Scott's Last Expedition Part 28

The meteorological conditions are very puzzling.

_Sat.u.r.day, June_ 3.--The wind dropped last night, but at 4 A.M. suddenly sprang up from a dead calm to 30 miles an hour. Almost instantaneously, certainly within the s.p.a.ce of one minute, there was a temperature rise of nine degrees. It is the most extraordinary and interesting example of a rise of temperature with a southerly wind that I can remember. It is certainly difficult to account for unless we imagine that during the calm the surface layer of cold air is extremely thin and that there is a steep inverted gradient. When the wind arose the sky overhead was clearer than I ever remember to have seen it, the constellations brilliant, and the Milky Way like a bright auroral streamer.

The wind has continued all day, making it unpleasant out of doors. I went for a walk over the land; it was dark, the rock very black, very little snow lying; old footprints in the soft, sandy soil were filled with snow, showing quite white on a black ground. Have been digging away at food statistics.

Simpson has just given us a discourse, in the ordinary lecture series, on his instruments. Having already described these instruments, there is little to comment upon; he is excellently lucid in his explanations.

As an a.n.a.logy to the attempt to make a scientific observation when the condition under consideration is affected by the means employed, he rather quaintly cited the impossibility of discovering the length of trousers by bending over to see!

The following are the instruments described:

Features

The outside (bimetallic) thermograph.

The inside thermograph (alcohol) Alcohol in spiral, small lead pipe--float vessel.

The electrically recording anemometer Cam device with contact on wheel; slowing arrangement, inertia of wheel.

The Dynes anemometer Parabola on immersed float.

The recording wind vane Metallic pen.

The magnetometer Horizontal force measured in two directions--vertical force in one--timing arrangement.

The high and low potential apparatus of the balloon thermograph Spotting arrangement and difference, see _ante_.

Simpson is admirable as a worker, admirable as a scientist, and admirable as a lecturer.

_Sunday, June_ 4.--A calm and beautiful day. The account of this, a typical Sunday, would run as follows: Breakfast. A half-hour or so selecting hymns and preparing for Service whilst the hut is being cleared up. The Service: a hymn; Morning prayer to the Psalms; another hymn; prayers from Communion Service and Litany; a final hymn and our special prayer. Wilson strikes the note on which the hymn is to start and I try to hit it after with doubtful success! After church the men go out with their ponies.

To-day Wilson, Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, Lashly, and I went to start the building of our first 'igloo.' There is a good deal of difference of opinion as to the best implement with which to cut snow blocks. Cherry-Garrard had a knife which I designed and Lashly made, Wilson a saw, and Bowers a large trowel. I'm inclined to think the knife will prove most effective, but the others don't acknowledge it _yet_. As far as one can see at present this knife should have a longer handle and much coa.r.s.er teeth in the saw edge--perhaps also the blade should be thinner.

We must go on with this hut building till we get good at it. I'm sure it's going to be a useful art.

We only did three courses of blocks when tea-time arrived, and light was not good enough to proceed after tea.

Sunday afternoon for the men means a 'stretch of the land.'

I went over the floe on ski. The best possible surface after the late winds as far as Inaccessible Island. Here, and doubtless in most places along the sh.o.r.e, this, the first week of June, may be noted as the date by which the wet, sticky salt crystals become covered and the surface possible for wood runners. Beyond the island the snow is still very thin, barely covering the ice flowers, and the surface is still bad.

There has been quite a small landslide on the S. side of the Island; seven or eight blocks of rock, one or two tons in weight, have dropped on to the floe, an interesting instance of the possibility of transport by sea ice.

Ponting has been out to the bergs photographing by flashlight. As I pa.s.sed south of the Island with its whole ma.s.s between myself and the photographer I saw the flashes of magnesium light, having all the appearance of lightning. The light illuminated the sky and apparently objects at a great distance from the camera. It is evident that there may be very great possibilities in the use of this light for signalling purposes and I propose to have some experiments.

N.B.--Magnesium flashlight as signalling apparatus in the summer.

Another crab-eater seal was secured to-day; he had come up by the bergs.

_Monday, June_ 5.--The wind has been S. all day, sky overcast and air misty with snow crystals. The temperature has gone steadily up and to-night rose to + 16. Everything seems to threaten a blizzard which cometh not. But what is to be made of this extraordinary high temperature heaven only knows. Went for a walk over the rocks and found it very warm and muggy.

Taylor gave us a paper on the Beardmore Glacier. He has taken pains to work up available information; on the ice side he showed the very gradual gradient as compared with the Ferrar. If creva.s.ses are as plentiful as reported, the motion of glacier must be very considerable. There seem to be three badly creva.s.sed parts where the glacier is constricted and the fall is heavier.

Geologically he explained the rocks found and the problems unsolved. The bas.e.m.e.nt rocks, as to the north, appear to be reddish and grey granites and altered slate (possibly bearing fossils). The Cloudmaker appears to be diorite; Mt. Buckley sedimentary. The suggested formation is of several layers of coal with sandstone above and below; interesting to find if it is so and investigate coal. Wood fossil conifer appears to have come from this--better to get leaves--wrap fossils up for protection.

Mt. Dawson described as pinkish limestone, with a wedge of dark rock; this very doubtful! Limestone is of great interest owing to chance of finding Cambrian fossils (Archeocyathus).

He mentioned the interest of finding here, as in Dry Valley, volcanic cones of recent date (later than the recession of the ice). As points to be looked to in Geology and Physiography:

1. Hope Island shape.

2. Character of wall facets.

3. Type of tributary glacierscliff or curtain, broken.

4. Do tributaries enter 'at grade'?

5. Lateral gullies pinnacled, &c., shape and size of slope.

6. Do tributaries cut out gullies--empty unoccupied cirques, hangers, &c.

7. Do upland moraines show tesselation?

8. Arrangement of strata, inclusion of.

9. Types of moraines, distance of blocks.

10. Weathering of glaciers. Types of surface. (Thrust mark? Rippled, snow stool, gla.s.s house, coral reef, honeycomb, ploughshare, bastions, piecrust.)

11. Amount of water silt bands, stratified, or irregular folded or broken.

12. Cross section, of valleys 35 slopes?

13. Weather slopes debris covered, height to which.

14. Nunataks, height of rounded, height of any angle in profile, erratics.

15. Evidence of order in glacier delta.

Debenham in discussion mentioned usefulness of small chips of rock--many chips from several places are more valuable than few larger specimens.

We had an interesting little discussion.

I must enter a protest against the use made of the word 'glaciated'

by Geologists and Physiographers.