is, however, often
stratified showing its origin as snow in the distant past.
But sometimes true bergs formed of névé were seen.
Here the ice consists of loosely coherent grains, each
about one-sixth of an inch in diameter, with much air
between.

Priestley has classified icebergs into the following
groups : |

(a) Tabular bergs, derived from ice shelf or tongue

(b) Glacier bergs, irregular, broken by crevasses

(c) Unconformity bergs, partly blue ice, partly névé

(d) Ice Island bergs, domed bergs easily mistaken for
islands

(ce) Névé bergs, from regions of unusually heavy snowfall

(f) Weathered bergs, overturned, irregular and of ob-
scure origin

176

CHAPTER FX
CLIMATOLOGY

PoLAR CLIMATES

LL the expeditions in this century have realized
the paramount importance of a knowledge of
the meteorology and climatology of the Antarctic.
Among these the Belgian expedition included Arctow-
ski, the French expedition Rouch, the German expedi-
tions Bidlingmaier and Barkow, the Scotch expedition
Mossman, and the Swedish expedition Bodman. The
British expeditions have been accompanied by L.
Bernacchi, Sir Edgeworth David, G. Ainsworth, and
especially G. C. Simpson. The writer went south as
a government official in the Commonwealth Weather
Service and was in charge of the station while Simp-
son was sledging. C. S. Wright carried on the work
during 1912. As mentioned previously the chief aim
of Sir Hubert Wilkins’ expeditions is to make prepara-
tions for a complete meteorological survey of the Ant-
arctic continent.

While the Antarctic climate has a great bearing upon
the climates of the southern continents, the latter are
so far distant that there is no similarity in the climates
themselves. Thus Africa is 2,400 miles away, Aus-
tralia 1,800 and America about 1,100 miles from
the main mass of the southern continent. As re-

177

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

gards data we have lengthy records from the South
Orkneys (61° S.) where a station was founded by
Bruce in 1903 and has been maintained since by the
Argentine Government. Within the Antarctic realm
the longest records come from MacMurdo Sound,
where so many expeditions have now wintered. Cape
Adare and Adelie Land each have two years of records.
Near Gaussberg we have Drygalski’s and Wild’s rec-
ords and near Framheim, Amundsen’s and Byrd’s.
The Weddell Sea has a number of records mostly kept
on shipboard except for those associated with the
Swedish expedition. The weather in the seas and
coasts west of Graham Land has also been recorded,
with intervals, over a number of years. (These are
shown in Figure 34.) For the vast bulk of Antarctica
we have no records.

We may perhaps commence the discussion of the
South Polar climate by considering what a polar cli-
mate means, ana whether the Antarctic climate is as
severe as that of the Arctic. There are a number of
criteria which may be considered as defining a polar
climate. They are more often considered in the north-
ern realm than in the southern. For instance, in Arctic
regions one good standard is the absence of any real
tree growth. Since there is not only no tree growth,
but also no growth of any thing higher than a moss
in Antarctica, it is clear that we cannot usefully employ
this criterion in the south. Mecking’* has devised a
formula which considers the warmest and _ coldest
months at a locality in determining if it has a polar

1 Geography of Polar Regions, p. 73, New York, 1928.

178

Se ee

CLIMATOLOGY

Gumate. This formula is W==9° —o.1 C. Thus in
Siberia if the coldest month (C) has a temperature of
—40° C., then (by substitution) we see that the
warmest month (W) of the place can be (9 + 4) or
+13° C. and yet it may be included within the polar
belt. In Staten Island (near Cape Horn) the cold-
est month is +2.5, so that the warmest should be
(9 —0.25) or 8.75, which is a trifle colder than the
hottest month at Staten Island. It is therefore just
outside the polar climatic area. At Cape Farewell
(Greenland) the coldest month is —5.7°, the hottest
+6.2° C. It falls within the polar climates, though
here birches and willows grow in “forests” to the
height of over twelve feet. Some climatologists accept
a summer temperature of 9° C. (or 48° F.) as limit-
ing polar regions. This isotherm is plotted in Figure
26 at A and we see that all Antarctica and the sur-
rounding ocean fall well within it. Furthermore the
area with a summer temperature lower than this is
much larger in the South Polar regions than it is in
the north. (See-B, Figure 26-)

Considering the northern and southern regions, there
is no comparison in the general environments owing to
the absence of all plant life in Antarctica; there is no
land animal life (excluding a few insects) and there-
fore no human settlers if we may except a few ex-
plorers! Yet the average annual temperatures are not
very different, while northern Siberia has colder rec-
ords than anything experienced by explorers in a south-
ern winter. The whole difference lies in the summer
temperatures and this is best indicated in the diagrams

179

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

shown herewith (see Figure 26). Since most life
hibernates during the winter in polar regions, it is of
relatively little importance how cold the climate in this
season becomes. Hence the very large area with a

Fic. 26—SUMMER AND WINTER TEMPERATURES IN ANT-
ARCTIC AND ARCTIC REGIONS.

Compare isotherms of 48 deg. F. in A and B, showing the very
cold summer in the Antarctic. (After G. Philip.)

temperature below freezing in winter around the North
Pole (see D, Figure 26), has little effect on animal or
plant growth.
We have no data as to the temperatures in the heart
of the Antarctic continent except in midsummer. The
180

CLIMATOLOGY

two parties at the South Pole around the New Year
IQII-I2 experienced temperatures of —22° F. and
—28° F. This record was taken at an elevation of
about nine thousand feet. It seems certain that the
annual range of temperature in the heart of a continent
will be much greater than that recorded on the coast at
Cape Evans. “The annual range at the latter is about
45° F. Perhaps we may therefore assume that the July
temperature at the South Pole is about —60° F., which
is much the same as that of the coldest place in Siberia
(Verkhoyansk —59° F.). Probably the highest point
on the Queen Maud Range (some six thousand feet
higher) is the coldest place on our earth, as I indicated
in my discussion of this problem in 1920 (see my Aus-
tralian Meteorology, Figures 50 and 51). ‘These very
cold temperatures are of course like those of the “‘iso-
thermal layer’? (or tropopause) which lies some six
miles above us in temperate lands. Above this height
the drop in temperature of the outer atmosphere is only
very gradual with increased height.

GENERAL SOUTHERN CIRCULATION

In the southern hemisphere it has long been known
that the region is dominated essentially by two belts
of low pressure and an intermediate belt of high pres-
sure. Thus Hann records the average pressure near
the equator at 757.9 mm. From here it increases as
we move south to latitude 30° S., where it is a maxi-
mum (for the world) of about 763.5 mm. Proceeding
south again we find that by far the lowest average
pressures occur about the Antarctic Circle, somewhere

181

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

about 739.7 mm. It is also well known that these belts

are to a considerable degree the tracks of moving

eddies (cyclones and anticyclones) which in general
move to the east round the earth at varying rates
averaging perhaps four hundred miles a day.

Trade Wind ~~: fs
a i i

Fic. 27,—ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION IN THE SOUTHERN
HEMISPHERE SOUTH OF THE TRADE WIND BELT, ACCORDING
TO THE “POLAR FRONT’ THEORY, SHOWING THE BELT
OF Lows (L) SURROUNDING THE ANTARCTIC ANTI-
CYCLONE (HH).
(Slightly modified from E. Kidson.)

It is when we consider the world circulation to the
south of the Antarctic Circle that our data become
sparse and rather difficult to interpret. In the older
books it was assumed that the pressure fell off to a
minimum near the South Pole. When the presence

182

CLIMATOLOGY

of a huge icy plateau at the Pole was demonstrated,
it seemed likely that this intensely cold region would

N DJaF MAM J J AS ON DecJ Fo

samy NURREDZA0R
PBST

Fic. 28. Pan ee MONTHLY TEMPERATURES AT CERTAIN
AUSTRALIAN AND ANTARCTIC STATIONS.

For comparison the mean monthly temperature in 78 deg. N. is
also given. (Antarctic and Arctic values from Vol. I, pp. 84-85,
of report of G. C. Simpson. From Geographical Review, 1928.)

exhibit a fairly permanent high pressure control and
this still seems to be the dominant control close to the
polar surface. - But considerations of wind circulation
in the upper air in Antarctica and of the precipitation

183

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

TEMPERATURE IN

Year Place Lat! fan; Feb: Mar.'| Ape.’ (Miax
I9g11....| Cape Adare} 69 | +29 25 20 |+ 9 0
iit. |\ Cape Evagsie77 te 2e4 te 3+ .7.|/— i ae
Oru... | Rramheingty77o.) 145: 42) 6 | 17.5. eee
1903.... | Snow Hill | 64 30 25 13 8 —2

1904-7..|S. Orkney | 60 32.5 aq5 31.6 | 27.5 19.6

of snowfall over the interior of the Plateau make it
unlikely that this is a complete solution of the problem.

Captain Kidson has applied the fruitful theory of
Bjerknes to the question of Antarctic circulation, and
he pictures these two belts of anticyclones (along 30° 5.
latitude) and cyclones (along 60° S.) as developing
along the margins of inflowing and outflowing cur-
rents of air (see Figure 27). These latter maintain
the interchange between cool dry air from the Pole
and warm moist air from the equator, and the cyclones
develop as eddies where the polar front moves along-
side the tropical front. This whole series of eddies
and currents probably is to be conceived as moving
round the Pole en masse from west to east, while the
winds composing the highs (or anticyclones) rotate
counterclockwise about its center (and vice versa for
the lows or cyclones). If his scheme is correct, there
may be a real connection between the blizzard winds
and the southeast trades. For (as I suggested in 1920)
as regards direction and relation to dominant pressures,
we might quite reasonably describe the characteristic
“southeasters”’ of Antarctica as the “polar trade winds.”

Summarizing the winds of the southern hemisphere,

184

CLIMATOLOGY

THE ANTARCTIC

Jane) } July Aug: > Sept. | Oct. Nov... Dee. Mean
—16 |—15 —14 —2 {+2 +20 +28 +7
—13.5|—21 —21 —16 |—3 +12 +22 re)
—30 |—33.55 —48.5 —35.5|—11.5 +4 +20 —13.5
eS ade aoe Oe ee: 13 17 29

r=3 9.7 i152 19.2)" 25-1 29.4 30.6 | 24.1

we find the southeast trades blowing fairly steadily
about latitude 20°, along the northern side of the belt
of rotating highs which move to the east in latitude
35°. To the south of this belt is a region dominated
by the Brave West Winds, which blow along the north-
ern side of the series of Antarctic lows. The latter
appear to move to the east along latitude 60°, but we
have no accurate data, as few ships sail so far south.
South again of this belt of cyclones or lows is the
domain of the Antarctic southeasters, which are domi-
nant all round the margin of the southern continent.
This, indeed, has been demonstrated by studies of the
movements of the pack ice. In Antarctica proper the
winds are variable, the strong blizzards always blowing
from the south or southeast but in places lighter north-
erly winds are common. On the Great Plateau we have
only records of a few summer journeys, but the snow
ridges (sastrugi) give some clue to the dominant winds
of the year.

GENERAL CLIMATIC ELEMENTS

It is not possible to give more than a brief discussion
of the temperature, pressure, precipitation, and wind

185

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

conditions. I shall confine my attention principally to
the conditions on Ross Island, which have been ob-
served longer than in any other place so far south as
78° S. The temperature changes are shown graphically
in the graphs in Figure 28, based mainly on G. C. Simp-
son, where a record for 78° N. is added for comparison
with 78° S. (of course with months changed as re-
quired). It is seen that the southern locality is nearly
20° F. colder in summer, autumn, and winter though
in spring the temperatures are much closer.

Temperatures varied very greatly within fairly short
distances near Ross Island. Thus in the winter of
1911 Wilson’s party on the Barrier on July 6th ex-
perienced —76° F., while at Cape Evans it was
—43° F., involving a difference of 33°. So also just
before Scott died near One Ton Camp the temperature
on March 8th was +2° F. at Cape Evans (latitude
78°) and —33°F. at latitude 7912°. Yet later when
Dr. Atkinson made a short journey on the Barrier on
March 28th and 29th the temperature had risen to
5 ween aoe + A.

We may consider briefly the differences of summer
temperature close to the North Pole and at the South
Pole; again using Simpson’s data:

Latitude | 88° North | June 28.6° F.| July 34.17

Difference 55.2 59.3

186

CLIMATOLOGY

So far as temperature is concerned, there is not much
doubt as to which is the more comfortable region. As
regards fall of temperature with height, the balloons
sent up in 1911 show us that in summer the figure is
about 6.8° C. per kilometer, which is much the same as
in Europe and America.

The rise in temperature consequent on a blizzard
is well shown in the records of September 16th and
17th, 1911. Before the blizzard the air was calm, the
temperature —35° F. At 8 a.m. the sky began to
cloud over and radiation was cut off, so that the tem-
perature began to rise a little at once. It had risen to
—15° F. before the blizzard began, when all the cold
air was removed, and the air temperature jumped some
20° to + 5° F. As the blizzard dropped the tempera-
ture fell to —12° F. Such a fall is usual in these cases.

The low summer temperatures recorded in Antarctica
were at first very unexpected. If we neglect at-
mospheric factors, we might expect the South Pole
on December 22nd to be the hottest place on earth,
for the earth is then nearest the sun, and solar radiation
is focusing on to the Pole throughout the twenty-four
hours. But Simpson points out that nearly all this
energy is lost by direct reflection from the snow, and
that the remainder is not sufficient to raise the tem-
perature of the air to freezing point, before the sun
reaches the solstice and the energy commences to de-
crease. Moreover, there are no warm winds near the
South Pole, which are a potent factor in warming the
North Pole.

187

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Framheim 7.8 Fig mai 9.8 6.5 8.9

WIND IN THE ANTARCTIC

Most Antarctic explorers return with an intense
aversion to strong winds! It is not the low tempera-
tures which matter, so much; for the writer has
stripped to a vest when sledging at temperatures 30°
below freezing, when there is no wind. But wind
drives the cold air right against the skin, and any
temperature below freezing soon becomes unpleasant
under such circumstances. The preceding table shows
the mean wind velocity during the four years 1902,
1903, 1911, and 1912 at Cape Evans (or Hut Point)
in miles per hour. (Amundsen’s base at Framheim is
added below. )

These velocities varied greatly from year to year.
Thus in June, 1911, we experienced an average of 31.8
miles per hour throughout the month, or four times the
velocity registered at Amundsen’s headquarters. This
was the highest to date in the Antarctic, but was far
below the records obtained by Mawson next year in
Adelie Land, where his average for the year was fifty
miles an hour or “gale force’ the whole time! We
may quote from Mawson’s account of his experience
in Adelie Land during July, 1913.

The wind was frightful throughout the whole month of
July, surpassing all previous records and wearing out our

188

CLIMATOLOGY

July Aug. Sept. et, Nov. Dec. Mean
17.1 16.8 14.5 14.3 13.5 10.4 14.8
10.5 9.2 9.8 14.5 II.4 10.7 —

much tried patience. On July 2 we noted “Thick as a
wall outside with an eighty-five miler.” And so it com-
menced 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 July
fifth of one hundred and sixteen miles an hour. For eight
hours it maintained an average of one hundred and seven
miles an hour, and the hut seemed to be jarred and
wrenched as the wind throbbed in its mightier gusts.
These are probably the highest sustained velocities ever
reported from a meteorological station.

At Cape Evans almost all the surface winds (84.4
per cent) came from the east or thereabouts, and about
g per cent from near the north. The steam banner
of Mount Erebus showed which way the winds were
blowing at an elevation of about fifteen thousand feet,
and here the chief winds were from the west. The
cirrus drift was more or less equally divided from
north, west, and east.

Graham Land.—We owe to R. A. Mossman a discus-
sion of the winds in this region, which may be sum-
marized as follows. There appears to be a bar of high
pressure over the region mentioned which acts as a
“wind divide.” Hence the east is under the control of
a Weddell Sea low, while the west is affected by a

189

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Bellingshausen Sea low. On the Pacific side strong
northeast winds prevail south of latitude 62° S., while
farther to the west the “Belgica’’ seemed to find strong
monsoonal winds, i.e. easterly in summer and westerly
in winter. On the east side near Snow Hill, etc., the
prevailing wind is southwest, while at the South
Orkneys it is west-southwest. The observations during
the drift of the “Endurance” and “Deutschland” in the
Weddell Sea show that strong easterly and northeast-
erly winds are met with, which prevail as far south
as 78° S. in summer and early autumn. The west
side of the Weddell Sea seems to exhibit southwest
winds as if there were a cyclonic circulation in this
area.”

SNOWFALL

No rain fell during our stay in the Antarctic, either
at Cape Evans or at Cape Adare, but a rainbow was
seen to the north-northeast of Cape Evans on February
14th, 1911. No satisfactory method has yet been
found of measuring the amount of snowfall, as it is
usually accompanied by high wind. I have mentioned
elsewhere that Taylor Valley seems to receive prac-
tically no snowfall, and the change in environment as
we proceed from this region to the vast ice carapace ex-
tending into the sea all along the coast opposite
Australia would lead us to suppose that the snowfall
increases considerably to the north. The record of
the snowfall on the Barrier (as deduced from a buried

2 See the Geographical Journal (London), December, 1916.
190

CLIMATOLOGY

depot) has already been referred to (see page 154).
As regards snowfall in Adelie Land, the “Home of the
Blizzard,’ Mawson describes his experiences in the
following words: “. . . we led a strenuous existence
at winter quarters buffeting with a sea of drifting
snow which poured fluid-thick over the landscape. For
months the drifting snow never ceased, and intervals of
many days together passed when it was impossible to
see one’s hand held at arm’s length. Such weather
lasted almost nine months of the year.”

ANTARCTIC CIRCULATION

There is much to be learned about the local circula-
tion on the continent, but several fairly well established
facts stand out. In the first place there is no doubt
that in the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea and almost
everywhere where ships have cruised along the coast
for any lengthy period, the dominant winds are from
the southeast. In the southern hemisphere this is pre-
cisely the circulation required if we assume that an
anticyclone covers most of Antarctica. Secondly, the
upper winds are very different in direction. Thus the
steam of Erebus (fifteen thousand feet) is blown
chiefly from the west and southwest, while the upper
clouds move from northwest or west. This is almost
exactly the opposite of the surface winds at Cape
Evans, which were from the east or southeast. So also
Barkow (on Filchner’s expedition) sent up sounding
balloons from Vahsel Bay (78° S.) and found east
winds up to about twenty thousand feet, when the wind
shifted sharply to south and southwest. This appears

IQI

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

to show that the anticyclone is confined to the lower
layers of the atmosphere.

We have not much knowledge of winds on the
plateau except in midsummer. On the longer journeys
the dominant winds (and direction of snow ridges)
were as follows:

Date Locality Wind and Sastrugi
Scott ....| 1903 | Above Taylor Glacier WSW. (near Horst)
Shackleton | 1908 | Above Beardmore SOL
David ....| 1908 | To Magnetic Pole West near Horst, SE.
Scott ....| 1911 |To South Pole SSE. to SSW,
Bage .....| 1912 |To Magnetic Pole SE.
Mawson .. | 1912 |Queen Mary Land SE:
Filchner .. | 1916 | Southeast of Weddell Sea|F.

The writer from his experience of many weeks spent
in the valleys of the great outlet glaciers is sure that
the winds in these deep troughs (often four thousand
feet deep) have little relation to the true circulation.
They are almost entirely controlled by the topography
and blow up or down the valley, usually the latter. So
also the winds in the three permanent stations of Cape
Armitage (1902-4), Cape Royds (1908), and Cape
Evans (1gII-I2) are largely determined by the
gigantic walls of Erebus (thirteen thousand feet) on
the east and the Lister scarp (ten to twelve thousand
feet) on the west. It is not safe to draw deductions
as to the general circulation without taking this
topographic factor into account. The writer remem-
bers a journey of only half a dozen miles on the seven-
teenth of April, 1911, from Cape Evans to Glacier

192

CLIMATOLOGY

Tongue. There was a north wind at Cape Evans, a
west wind off the sound halfway, and a little later we
found a strong southeaster driving snow over the root
of Glacier Tongue. These were local winds which did
not indicate the onset of a biizzard.

Another phenomenon to be noted is the increase in
temperature as a blizzard approaches from the south-
east. The intensely cold and stagnant air of the coastal
margin is soon swept away by the blizzard, and the
temperature usually rises. This rise in temperature is
of the same kind as is found in foehn winds, and is
due to adiabatic heating, the air generally being com-
pressed by descent from the plateau. We must also
take note of the rapidity with which a furious blizzard
develops from what has often been practically calm
weather. Accurate data on these points are given in
Simpson’s large memoir. (See also p. 79.)

There have been several attempts to weld these facts
into a harmonious whole. We may briefly consider
those of Meinardus, Hobbs, and Simpson. Meinardus
based his report of 1911 on Drygalski’s data. He was
chiefly struck with the fact that there must be a large
supply of snow in the interior of the plateau to main-
tain the ice cap, and the constant drain due to the bergs
breaking off all round the margin. He therefore be-
lieves that the fundamental feature on the plateau is
a cyclone which occupies the region above seven or
eight thousand feet, and which is fed by constant
westerly winds at that level. He states that in anti-
cyclones the air flows in at the center in the upper
layers, descends, becomes relatively dry and, as it

193

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

streams out on the surface, removes moisture from the
central region.

W. H. Hobbs lays great stress on the domelike shape
of the ice cap (see Figure 29), which is some ten
thousand feet near the Pole, and thence descends fairly
slowly and then more steeply to sea level in Mawson’s
region (66° S.). The plateau is about eight thousand

Fic. 29.—THE GLACIAL ANTICYCLONE (IN SECTION).
(After W. H. Hobbs.)

feet at latitude 77° and seven thousand feet at lati-
tude 73°. He states his case somewhat as follows:

If there were no extensive high and snow-covered areas
in the Antarctic it is clear that the circulation would be less
vigorous. When the slope is very gentle air drainage is
necessarily sluggish, and such regions (when there are no
higher surrounding mountains) can and do establish (1) a
circulation of the upper air from the ocean to the higher
portions of the plateau; (2) a well defined increase of
temperature for the first few hundred meters of elevation ;
(3) a slow settling of the air onto the cold surface below ;
(4) the precipitation, without cloud, of fine snow crystals

194

CLIMATOLOGY

(frost snow); (5) drainage of this chilled and relatively
dense air to lower levels; (6) drifting of the snow with
the winds, and the consequent extension so far as tempera-
ture and other conditions will permit of the ice-covered
area.®

Hobbs believes that sufficient snow supply is obtained
in the interior of the plateau from ice crystals in the
cirrus clouds which descend in the interior of the anti-
cyclone and are first melted and then vaporized by the
adiabatic elevation of the temperature. The snowfall
resulting from these cirrus crystals in Hobbs’ opinion
consists of those minute spicules and plates described
by sledgers near the Pole, which differ greatly from
the snowfall near sea level. (The present writer would
expect to find the cirrus layer at the Pole considerably |
lower than the five miles indicated in Hobbs’ figures. )

G. C. Simpson in 1923 offered another solution which
in part combines the theories of Meinardus and Hobbs.
He writes :

Over the snow-covered surface of the Antarctic, whether
at sea level or at the height of the plateau, radiation is so
strong that the air is abnormally cooled, especially in the
layers immediately above the surface. This cooled air is
heavier than the surrounding air, and therefore the pres-
sure increases from the exterior to the interior of the polar
area; in other words the pressure distribution is anti-
cyclonic and the air movement in general outwards. Above
each anticyclone a cyclone forms on account of the rela-

3 Quoted by Hobbs, Glacial Anticyclones (New York, Mac-
millan, 1926), p. 182, as a good summary of his theory by
Humphreys.

195

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

tively rapid vertical pressure change caused by the cold
dense air. The descending air is warmed giving clear
cloudless skies . . . as one penetrates the Antarctic. (See
Figure 30.)

The clear skies in their turn facilitate radiation, as does
the small absolute humidity of the air. In consequence
the air and the snow surface become abnormally cold and
there is a great tendency to the formation of temperature

PROBABLE [SQ8ARS AT 5000 ™.

Fic. 30.—PROBABLE ISOBARS AT SEA LEVEL (RIGHT) AND
AT 3,000 METERS (LEFT).

Broken lines A, B, C, D show successive positions of pressure
waves. (After G. C. Simpson.)

inversion, especially in the lower atmosphere. On these
normal fine weather conditions are superposed a series of
pressure waves which travel more or less radially out-
wards from the center of the continent. These waves
alter the surface pressure conditions, and cause air motion
which is frequently accompanied by forced ascending cur-
rents. The abnormally cold surface air is forced upwards
in these currents, rapidly cooled in the ascent, and the
water contained is precipitated as snow, which when com-

196

CLIMALOLOGY

bined with the high surface winds produces the typical
Antarctic blizzard.

Hence Simpson follows Meinardus as regards the
method of precipitation from an upper cyclone. But
he raises the “snow-supplying cyclone” more than three
thousand meters above the plateau so that it does not
show in the figure. He thinks that the plateau itself
is everywhere controlled by a shallow surface anti-
cyclone, but his map omits this as its position is in-
definite.

Some attention may now be given to these Antarctic
pressure waves on which Simpson lays great stress.
It is found that local variations in pressure in this
region are usually not accompanied by changes of wind
direction, as in lower latitudes. A series of these
waves moves across the Ross Sea area, first affecting
the Southern Plateau and Framheim (see Figure 30),
and then moving to the northwest and reaching Ross
Island and lastly Cape Adare. The mean length (time
of passage) of such a barometric wave is one hundred
and fifty hours, and the mean variation amounts to
0.572 inch. These waves apparently have a velocity
of about forty miles an hour. They seem to affect
much of Antarctica, but have not been detected in
New Zealand.

The usual pressure conditions near Ross Island con-
sist of a more or less permanent low over the warm
Ross Sea, and a permanent high over the cold Plateau.
Thus the normal winds would be southerly or south-
east winds. Simpson believes that the pressure waves

197

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

modify the usual pressure conditions. When they in-
tensify these normal conditions a furious blizzard re-
sults; when they counteract them calms or northerly
winds result at Cape Evans.

AURORA AUSTRALIS

Throughout the winter we maintained an aurora
watch primarily with a view to determining their re-
lation to magnetic or meteorological phenomena. The
first observation was made on April 2nd, Ig11, by
Captain Scott. He noted that it extended to within
10° of the zenith from the south. It was of a reddish
hue and took the form of a curtain with two folds. On
the 28th of April I was on watch and saw an elaborate
display about 9:10 p.m. It affected the whole sky to
the east (behind Erebus). At first isolated grayish
streamers reached over 8°; they had a reddish tinge,
but were not bright enough to show the “auroral line”
in the spectroscope. The whole brightened until it be-
came a continuous band of yellowish light. It con-
centrated with a movement to the north, reminding one
of a caterpillar’s motion as the more vivid mass of
light undulated towards Erebus. At one moment it
clotted into a globule of light not unlike a meteor,
pointing to the crater, with a streamer extending up
and slightly to the south. During the maximum the
streamers were over 20° from the horizon. Dr. Wil-
son saw traces of orange and purple in the borders.
The display lasted six minutes. |

Mawson records that at Cape Royds in 1908 they
saw auroras from March 26th to October 4th. They

198

CEIMATOLOGY

seemed to be more abundant after 7:30 P.m., and had
little color except the usual yellowish green. Arches,
curtains, and searchlights are the chief shapes. He
noted that the display often began to the north, passed
east behind Erebus and drifted to the south. They
thus kept away from the Magnetic Pole, which lay
to the northwest. No very definite results could be
expected with regard to their relation with magnetic
storms, for the aurora watch was spoiled by frequent
blizzards and was never really continuous. However,
Dr. Chree found that in 1911 41 per cent of the most
striking aurora were associated with very marked mag-
netic disturbances. Ponting was unable to photograph
the auroras and we are not clear as to their origin.
Arrhenius believes that negatively-charged particles are
driven through the sun’s atmosphere by light-repulsion
and reach the earth’s atmosphere, thus forming auroras.

CHAPTER X
FLORA AND FAUNA

FLORA

N discussing the flora of Antarctica one is ir-

resistibly reminded of the famous essay on “The
Snakes of Ireland.” It is comprised in the sentence.
“There are no snakes in Ireland.” So also one may
almost dismiss the land flora of the continent in the
sentence, ‘There are no flowering plants in Antarctica.”
Still as there are over a hundred lichens and many
species of mosses and algz, some little description of
these will be of interest. I believe that I discovered
the largest vegetated region so far seen on the Ant-
arctic mainland, and I am under the impression that
I found the largest living land animals. Possibly the
reader will not be much impressed by these records
when he hears the particulars!

On my first day’s sledging in the Antarctic (January
28th, 1911) on our journey up the Ferrar Glacier, I
made a detour to examine the slopes at the foot of the
valley wall near the Herbertson Glacier. On the
gravels some dozen or so feet above the surface of the
Ferrar Glacier, I was amazed to see a carpet of green
moss, as flourishing as any in more temperate regions.
I sat down on a granite erratic and noted that there
were three different species present, but as I was not

200

FLORA AND FAUNA

aware how rare was such an occurrence at 78° S., I
regret to say that I did not collect specimens. One
species was sessile and tufted, another resembled the
alga Ulva, while a third was markedly fibrous. This
patch of green was sixty feet long and about fifteen
feet wide, and owed its existence to its sheltered snow-
free position facing the midday sun.

On our second summer’s sledging we came upon
another relatively heavily vegetated region in Ant-
arctica. This was at our permanent camp at Cape
Geology on the southwest side of Granite Harbor.
Here amid the bowlders and groins of granite were
“chunks” of dormant moss, which, however, showed
practically no sign of growth that season. We found
frondose lichens also clustered on the rocks at the base
of Discovery Bluff nearby. The botanical specimens
which we collected here led us to name the adjacent
shores “Botany Bay,’ and we found the moss abundant
enough to fill the crevices in the stone hut which we
built at the camp. Elsewhere I noted very small patches
of lichen now and again, but nowhere else did I come
across any abundant growth even of moss or lichen
in the several hundred miles of rocky coast which we
explored.

However, in the warmer regions of West Antarctica
there are more numerous examples of the vegetable
kingdom. There are actually two flowering plants
found in the northern part of the islands of Graham
Land. One of these is a grass called Deschampsia
antarctica and the other is Colobanthus crassifolius,
allied to the pinks and campions. It is worth while

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ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

to contrast the flora of the northern point of Green-
land (in latitude 83° N.) with this very poor repre-
sentation in 65° S. This is how Peary describes his
first view of Academy Land in July, 1891.

It was almost impossible to believe that we were stand-
ing upon the northern shore of Greenland, with the most
brilliant sunshine all about us, with yellow poppies grow-
ing between the rocks, and a herd of musk oxen in the
valley behind us. Down in that valley I had found an old
friend, a dandelion in bloom, and had seen the bullet-like
flight and heard the energetic buzz of the bumble bee.

Or compare with the southern continent Rasmus-
sen’s account of the same region witk its fifty flower-
ing plants. “Thick well developed grass grew in many
places . . . everywhere sturdy Arctic willow, poppy,
saxifrage and Cassiope.”’ As a result there is a per-
manent Arctic fauna including musk oxen, lemming
and hares.

The typical form of Antarctic flora is, however, the
lichen and of these nine specimens were collected by
Hooker in 1843 at Cockburn Island (64° S.) near
Snow Hill. For fifty years this was the only list of
lichens from the continent. These genera are Par-
melia, Physcia, Lecanora, Pertusaria, Verrucaria, and
Collema. Of these Physcia and Lecanora have since
been recorded from Victoria Land. Just over one
hundred Antarctic species were known when Darbishire
published his lengthy report in 1911. Of these Borch-
grevinck collected two, Gerlache fifty-one, Bruce six,
Charcot six, Scott (in 1904) twelve, and Nordenskjold

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FLORA AND FAUNA

eighteen. No less than sixty-seven of these are en-
demic in Antarctica. It is interesting to note that
while thirty-two are also found in South America, no
less than twenty-five also occur in far-away New Zea-
land. Furthermore, practically half the Antarctic
lichens are common also to the Arctic flora. Darbi-
shire’s list shows the following as important genera in
Antarctica in addition to those specified above; Lecidea,
Rhizocarpon, Gyrophora, Cladonia, Placodium, Buellia,
and Acorospora. Lecanora has twice as many species
as any other.

FAUNA

It is clear from the preceding description of the land
flora that there is no food available for higher animals
on the Antarctic mainland, and I do not propose to
discuss the flora and fauna of the sub-Antarctic islands
in this necessarily brief account. But the seas teem
with life, at any rate in the summer. [I shall never
forget our first sight of a penguin rookery at Cape
Crozier on New Year’s Day, 1911. The sea was per-
fectly full of the birds cruising about in search of
shrimps (Euphausia, etc.) for food. I have never
seen seas so teeming with life. The explanation is
that these polar waters are free from bacteria which
break up protoplasm and so render it to some extent
useless for food. The cold waters act as a kind of
cold storage, and supply unlimited food material for
higher organisms in the form of diatoms, alge, and
protozoa which quickly vanish after death in warmer
regions. At the other end of the scale of life in the

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ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Antarctic are the warm-blooded killer-whales (Orca),
of which we saw a party of three busy gobbling up
penguins. I was greatly struck with this “‘proto-
plasmic cycle’ as it may be termed, and indeed on
several occasions the explorers themselves were at-
tacked by the killer-whales and nearly took a part in
the cycle also. The presence of the following rhyme
may perhaps be excused in view of the very real biolog-
ical concept which is illustrated therein! (Figure 31.)

I propose to confine my attention primarily to the
whales and seals in marine biology, and to the birds on
land. All of these animals are, however, only so-
journers on the Antarctic shores. None is a true
dweller in the Antarctic and none ever ventures inland,
except perhaps an aged seal to die.

I have based my account of the fauna chiefly upon
notes taken verbatim from Dr. Wilson, my colleague
in the Antarctic, or from his writings. There are two
main classes of whales, divided according to whether
they are toothed, or provided with baleen (whalebone).
To the former class belong the sperm or cachalot
(Physeter), the bottlenose, the killer, and porpoise.
To the latter the giant rorqual (Balaenoptera), the
right whale (Balena), and the humpback (Megap-
tera). Of the whales the most prominent off the
Antarctic coast is the large carnivorous dolphin, the
killer-whale or Orca gladiator. It is usually about
fifteen feet long and hunts generally in packs of a
dozen or more. In a northern specimen, which was
twenty-one feet long, the remains of thirteen seals and
thirteen porpoises were found in a more or less digested

204

And off Ue y elle dititems
cold nif do With Cyn
“torty amillron shimplets feed atoon,
As (attet>
Ana te shiieps make Ore penguins
andthe Seals And whales aL
alien

Along comes the Orca
s Bax kis en dewntelow,

“while wp ebove IRe Afterguard
attack fhem on the face
A bold enploYer fumbles deum sy,
and slaves the mus hy pack in;
He's cYom pled up betm ean Uke fP&es
And so at Hear whack” in.
And there's no dovbt Re Soen become 3
. a paket filiset-
Iqvigoracting diatoms ; although
hey*re none. He Wisery

So th prefeplasm pa Sses Onis cy
hever- ceasing rovnd,
Like abhvuge resting decz
mal 7 te Which fnoeng
1s foond

Fic. 3I1.—THE BIOLOGICAL CYCLE IN THE ANTARCTIC.

The diatom Corethron and Euphausia appear in front of the
procession, but not to scale. Then follow penguin, seal and killer-
whale. The Afterguard were the officers. (By permission of
John Murray.)

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

state. Fourteen was apparently its unlucky number, for
the animal appeared to have been choked in an endeavor
to swallow another seal. They are a constant menace
to the penguins and seals, especially in the pack ice or
bay ice, and many of the crab-eater seals are marked
with terrible scars as the result of the Orcas’ attacks.

Undoubtedly they attempt to shake the seals off
the floes into the sea, and on several occasions men
in our expedition were attacked in the same way. For
instance, early in January, I9II, just as we were un-
loading the ship eight killer-whales attempted to cap-
ture some of our dogs who were loose on the ice.
Ponting was taking photographs of the killers, and
ventured too near them in his enthusiasm. He nar-
rates that they lifted their wicked heads above water
to look at him, and he was just pressing the button
when he felt as if an earthquake had hit him. The
whole floe was being broken away, and he was drifting
from the firm ice. He lost some valuable equipment,
and did not stop for the photo! A similar incident,
but luckily not so exciting, happened to me in the bay
ice off the Ferrar Glacier; the men rescuing the ponies
who were adrift on the floe on March Ist near the
Barrier were closely surrounded by eighteen of these
predatory brutes.

Two other dolphins are not uncommon on the edges
of the pack ice. One of these is called the Dusky
Dolphin from its dark brown back; while the other
has a white hourglass on its side, but has not yet been
properly investigated.

Of the real whales, the rorqual is fairly common,

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FLORA AND FAUNA

especially near the Balleny Islands. It is the largest
mammal and sometimes occurs nearly one hundred feet
long. It is characterized by a broad blue slate-colored
back with a small dorsal fin. Its spout rises twelve or
fifteen feet into the air. On our return in March,
1912, we sighted a school of eight sperm whales, but
we were then in New Zealand waters. The humpback
whale is said to reach a length of sixty feet. It earns
its name from the low dorsal fin. The back is black,
the belly yellowish, and the flippers white. There are
two other finner whales to be met with in the Ross
Sea. One is round-backed, black, solitary, and twenty
feet long. It has a very small hooklike dorsal fin.
The other is gregarious and has an enormous dorsal
fin two or three feet long. It is black above and lighter
beneath. I shall refer further to these mammals in
the following chapter.

Seals —There are five species of seals to be seen
fairly often in or near East Antarctica; of these three
commonly occur south of the Antarctic Circle. The
huge sea elephant (Macrorhinus) is very abundant at
Macquarie Island (latitude 54° S.) but only one or two
specimens have ever been known to wander down to
the Antarctic. The sea leopard (Stenorhyncus) is a
solitary animal and is not uncommon at Cape Adare,
though I only saw one specimen as far south as Ross
Island (78° S.). The sea leopard is about twelve feet
long and has almost a snakelike appearance owing to its
slender shape, which enables it to swim remarkably
quickly. Its diet consists of fish, penguins, and even

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ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

small seals. Its color is dark gray with a black back,
sometimes somewhat tawny beneath. The teeth differ
greatly from those of the relatively harmless Weddell
seal. In the sea leopard the canines are very sharp,
while the twenty post-canines are three-lobed tridents,
adapted to catch and tear fish to pieces. Its only enemy
is the killer-whale.

The common seal of the pack ice is the crab-eater
(Lobodon) which is often so light-colored as to be
practically white. Usually, however, there are many
individuals of a chocolate color with handsome dap-
plings. It is smaller than the other common Antarctic
species (the Weddell) being about eight feet long. It
lives almost entirely upon shrimps which it grubs off
the bottom of the sea together with much gravel. The
teeth are curiously divided, and apparently act like the
whale’s baleen, for the seal squirts out all the water
through the teeth, which act as a sieve, while it retains
the shrimps and stones. Apparently the latter help to
grind its food. This seal is usually observed in little
groups of five or six lying on the floes, so that it is
the first seal to be seen by the explorer.

The Ross seal (Ommatophoca) is the smallest of all,
being only about seven feet long. It is very rare in
East Antarctica but is apparently commoner in West
Antarctica. The Weddell seal (Leptonychotes) is the
most important of the shore fauna, for it is an invalu-
able source of food, fuel, and hides to the explorer.
Luckily its fur is not attractive to the sealers, for it is
long and coarse with no thick under-fur such as is
found on the true fur-seals. We used several skins

208

FLORA AND FAUNA

as a roof for our granite hut at Cape Geology, and the
fur reminded me of that of an ordinary cow. In this
position on the roof the hide was comparatively trans-
lucent in spite of the covering of fur. The Weddell
seal is sluggish and collects in large herds. In October
and November especially one may see many hundred
seals congregated in favorable places along the tide-
cracks and shear-cracks in MacMurdo Sound.

The Weddell seal is not so frequently attacked by the
killer-whale as its cousin, the crab-eater, which lives
out on the open pack ice. Like all these animals and
birds, it seems quite devoid of fear when on land. At
the Cape Roberts rendezvous in January, I912, we
were rather short of food and there were three seals
basking on the ice off the cape. I killed one the first
week, the other two, who were only a yard or two away,
taking little interest in the gory business. Next week I
killed the second seal, and in the third and last week
of our enforced wait I killed the third, so that if we
could not cross the crevasses of the Wilson Piedmont
Glacier and had to return, we might find some food
available for the next week or so.

The Weddell seal is sometimes ten feet long, and
has a brownish coat richly marked with black and gray
and silvery white. The young are born during the
last week of October and the beginning of November.
At birth they have a thick and woolly coat of dull
ochre, gray and black, which drops off after a fortnight
or so. The teeth are sharp and curved to enable it to
catch fish and are also used to open holes in the sea-
ice. Before I went south I used to wonder how a seal

| 209

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

could cut a hole through six feet of winter ice in order
to breathe. I don’t believe they ever cut through the
ice, but I have watched a seal laboriously enlarging a
natural hole in a tide-crack or shear-crack, so as to
make it large enough for an outlet. It opens its jaws
to the widest, and uses the teeth as a sort of rasp on
the edges of the hole. After many hours of this un-
pleasant work, no doubt it files away some inches from
all round an accidental hole, and so is able to shoot
out on to the sea-ice.

Some twenty miles up the Koettlitz Glacier, we were
surprised to find many seals, and came to the conclusion
that they swam up the subglacial stream, which I
named the Alph River. On one occasion I prodded
one of these seals with my ice ax. After some sneezes
and grumbles, he proceeded to sing to me. He lay
over on his side and produced a whole octave of mu-
sical notes from his chest, ranging up to a canarylike
chirrup. Later I found that Dr. Wilson and Dr.
Racovitzi had already recorded the musical ability of
Antarctic seals. When the seal approaches the end of
life, it seems to wander from the sea. At any rate
we came on a number of carcasses several thousand
feet up the Ferrar Glacier, and nearly twenty miles
from the sea. Even in the Dry Valley of Taylor
Glacier we found desiccated carcasses on the ground
moraine. Presumably they had crawled up the valley
over a carpet of snow or ice which had disappeared
when we first traversed it in IQIT.

Birds.—Wilson records twelve species of birds seen
in East Antarctica, but only three went as far south as

210

FLORA AND FAUNA

our winter quarters. A little north of the pack the
Fulmar petrel and Antarctic petrel were fairly abun-
dant. In the northern waters of the Ross Sea we saw
a few giant petrels, snow petrels, and Wilson’s stormy
petrels. On Ross Island the only flying bird was the
McCormick skua (Megalestris) which lived on fish
when there were no penguin eggs or chicks to devour.
The old name of Cape Evans was “The Skuary” and
so these gulls were very common round our hut. It is
a large brown bird with a white patch on each wing.
It breeds all along South Victoria Land in hollows in
the rocks. Practically no nest is built, though I no-
ticed at Cape Geology a few feathers or moss in some
of the “nests.”” Two eggs are laid early in December,
which are brownish with darker splashes of color, but
only one chick is reared. On Cape Roberts early in
January, 1912, we observed three nests of these gulls.
Two of the pairs of birds were disturbed by our
proximity, and simplified their home life by eating up
their own or each other’s eggs. The third pair aban-
doned their dark little chicken, which we attempted to
feed, regretting the destruction we had caused. The
sledge poet recorded his end, as follows:

So little Blackie reigned supreme,
Until one day when he was fed
(By that kind and humane leader
Foster father, foster feeder )
On rich and tasty lumps of blubber.
His little tummy stretched like rubber,
Stretched too much—
and now he’s dead!
Pi i |

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Penguins.—There are many species of penguins but
they are all restricted to the southern hemisphere. Even
the fossil forms do not occur north of the equator.
As we have seen (p. 105) several fossil penguins have
been discovered near Graham Land, while there are
others from Patagonia and New Zealand. It seems
likely that the penguins separated off from other birds
early in their history. There is no doubt that originally
the penguin used the wing for flight, though now it
has degenerated to a flipper. It is quaint to see the
penguin still tuck its beak under the flipper, an ancient
habit apparently, for it cannot gain much warmth
therefrom. Wilson states that the feather tracts are
distributed like a lizard’s scales and the arrangement
is in no way as advanced as that of a domestic fowl.
The largest penguin, the Emperor, has primitive leg
bones in which the three parallel shank bones are still
distinct, though in all other birds they are fused.

Of the seven or eight common penguins, only two
occur in the Antarctic. These are the emperor and
Adelie penguins. The emperor penguin (Aptenodytes
forsteri) is surely the most unusual of all living birds.
Some of his primitive characteristics have been men-
tioned, but his breeding habits are unique. No other
bird and surely few other forms of life choose the
middle of the fiercest winter on earth for their breed-
ing season! Only two regions are known where this
penguin lays its eggs. The first was discovered at
Cape Crozier in 1902, and the second in Queen Mary
Land in 1912. Ina small bight, just where the edge
of the great Ross Barrier ice touches the cliffs of

212

FLORA AND FAUNA

Ross Island, there is a patch of sea-ice which remains
in all through the winter. Here the emperor penguin
passes the cold dark months, and it was to obtain eggs
in an early stage of incubation that the “worst journey
in the world” (see p. 55) was undertaken. Dr. Wilson
found one hundred birds here, incubating their eggs,

in July, 1911, and he was able to obtain three eggs,

Fic. 32.—EMPEROR PENGUIN AND CHICK; ALSO ADELIE
PENGUINS PONDERING, ECSTATIC AND TOBOGGANING.

Winter and summer scenes are conjoined here.

each containing an embryo. In July the temperature
at times falls to —76° F., or 108° below freezing.
Earlier, in 1903, Wilson had discovered that by Sep-
tember all the eggs were hatched and there were only
a few living chickens. These were perched on the
parents’ feet and were protected by a curious feathered
fold or lappet which hangs down from the parents’
breast. When the chick is hungry or inquisitive, it
pokes out from under the lappet a piebald downy head,
B13

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

emitting its shrill and persistent pipe until the parent
fills it up! Wilson’s account of the life of a penguin
chick cannot be improved upon.

I think the chickens hate their parents, and when one
watches the proceedings in a rookery it strikes one as not
surprising. In the first place there is about one chick to
ten or twelve adults and each adult has an overpowering
desire to ‘‘sit” on something. Both males and females
want to nurse, and the result is that when a chicken finds
himself alone there is a rush on the part of a dozen unem-
ployed to seize him. Naturally he runs away and dodges
here and there until a six-stone emperor falls on him, and
then begins a regular football scrimmage in which each
tries to hustle the other off, and the end is too often dis-
astrous to the chick. Sometimes he falls into a crack in
the ice, and stays there to be frozen while the parents
squabble at the top; sometimes rather than be nursed I
have seen him crawl in under an ice-ledge and remain
there where the old ones could not reach him. I think it
is not an exaggeration to say that of the 77 per cent that
die, no less than half are killed by kindness.

The young bird moves out to the breaking floe and
soon floats out to sea. His first feather plumage ap-
pears in January when he is five months old. Then
the silver gray changes to blue gray with a white front.
A year later a second moult occurs and then the orange
patch appears on the neck, and the head and throat turn
black. His food consists of fish which he catches
readily in his sharp beak. In the water these quaint
birds swim like Plesiosaurs, or at any rate not like

214

FLORA AND FAUNA

other birds, with the body submerged and the long
snakelike heads projecting above the surface. The
birds stand nearly four feet high, and as they waddle
along erect on their feet like a man, it was a matter of
common occurrence to mistake them in the polar twi-
light for fellow explorers!

Adelie Penguins.—Of all birds the penguin is best
adapted to aquatic life. It swims entirely under water
by means of its wings, which have modified to form
veritable flippers. To breathe it jumps out of the water
in the fashion rendered familiar to voyagers by the
dolphins. The Adelie runs along upright and reminded
me of a tiny child learning to walk, who runs quickly
to his mother, knowing that a topple at the end does
not matter. Then he will stop and flap his wings
(one was going to say arms) and bow and turn his
head around in a most human and unbirdlike way.
The most striking feature, I think, is the stiff little tail
which he drags on the ground as he toddles along, and
which seems to help to support him. Possibly the scien-
tific name (Pygo-scelis, tail-leg) refers to this habit.
The bird stands about two feet five inches in height.
The coloring of pure white breast and black back
reminds one of a stout little man in a swallowtail coat
and a white shirt, both much too big for him.

The most complete study has been made by Dr.
Levick at Cape Adare (71° 14’ S.) during 1911. Dur-
ing the winter the birds probably live on the northern
edge of the pack ice, some five hundred miles north
of their rookery on land. The first penguins arrived

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ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

on October 13th, and on the seventeenth there was a
thin sprinkling scattered all over the rookery. They
were tired and rested on the old nests, but on October
18th a few started to build. The male birds collected
the stones, while the females mounted guard over the
construction. As the later birds arrived some of them
climbed one thousand feet up Cape Adare to make
their nests. By October 29th the migration had ceased.
The mating is accompanied by a definite “proposal”
to the hen, the “ring’’ taking the form of a pebble.
When two birds have agreed to pair they assume the
“ecstatic” attitude, raising their beaks vertically and
rocking from side to side. Rival cocks fight viciously,
breast to breast, hitting each other rapidly with their
flippers until one is exhausted. (See Figure 32.)

On November 3rd several eggs were found and up
to this time no bird had eaten any food since arrival.
They eat snow readily, however. Many starved for
twenty-seven days in spite of all the fighting and hard
work involved in collecting stones. The second egg
is laid about three days later and incubation lasts about
thirty-five days. After the eggs are laid the birds take
turns to go down and feed on shrimps (Euphausia).
They swim either entirely below water, or occasionally
with their heads alone projecting. They are expert
divers and Levick records their “upward dives’ on to
ledges five feet above the water. The sea leopard is
their deadly enemy and in the stomach of one specimen
no less than eighteen penguins were found in various
stages of digestion. The young chicks feed by pushing
the head inside the parents’ throat and so helping itself

216

FLORA AND FAUNA

direct from the gullet. The growth is rapid, for it
weighs about three ounces when hatched, twenty-five
ounces in eight days, and forty-two ounces in twelve
days. The big chicks are herded in a clump and
guarded by a few old birds, while all the rest go out
collecting shrimps to feed the clump. The young learn
to swim as soon as their plumage is acquired, and then
the old birds give up feeding them. On March 12th all
had left Cape Adare for their winter quarters on the
ice pack.

Cherry-Garrard has given us a pen picture of sur-
vival among the Adelie penguins. I quote a paragraph.

The life of the Adelie penguin is one of the most un-
christian and successful in the world. The penguin which
went in for being a true believer would never stand the
ghost of a chance. Watch them go to bathe. Some fifty
or sixty agitated birds are gathered upon the ice-foot,
peering over the edge, telling one another how nice it
will be, and what a good dinner they are going to have.
But this is all swank; they are really worried by a horrid
suspicion that a sea leopard is waiting to eat the first to
dive. The really noble bird according to our theories
would say, “I will go first and if I am killed I shall at any
rate have died unselfishly, sacrificing my life for my com-
panions,” and in time all the most noble birds would be
dead. What they really do is to try and persuade a com-
panion of weaker mind to plunge; failing this they hastily
pass a conscription act and push him over. And then—
bang, helter-skelter in go all the rest.

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ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Microscopic LIFE

Some interesting notes on the inhabitants of the
lakes in Cape Royds have been recorded by James
Murray. Orange colored algz were found to carry
myriads of living things. Creeping rotifers were the
most numerous, while water bears and mites were often
observed. The stones of Coast Lake were often cov-
ered by bright red patches, as though they had been
sprinkled by blood, and these patches consisted of
tightly packed rotifers. Experiments showed that
temperatures of —4o0° F. did not kill these animals.
Drying, freezing, thawing, moistening them or leaving
them in brine seemed to have no effect on them. It is
noteworthy that the adult forms, not the eggs, were
tested, and some of them lived until after their arrival
in London. The rotifers are minute worms, while the
water bears are allied to the insects. Of the former
Hydatina, Adineta and Philodina are common genera.
Of the water bears Macrobiotus arcticus is common. It
was previously only known from the Spitzbergen re-
gion. It is to be noted that some of these rotifers were
found below fifteen feet of ice on Blue Lake. This ice
did not melt during the expedition’s stay at Cape
Royds, so that the rotifers well understand how to sus-
pend animation.

When we started on our second summer’s sledging,
Dr. Wilson asked us to keep a lookout for insects liv-
ing in the moss which we might come across on our
journey. Previously only fragments of various
“spring-tails” had been discovered among moss ob-

218

FLORA AND FAUNA

tained in 1903. One evening at the end of November,
1911, I noticed some dark specks floating on a little
rocky pool at Cape Geology in Granite Harbor. With
no organic matter in the air this seemed unusual and
on closer examination I found that these were the long-
desired insects. They were little dark bluish feliows
shaped like a cigar, with six legs and no wings. Each
insect was about one millimeter long, and they clus-
tered together like aphides (see Figure 12).

Later we found them under most of the stones near
the moss, clustering among the whitish roots (or
hyphze) of the moss. They would be frozen stiff in
a thin film of ice until one turned the stone into the
sun. Then the ice would melt, and they would move
sluggishly about until the sun left them, when their
damp habitation froze again. I cannot imagine a
finer example of hibernation, for it looked as if they
pursued an active life only when a beneficent explorer
let in a little sunlight on them! There was also a much
more active reddish insect, so small that one could only
just see it; but the Gomphocephalus, as the larger blue
genus is called, was readily visible to the naked eye.

Nordenskjold has described a wingless mosquito,
called Belgica, as the largest animal living continuously
in Antarctica. This is four millimeters long, a perfect
giant compared with my little Collembola. But since
Wilkins has shown that all the Graham Land region
is merely a cluster of islands, and as it is moreover
mainly north of the Antarctic Circle, I think I may
perhaps claim for Gomphocephalus the proud record
of being the largest living Antarctic animal!

219

CHAPTER XI
COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS

THE WHALING INDUSTRY

N Antarctica it would appear that the flag follows
I the trade. No nation made any definite claim to
Antarctica until the development of whaling in south-
ern waters showed that, however poor the land might
be, here was a very valuable territory. In recent years
70 per cent of the whale-fishery of the world has taken
place either near Graham Land or in vicinity of the
Ross Sea. In this chapter, therefore, these two aspects
of Antarctica, the commercial and the political, may
well be considered side by side.

We owe to Gunnar Isachsen a peculiarly timely ac-
count of the development of the whaling industry in
Antarctic waters. (Geographical Review, July, 1929.)
He points out that there have been four main stages
in the development of whaling, as we see it to-day.
The Vikings perhaps first commenced to hunt the huge
mammal (for it is, of course, in no wise akin to the
fishes) off the coast of Norway. Possibly they taught
the craft to the Basques, for we first hear of whaling
in the tenth century in the Bay of Biscay. In the six-
teenth century whaling was a brisk industry in the
north Atlantic, and soon spread to Spitzbergen and

220

COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL: ASPECTS

Greenland. By this time the nordcaper, the bowhead,
and the bottlenose whales were all hunted. Early in
the eighteenth century the second phase of whaling
commenced when American whalers hunted the sperm
whale in temperate and tropical oceans. In 1840 there
were some eight hundred vessels so engaged, mostly
from New England ports. All these whales were slow
swimmers and were harpooned from boats. The sperm-
whale industry had practically died out by 1918.

Before the end of the eighteenth century there were
whalers in the Falkland Islands, and we have seen that
these hardy seamen greatly extended our knowledge of
the Antarctic Islands south of America. They chiefly
hunted the right whale, Balena australis. Between
1804 and 1817 American ships took one hundred and
ninety-three thousand right whales in southern waters.
They also took sperm whales (Physeter) and hump-
backs. This southern whaling lasted through most of
the nineteenth century, Enderby Brothers being one
of the best known British companies about 1840.
When the northern whales were killed off, the Nor-
wegian and Scotch whalers voyaged to the Weddell
and Ross seas around 1892-94. The whales, however,
were found to be chiefly the swift rorquals, which
could not be taken by the old technique. However, the
Norwegian, Foyn, had invented the grenade harpoon
some years earlier and this led to the third phase in
whaling, beginning in the north about 1886. It reached
a climax in the north seas about 1905, and here the
swifter whales again became depleted by 1915.

22

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

The fourth phase begins about 1904, when Captain
Larsen returned from his Antarctic experiences with
Nordenskjold, and founded a whaling company in
Buenos Ayres. He was very successful in the first
year and took full ships back to Sandefjord in Nor-
way. Nowadays the industry is largely concentrated
in South Georgia, South Orkneys, and South Shet-
lands. Licenses are issued from the Falkland Islands
to whaling companies, of which in South Georgia there
are four Norwegian, two British, and one Argentine.
In 1923-4 Captain Larsen extended his operations to
the Ross Sea and successful cargoes have been obtained
each year from East Antarctica as well as West
Antarctica.

A good account of the whaling at Deception Island
is given by M. C. Lester.t Large floating factories
leave Norway by the third week in September. They
call first at Cardiff for coal and then proceed to Mon-
tevideo where they pick up the whale catchers. These
are small boats, each manned by a dozen men. There
are usually three catchers to each “‘factory.’’ Then the
small fleet proceeds to the Falklands, where the British
license is obtained, and finally they reached their center
at Deception Island (latitude 63° S.) about the third
week in November. Whaling is carried on through-
out Bransfield Strait and in Belgica Strait down to
65° S. Shortly after Christmas the whale catchers go
south to Belgica Strait, where the ice now begins to
break away. The factories soon move down to Port
Lockroy at the south end of Belgica Strait, and they

1 Geographical Journal (London), September, 1923.
222

COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS

may remain here to the end of the season, about
merierztht (See Figure 7.)

Each year the ships concerned in whaling are being
made bigger and more powerful. Thus the “Sir James
Clark Ross,’ the factory ship in the Ross Sea, is 12,450
tons. Even as late as I9II, it seemed impossible to
us on the “Terra Nova” to get an iron steamer through
the pack ice, yet these whalers have suffered no disaster
to date. The Norwegians now have three land stations
in the Antarctic, eighty-five whale catchers and twenty-
four floating factories. Some factories do not ap-
proach land at all, but drag the one hundred foot whale
right on board for flensing and cutting up. One of
these boats is said to be 22,000 tons register.

It is difficult to say how long the industry will last
under this terrific onslaught. The humpback was the
chief prey till 1912 as it was the easiest to catch, but
it is now much less abundant. The blue whale and the
finback are the mainstays of the Antarctic whaling
to-day. Last season whale oil worth three and a half
million dollars was brought back from southern waters.
The oil sells at about 100 to 150 dollars a ton and
is used for soap and lubricants and to replace tallow,
lard, and margarine. The yearly output is still increas-
ing, and between 1906 and 1927 the following was the
harvest of oil: South Georgia, 3,830,000 barrels; South
Shetland (Deception Island), 2,645,000 barrels; and
Ross Sea, 199,000 barrels. It is stated that twenty
thousand whales have been killed in the Antarctic seas
in recent years. Suarez in his report to the League of

223

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Nations in 1925 gave his opinion that there were not
more than twelve thousand whales surviving.

Luckily the world does not now ignore the destruc-
tion of a valuable international asset. The fees ac-
cumulating from the whaling licenses in the Falklands
region have been in part devoted to carrying out re-
search as to the environment, migrations, and food of
the whales. We owe to A. C. Hardy a valuable account
of the scientific work being carried out on the research
ship “Discovery.” ? This boat is the same which was
built for Scott’s first expedition and is now (1929-30)
on loan to the Australian Government for Mawson’s
new expedition to the Enderby region.

The whales taken south of the Falkland Islands,
apart from the right and sperm whales which are only
occasionally met with, belong to three species. These
are, as stated above, the two large rorquals, the blue
and fin whales, and the humpback whale. These are
all toothless whales, and therefore they feed on surface
organisms or plankton. These whales separate the
small shrimps from the water by means of the sieving
apparatus of baleen plates in the mouth. The destruc-
tion of whales was particularly rapid during the War,
for the whale oil was of great importance as a source
of glycerine; and in the 1915-16 season eleven thousand
seven hundred and ninety-two whales were killed.

In October, 1925, the research ship “Discovery”
sailed with Dr. Kemp as director of research to carry
out a study of the environment of the whale. Re-

2A. C. Hardy, “Work of Royal Research Ship Discovery,”
Geographical Journal, (London), September, 1928.

224

COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS

search work in South Georgia is revealing data as to
breeding times, rate of growth, food of whales, and
the chemical composition of the innumerable samples
of sea water. Already Mr. Mathews’ work here shows
that the three South Georgia whales live exclusively

Fic. 33.—Map oF SouTH GEORGIA SHOWING DISTRIBU-
TION OF WHALE FOOD.

Main currents indicated. (After Hardy.)

on the shrimp, Euphausia superba. A good deal of
whale-marking with discs is also being done to dis-
cover the migrations of the whale.

Mr. Hardy gives a most interesting map of South
Georgia which showed that almost all the Euphausia
are concentrated on the northeast side of South

225

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Georgia (see Figure 33). Immediately at each side
of the island is a zone some fifteen miles broad very
poor in plankton (floating organisms), and outside
this an encircling zone of thick plant plankton, largely
diatoms of the species Corethron valdivie,* and out-
side this again is an area of more mixed, but less dense,
plankton. This curious distribution is largely due to
the supply of phosphate which wells up from deep
waters along the west side of the island in response to
the dominant ocean currents. The diatoms growing
here are carried round to the sheltered northeast side
of the island, where there has developed an extremely
rich area of Euphausia. This is perhaps why South
Georgia is one of the richest whale-feeding grounds
in the world.

POLITICAL REGIONS IN ANTARCTICA

We have seen already that there are no very well
defined regions in the Antarctic so far as we know at
present. There is a general tendency to call that region
east of the Greenwich meridian East Antarctica and
that in the other half of the time-circle West Ant-
arctica. This division links King Edward Land with
Graham Land and Coats Land, and splits the Ross Ice
Shelf between the two Antarcticas. The second method
of subdivision is to use four quadrants, opposite to the
three southern continents and the Pacific Ocean. The
third method is to ignore large divisions and discuss
each region according to the name given by its dis-

3 Sketches of Corethron and Euphausia (not to scale) appear in
Figure 31.
226

WEST 0° EAST:
,Bouvef /s
fo Norway

FALKLAND

5 gee

Fic. 34.—MAP ILLUSTRATING NOMENCLATURE AND RECENT
ANNEXATIONS.

Dotted regions show the only areas charted in Antarctica.
Admiral Byrd claims Marie Byrd Land for the United States.
This high land is partly separated by a long fiord (along 150° W.)
from King Edward Land. Carmen Land is probably non-existent.
Roman figures show number of winters recorded at meteorological
stations.

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

coverer. This latter is the preferable course. The
following table illustrates the three methods. It is seen
at a glance that Mawson’s present expedition has prac-
tically a terra incogmta in the African quadrant (see

Figure 34).

Primary Subdivision |Secondary Subdivision| Tertiary Subdivision
East Antarctica African Quadrant Enderby Land

Australian Quadrant | Queen Mary Land
Adelie Land
Oates Land
Victoria Land

West Antarctica Pacific Quadrant Ross Ice Shelf
King Edward Land
Marie Byrd Land
Peter Island

American Quadrant Charcot Land
Graham Land
Hearst Land
Leopold Land
Coats Land

The cartographer is now faced with yet another set
of arbitrary boundaries, which is based apparently on
the fancies of the colonial offices of Britain, France,
Norway, and the United States. We may rapidly trav-
erse the events which led up to the first definite procla-
mation in 1908.

Captain Cook took possession of South Georgia in
1775, while Captain Biscoe did the same for Graham
Land in 1832. Most explorers since have raised the
flag of their nation and taken possession in the name of

228

COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS

ime kine or ruler. To quote D. H. Miller (Polar
Problems), “In early days, the discovery of unknown
lands was regarded as the primary source of national
title. But the impossibility that. discovery, without
anything more should constitute a continuing basis of
sovereignty soon became obvious, and ‘effective occu-
pation’ or ‘settlement’ became a requisite. In recent
years a third element of title has come to be thought
of internationally as almost necessary, i.e. notification
of the fact to other Powers.”

In July, 1908, Letters Patent from the British
Crown appointed the Governor of the Falkland Islands
to be Governor of South Georgia, the South Orkneys,
the South Shetlands, the Sandwich Isles, and Graham
Land. The territory lay “south of the fiftieth parallel
of south latitude and between the twentieth and eight-
ieth degrees of west longitude.” The original limits
apparently included Tierra del Fuego and other lands
of Chile and Argentina. But an amended definition
gave the boundaries shown on the map, which extended
along the two meridians to the South Pole. Thus the
Weddell Sea became a British territory. (Figure 34.)

In July, 1923, a second dependency was constituted
which places the Ress Sea beneath the Union Jack
under the jurisdiction of the Governor General of New
Zealand. Here the sixtieth latitude is the northern
boundary, the other two being the 160th degree of
east longitude, and the 150th degree of west longitude.
In January, 1841, Ross had taken possession of these
lands on Possession Island near Cape Adare. Sir
Edgeworth David raised the flag at the South Mag-

229

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

netic Pole in January, 1909. Shackleton first traversed
the Polar Plateau in 1908 though Amundsen took pos-
session of the polar region itself in the name of the
King of Norway. Supposing valuable minerals are
discovered at the Pole, it will be an interesting legal
point as to where the /interlands of the coasts shall
have their furthest southern limit, if the Pole itself is
to belong to Norway! It seems a great pity that those
in authority did not choose 155° E. longitude, instead
of 160°, as the western boundary of the Ross De-
pendency. For the Magnetic Pole and all the moun-
tains discovered by Scott between 79° S. and 83° S.
are outside this limit. In fact, the most striking fea-
ture in Antarctica, the great South Victoria Horst
(see Figure 10), winds east and west across this
political boundary from Cape Adare to the Pole

The French Government in March, 1924, has at-
tached Adelie Land to the Government of Madagascar,
together with Kerguelen Island and St. Paul and Am-
sterdam islands. The statement is vague, the region
being spoken of as “that portion of Wilkes Land
known as Adelie Land.’’ As mentioned earlier there
is no unanimity as to what constitutes Wilkes Land.
We have seen that D’Urville spent only one week in
East Antarctica or perhaps less time than almost any
other explorer. He did not land on the main land.
In view of Mawson’s splendid achievements in cartog-
raphy and science, and his sojourn during two Ant-
arctic winters in this region, it seems likely that
Australia will make out a good case for the British
claims to Adelie Land, especially as the hinterland

230

COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS

areas, at the Magnetic Pole, at the head of the Taylor
Glacier, and in the vicinity of Barne Inlet, have all
been mapped by British expeditions.

Norway is the third nation to expand its territories
in the Antarctic. In November, 1927, the ship “Nor-
vegia,”’ under Captain Christensen, sighted Bouvet
Island, that elusive island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
He fixed its position at 54° 26’ S. and 3° 24” E.
(see Figure 34). The island is pentagonal in shape
and about eight kilometers wide. Its snow-clad sides
rise evenly to a central plateau of about nine hundred
meters elevation. There was practically no vegetation,
but the seas teemed with life, and a number of fur-
seals were killed. The ship stayed there during De-
cember. In November, 1928, the British waived any
claims to the island in favor of Norway. In the last
whaling season (1928-29) the “Norvegia’’ made a
journey to Peter Island (go° W. and 69° S.) and an-
nexed it to Norway. This island was the first land
seen south of the Antarctic Circle, and was discovered
by the Russian, Bellingshausen, in January, 1821.
Thus Norway has just taken possession of two of the
most interesting localities discussed in Antarctic his-
tory. Perhaps they epitomize Antarctica as a whole.
Land covered by ice, hard to discover, valueless for
commerce, but surrounded by richly endowed seas and
touched with mystery and the romance of the unknown.

REFERENCES

CHAPTER I
The Value of Antarctic Exploration

[ know of no general account stressing the scientific
value of polar exploration, though the subject is touched
upon in most polar books. H.R. Mill’s The Siege of the
South Pole (London, 1905), is the best introduction to a
study of Antarctica. Mawson in the Geographical Journal
(June, 1911), stresses the structural interest. His chap-
ter in Problems of Polar Research (New York, 1928),
is very suggestive. The whole of this latter book, in fact,
should be read by every student. The present writer in his
With Scott, the Silver Lining (London, 1916), has en-
deavored to give in popular language some account of the
many problems tackled by his scientific colleagues and
himself in the Antarctic.

CHAPTER IT
Exploring Antarctic Seas

The author has turned to original volumes where pos-
sible. Heawood’s Geographical Discovery (Cambridge,
1921), is useful. The Siege of the South Pole is excellent
for an account of exploration up to 1904. The claims of
Wilkes are discussed by Balch in Antarctica (Philadel-
phia, 1902). See also J. K. Davis’ With the Aurora
(London, 1919). The Antarctic Manual, published by
the Royal Geographical Society (London, 1901), gives
the logs (or important extracts) of Biscoe, Balleny,

233

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

Wilkes, D’Urville, Arctowski, and Bernacchi. There are
many articles in the journals of the older geographical
societies dealing with these explorations.

CHAPTER III
Exploring the Great Continent

Journals of all the later voyages are available in most
large libraries. In English are accounts by Cook (1900)
and Bernacchi (1901), of Gerlache’s and Borchgrevinck’s
expeditions. The volumes of the great expeditions are
classic. The Voyage of the Discovery (1905), The Heart
of the Antarctic (1909), Scott’s Last Expedition (1913),
and The Home of the Blizzard (1915). I may be par-
doned for referring to the remarkable series of books
which describe the 1910-13 expedition with which I was
associated. Scott’s account appeared in 1913, Priestley’s
in 1914, Taylor’s in 1916, Evans’ in 1921, Ponting’s in
1921, and Cherry-Garrard’s in 1923. Levick and Gran
have also written books thereon. These are, of course, in
addition to the large volumes on special scientific subjects.

CHAPTER IV
Recent Expeditions to the Antarctic

Filchner’s voyage is described in Petermann’s Journal
(1913), page.57. Shackleton’s last two voyages are de-
scribed in books entitled South and the Voyage of the
Quest. The number of the American Geographical
Review for July, 1929, contains a valuable article by Sir
Hubert Wilkins from which I have been permitted to
quote largely. My account of Commander Byrd’s exploits
is also mainly based on an article in the Review for April,
1929.

234

REFERENCES

The Brief History of Polar Exploration by W. L. A.
Joerg has just been published (1930) by the American
Geographical Society. It deals especially with exploration
by flying, and is accompanied by two invaluable maps.

CHAPTER V

The Continent; Its Geology and Relation to Other
Lands

As regards geology, I hasten to acknowledge my in-
debtedness to the best single memoir yet produced by an
Antarctic expedition. I refer to Geology, Vol. I by David
and Priestley (Heinemann, London, 1914). This deals
with physiography, glaciology, meteorology, and paleon-
tology, as well as the usual geological research. Ferrar’s
account (Discovery Expedition, 1902) is still the founda-
tion of all stratigraphic work in East Antarctica. Nor-
denskjold’s volumes (Stockholm, 1910), especially those
dealing with the fossils, must be consulted. Woodward’s
account of the Devonian fish (1921) and Seward on the
Permian ferns (1914) are published by the British
Museum.

CHAPTER VI
Scenery and Topography

This chapter on topography is based almost entirely on
the writer’s quarto memoir Physiography of MacMurdo
Sound and Granite Harbour (Harrison, London, 1922).
No other expedition has come across such large areas of
ice-free country, so that no other memoir perhaps deals so
fully with these problems. I contributed a very lengthy
paper on the subject to the Royal Geographical Journal
for October, November, and December, 1914; and I have

235

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

borrowed one or two maps therefrom. A few illustrations
are from my book, With Scott.

CuHapTer VII
Ice Sheets and Glaciers

Glaciology is discussed in my large memoir, and I have
used in this book a number of illustrations therefrom.
But I am much indebted—as are all Antarctic students—
to the very fine memoir (Glaciology, Harrison, London,
1922), produced by my sledge-mates (and _ brothers-in-
law!) Priestley and Wright. Some data have also been
taken from the earlier memoir by David and Priestley
(1914). The textbook by W. H. Hobbs, Characteristics
of Existing Glaciers (New York, 1911), should be con-
sulted by all who are interested in glacial erosion.

CuaptTer VIII
Oceanography and Sea-Ice

Oceanography was investigated closely by the German
expedition under Drygalski. I have used one drawing
from his chapter in Problems in Polar Research (q.v.).
I am indebted to the American Geographical Society for
much data incorporated in their splendid large-scale map
of the Antarctic (1928). The other references are men-
tioned in Chapters VI and VII.

CHAPTER IX
Climatology

For the climatology I have used my own chapter in
Problems of Polar Research. A book of particular
value concerning the general circulation is Glacial Anti-
cyclones, by W. H. Hobbs (New York, 1926). I have

236

REFERENCES

referred in many places to the three volumes of meteor-
ology written by my colleague on the expedition, Dr. G. C.
Simpson (Calcutta, 1919). Mawson’s brief account of
aurore (Heart of the Antarctic) has been quoted.

CHAPTER X
Flora and Fauna

The volume on botany produced after Nordenskjold’s
expedition is important (Stockholm, 1910). Dr. Wilson’s
very readable account of the Antarctic fauna will be
found at the end of Voyage of the Discovery, Vol. Il. A
number of references concerning whaling are mentioned
im the text.

CHAPTER XI

Commercial and Political Aspects

The journals consulted are referred to in the text.
There is no book dealing specifically with the commercial
and political aspects of Antarctica. However, two general
books which have appeared recently may be referred to.
They are Polar Regions by Rudmose Brown (London,
1927), in which, however, most of the space is given to
Arctic areas; and Antarctica by Gordon Hayes (London,
1928). The latter is a large volume, marked by contro-
versial discussions as to the relative merits of various ex-
peditions. It is by an armchair writer who has apparently
little belief in the value of detailed scientific research in
the Antarctic regions, which in his opinion “savours of
solemn trifling.” As the present writer holds the opposite
view, he is not much in sympathy with Mr. Hayes’ argu-
ments, though the latter’s industry has compiled a very
readable book.

I have also written a long chapter dealing with equip-

237

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH

ment, etc., for Antarctic travelers in Brouwer’s series
of Practical Hints for Scientific Travellers, Vol. IV
(Nijhoff, 1926, The Hague). A special collection of
books and apparatus is to be seen at the Polar Institute
attached to the University of Cambridge, England.

INDEX

Adams, 46, 47, 48

Adare, Cape, 33, 53, 94

Adelaide Island, 22, 45

Adelie Land, 24, 27, 39, 63, 105,
230

Adelie penguins, 215-217

Admiralty Range, 30

Ainsworth, 63, 177

Alaska, I

Alexander Island, 16, 19, 20, 33,

Alexandra Mountains, 76

Alph Lake, 118; River, 210

Amundsen, 32, 35, 53, 59-61, 178,
230

Anderson, 42

Andes, 10, 89

Andvord Bay, 73

Ann, Cape, 22

Antarctic Circle crossed, 16

Antarctic discoveries charted, 21

Antarctica, area of, 2

Antipodal arrangement, 83-84

Apposed glaciers, 123, 147

Archeocyathine, 90, 94-96, 104,
106

Arctic climate, 178; flora, 203

Arctowski, 33, 177

Armitage, 37

Arrhenius, 199

Atkinson, 56, 58, 186

Atlantic rocks, 102

Aurora, 6, 198-199

-AuLord, 63, 72: 172

| Australia, area, 2; geology, 9;

discovery, 13; build, 88; tem-
peratures, 183

Bage, 65, IQI

Bagshaw, 73

Balch, 27, 29, 233

Balleny Isles, 16, 22, 27, 29, 30,
72, 233

Balloon Bight, 34

Barkow, IgI

Basalt, 102

Bathymetry, 159

Bay ice, 166

Beacon Sandstone, 65, 81, 90-91,
96, 96-I0I, III

Beardmore Glacier, 5, 49-50, 55-
57-75 72; 90, 95, 98, 134,
147-148, 156, 192

Belgica, 190, 219

Bellingshausen, 19-20, 21, 231

Bernacchi, 33, 177

Bibliography, 233-235

Birds, 210-217

Biscoe, 21-22, 228, 233; Isles, 44

Bjerknes, 184

Blizzards, 187, 189, 193

Blue Lake, 119

Bonney Lake, 118, 124

Borchgrevinck, 32, 33

Botany Bay, 115

Bothrio lepis, 98

Bouvet Isle, 14, 15, 16, 18, 231

Bowers, 52, 53; Piedmont, 54, 55

Bransfield, 19

239

INDEX

Brocklehurst, 47

Brown, 237

Bruce, 33, 43-44, 178
Buckley, Mount, 99

Budd Land, 25

Bull, 32

Byrd, 76-82, 178

Byrd Land, 35, 77, 227-228

Caird Land, 68

Cambrian rocks, 90, 95-96

Canberra museum, I5

Capes, I15

Carmen Land, 35, 60, 81

Carr Cape, 28

Caves, 117

Charles Bob Mountains, 81

Charcot, 44-46; Isle, 46, 76

Cherry-Garrard, 55, 217, 234

Chree, 6, 199

Christensen, 231

Cirques, I17, 122, 124-127, 134,
137,.148

Cirrus drift, 180, 195

Clerke’s Log, 16

Chiffse517

Climate of Antarctica, 7, 11,
177-199

Cloudmaker, 148

Cloven-hoof ice, 168

Coal, 490, 75, 97-98, I00-I101

Coats Land, 31, 43, 44, 68, 73, 96

Colbeck, 33, 38

Colobanthus, 201

Confluent Ice, 140, 155

Continental Ice, 136-137

Continental Shelf, 84-158

Cook, 14-19, 228; map, 16

Cook, Mount, 132-134

Cope, 72

Corethron, 205

Cote Clarie, 25

Crab-eater seal, 208

Crane Channel, 75

Crozet Isle, 82

Crozier, Cape, 36
Crystalline limestones, 93
Cwm. See Cirque.

Dalrymple, 15, 17

Darbyshire, 202

Darwin, 126, 148

David, Sir Edgeworth, 6, 35,
46, 47, 50-51, 90-91, 94, 100,
104, I15, 118, 154, 164, 192,
229, 235

Davis Bank, 160

Davis, J. K., 23, 63-66, 7a;7ee
173, 233

Davis, W. M., 85

Day, 56

Debenham, 53, 96, 143

Débris cones, I19-120

Deception Isle, 45, 73, 74, 222

Dendritic glaciers, 139, 148

Denman glacier, 66

Deutschland drift, 40, 172, 190

Devil’s Dancing Floor, 79

Diatoms, 163, 203

“Discovery,” 34, 82, 224

Discovery Chart, 21

Dolerite, 91, 97, 101-102, 106

Dolphins, 206

Down-warps, 86-87

Drake, 13; Loop, 88

Drygalski, 40-41, 157, 161, 163,
193; Ice Tongue, 50; I51, 155,
178

D’Urville, 23-25, 27, 28

East Antarctica, 226

Edward VII Land, 30, 34, 46,
53, 76, 88, 101

Eielson, 74

Elephant Isle, 26, 40, 76

Emperor Penguins, 55, 212-214

Enantiomorph, 80

240

INDEX

Enderby Land, 16, 18, 21, 22,
106, 221

Endurance Drift, 40, 68-70, 172,
192

Epeirogenic, 85

Erebus, Mount, 30, 46; map, 54,
102-3; 189, IQI

Euphausia, 203, 205, 216, 225

Europe, area, 2

Hyans, Cape, 53, 113, 110, 103

Ryans, E. RK. A., 56; 57

Evans (seaman), 37, 52, 57

Evolution of life, 10

Falliere’s Land, 45

Falkland Islands’
227-229

Fauna, 203 et seq.

Ferrar, 235; Glacier, 37, 38, 53;
maps 54, 02, 101, 122, 127,128,
134, 141-147, 149

Ferrar Valley, 110

Ferrel, 162

Field, Mount, 134

Filchner, 40, 63, 66-67, 68; Ice
Shelf, 153, 192

Finley Isles, 75

Fish, fossils, 35, 58, 98, 106

Flight to the Pole, 78-81

Flora, 200-203

Foyn’s Land, 33; 221

7 Etam,” 50

Framheim, 35, 61

Franklin, 26, 32

Frazil, 163

Fridjof Nansen Mount, 81

“Furious Fifties,” 108

Dependency,

Gaussberg, 25, 41, 66, 106
Geologie, Pointe, 24

Geology of Antarctica, 9, 83-107
Gerlache, 32, 202

Gjoa, I5

Glacial erosion, 131-132

Glacier classes, 135-138

Glossopteris, 5, 99-100

Gueiss, 93

“Golden Period,” 62

Gomphocephalus, 96, 219

Gondwanaland, 100

Gould, 77, 78, 81-82, 88, 98

Graben, 175

Graham Land, I9, 22, 31, 2109,
229

Gran, 234

Granite, IOI

Granite Harbor, 34: map, 54, 92

Granulites, 93

Gravity, 6

Graywacke, 94, 106

Great Ice Age, 9

Gregory, 83

Greeks, 12

Green, Lowthian, 83

Greenland, glaciers, 134; cli-
mate, 179; flora, 202; whaling,
225

Hann, 181
Hanson, 33
Hardy, 224
Hayes, 237
Hayward, 71
Heard Isle, 82

.Herbertson Glacier, 148-150

Hearst Land, 40, 75, 89
Heawood, 233
Heiberg Glacier, 78, 81

Heim, 136

Hess, 134

Hobbs, $4, 126, 135, 136, 139,
194-195, 236

Hobbs Glacier, 122

Hooker, 29, 31, 202

Hope Bay, 42, 104

Hope, Mount, 48, 148

Horst of Antarctica, 35, 78, 81,
88, 91, 96, IOI, 150, 230

241

INDEX

Humboldt, 4

Icebergs, 157, 170, 174-176

Ice blink, 110

Ice divide, 35, 148

Ice flowers, 164

Ice foot, 167-170

Ice sheets, 131

Ice shelf, 140

Ice Tongue, 138, 140, 150-153,
170

Insects, 218-219

Isaachsen, 220

Japanese, 61

Jensen, 103

Joerg, 235

Joinville Land, 23, 69
Jones, 66

Jurassic flora, 104-105

Kemp, 224

Kenyte, I0I, 102

Kerguelen, 14, 16, 17, 29, 41, 82,
230

Kidson, 182, 184

Killer-whales, 204-206

Knox Land, 28

Koettlitz Glacier, 54, 55, 128,
146, 175

Kosciusko, Mount, 132, 135

Kukri Hills, 145

Lake Eyre, 112

Lakes in Antarctica, 116, 1I17-
II9

Land-bridges, 8

Larsen, 32, 42, 222; glacier, 51,
155

Lashley, 30, 156

Laurie Isle, 43

Lecanora, 203

Leopold Land, 68

Lepidodendron, 100

Lester, 73, 222

Levick, 215-217

Lichens, 8, 200, 201

Little America, 35, 78

Lister, Mount, 125, 126,
135, 192

Liv Glacier, 78, 80, 98

Loubet Land, 45

Louis Philippe Land, 23

134-

Macintosh, 52, 71

Mackinley, 81

Mackay Glacier, 54, 58, 129, 134,
140

Macmurdo Sound, 34-35; chart,
54, OI, 114

Macquarie Isle, 63, 66

Madigan, 65

Magellan, 13, 18

Magnetic Pole, 4, 5, 24, 29, 50-
51, 65

Magnetism, 4

Mathews, 225

Markham, Mount, 36

Marshall, 46, 48

Marsupials, 8

Mawson, 22, 46, 63-66, 82, Io,
176, 198, 233; map, 5, 25

Mawson Bank, 160

Mecking, 178

Meinardus, 193

Melbourne site, 22

Mercator, 12, 13

Mertz, 5, 64, 161

Metamorphic rocks, 92

Mill, 233

Mill Rise, 66

Miller, 229

Moraines, 120-122, 143, 160

Morell Land, 67

Moss, 144, 200, 219

Mossman, 173, 177, 189

Mulock, 38

Murdoch, 33

242

INDEX

Murray, 46, 218
Murphy, 8

Nansen, 83

Neve, 176

New Zealand, 17; build, 88;
Alps, 121; glaciers, 133-134

“Nimrod,” 46, 170

Ninnis, 5, 27, 64; Glacier, 151,
161

Nivation, 126, 130, 133, 134-135,
136

Nordenskjold, 41-43, 202; Shelf,
75; Tongue, I51

North Land, 25

“Norvegia,” 231

Norwegian whalers, 32

Nunatak, 127-128

Nunakol, 127-128, 129

Nussbaum riegel, 124, 127-128

Oates Land, 25, 35, 52, 57, 72,
228

Oceanography, 157-163

One Ton Camp, 53, 57, 186

Outlet Glaciers, 139, 140-148

Pacific rocks, 102

Pack ice, I09, 170-172, 174

Paleozoic rocks, 90

Palimpsest theory, 127-128

Palmer, 19, 20, 21

Pancake ice, 164, 171

Patience Camp, 69

Paulet Isle, 42, 69

Peary, 83, 202

Penguins, 203, 212-217; fossil,
105

Pennell, 176; Bank, 160

Peter Island, 16, 18, 20, 33, 231

Peterman Isle, 45

Petrels, 211

Piedmont ice, 138, 140

Pleistocene ice, 8

Polar front, 182

Polar Institute, 238

Polar Plateau, 49, 56-57, 60, 79-
8I

Political regions, 226-231

Ponting, 175, 199, 206, 234

Port Lockroy, 222

“Pourguot Pas.” 17,45

Powell, 19, 23

Pressure ridges, 167-168; waves,
196-197

Prestrud, 61

Priestley, 46, 58, 94, 95, I15,
Ei7, EES, 136! 136° 47, 164,
173; ¥703 295, 226

Prior, 102, 103

Ptolemy, 12

Quebec siege, 14

Queen Mary Land, 64,
map, 172

Queen Maud Range, 78

“Ouest” 73

137;

Racovitzl, 210

Rasmussen, 202

Riegel, 123, 125, I41

Ringgold, 25, 39

Rockefeller Range, 76

Rorqual, 206-207, 224

Ross, 4, 29-31, 156

Ross Ice Shelf, 30, 33, 34, 48,
78, 81, 88, 109-110, 116, 134,
153-156, I61

Ross Island Tongue, 151-153

Ross Sea Dependency, 227-229

Ross seal, 208

Rotifers, 218

Rouch, 177

Royds, 35, 36; Cape, 46, 116

Ryder, 133

Sabrina Land, 23
Sandwich group, 18, 229

243

INDEX

Sastrugi, 38

Scenery, 108-113

Scotia, 43; Bay, 173-174

Scott, Robert Falcon, 34-39, 52-
58, 99, 152, 154, 163, 186, 198

Sea-ice, 163-176

Sea leopard, 207, 216

Seals, 146, 205-207

Sequoia, 92

Seward, 99, 100, 235

Shackleton, 36, 46-52, 68-72, 73,

230

Shackleton Shelf, 28, 153, 160

Shear-crack, 166-167

Shields of world, 85-86

Shores, 114

Siberia, 180, 181

Simpson, 59, 177, 183, 186, 187,
195-197, 236

Skauk, 152

Skua, 211

Smith, 19, 21

Smith, Grant, 174

Snowfall, 190

Snow Hill Island, 41, 91-92, 105,
190, 202

Solifluction, 116, 146

Sonic depth-finder, 158

South Georgia, 10, 16, 18, 20, 66,
70, 73, 104, 222, 224, 229

South Orkneys, 10, 23, 43, 104,
178, 222, 229

South Shetlands, 19, 24

Spencer-Smith, 71

Staten Isle, 179

Stefansson Strait, 19, 75

Structure of A., 84-86

Suarez, 223

Suess, Mount, 58, 98, 120, 120

Switzerland, 9, 124, 135

Tahiti transit, 15
Taylor Glacier, 6, 37, 53; map,
54, 121, 127-128, 134, 141, 192

Taylor, Griffith, 53, 58, 136, 177,
200, 206, 200, 219, 233, 235,
237

Taylor Valley, 93, 111-112, 116,
122-124, 190

Termination Land, 24, 64

“Terra Nova,” 52, 106, 170

Tesselations, 146

Tetrahedral Theory, 83

Texas area, 2

Tide-crack, 169-170

Tierra del Fuego, 13

Tilley, 93

Topography, Antarctic, 113-130

Totten Land, 64

Transection glaciers, 139

Tropopause, 181

Uruguay, 42

Vahsel, 67, 191

Value of exploration, I
Valdivia cruise, 14, 106
Variation lines, 5
Victoria Land, map, 35
Victorian highlands, 150
Vince, 36

“Vincennes,” 26

Wandel Isle, 44

Water erosion, 129-130

Webb, 65

Weddell, 16, 20, 30

Weddell Sea, map, 40, 67, 82,
220

Weddell seal, 208-209

West Antarctica, 226

Whales, 204-207

Whaling, I9, 220-226

Wild, 46, 48, 63, 65-66, 73; 98,
17 .

Wilkes, 23, 24, 25, 26-20

Wilkes Land, 64, 72, 158, 230,
233

244

INDEX

Wilkins, Sir H., 7, 19, 73, 74- | World-Plan, 83-88

76, 177, 219; chart, 40 Wright, 53, 95, 136, 138, 143,
Wilkins Land, 75 148, 163, 177, 236
Wilson, 36, 52, 55, 99, 167, 186,

ines, 210, 212, 213, 214, 1 “Yelcho,” 71

218, 237
Winds, 188, 191-196 Zoology, 8, 203-219
Woodward, 235 (1)

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