The Home Of The Blizzard Part 38

The next evidence on the sea-ice question came in the shape of a line of broken slabs of ice to the north, sticking out of the snow like the ruins of an ancient graveyard. At one hundred and fifteen miles the line was so close that we left the sledge to investigate it, finding a depression ten feet deep, through which wound a glistening riband of sea-water. It reminded one of a creek in flat, Australian country, and the illusion was sustained by a dark skua gull--in its slow flight much like a crow. It was a fissure in old thick sea-ice.

Sunday, and the first day of December, brought good weather and a clear view of the mainland. A bay opened to the east of Penguin Point, from which the coast trended to the south-east. Across a crack in the sea-ice we could just distinguish a low indented line like the glacier-tongue, we had already crossed. It might have been a long promontory of land for all we knew. Behind it was a continuous ice-blink and on our left, to the north, a deep blue "water sky." It seemed worth while continuing on an easterly course approximately parallel with the coast.

We were faced by another glacier-tongue; a fact which remained unproven for a week at least. From the sea-ice on to the glacier--the Ninnis Glacier--there was a gentle rise to a prominent knoll of one hundred and seventy feet. Here our distance from the Hut amounted to one hundred and fifty-two miles, and the spot was reckoned a good situation for the last depot.

In taking magnetic observations, it was interesting to find that the "dip" amounted to 87 degrees 44', while the declination, which had varied towards the west, swung at this our most northerly station a few degrees to the east. We were curving round the South Magnetic Pole. Many points on the coast were fixed from an adjoining hill to which Correll and I trudged through sandy snow, while McLean stayed behind erecting the depot-mound, placing a food-bag, kerosene tin, black cloth and miner's pick on the top.

With four weeks' provisions we made a new start to cross the Ninnis Glacier on December 3, changing course to E. 30 degrees N., in great wonderment as to what lay ahead. In this new land interest never flagged. One never could foresee what the morrow would bring forth.

Across rolling "downs" of soft, billowy snow we floundered for twenty-four miles, on the two following days. Not a wind-ripple could be seen. We were evidently in a region of comparative calms, which was a remarkable thing, considering that the windiest spot in the world was less than two hundred miles away.

After several sunny days McLean and I had very badly cracked lips. It had been often remarked at the Hut that the standard of humour greatly depreciated during the winter and this caused McLean and me many a physical pang while sledging, as we would laugh at the least provocation and open all the cracks in our lips. Eating hard plasmon biscuits was a painful pleasure. Correll, who was immune from this affliction, tanned to the rich hue of the "nut-brown maiden."

On December 5, at the top of a rise, we were suddenly confronted with a new vision--"Thala.s.sa!" was our cry, "the sea!" but a very different sea from that which brought such joy to the hearts of the wandering Greeks.

Unfolded to the horizon was a plain of pack-ice, thickly studded with bergs and intersected by black leads of open water. In the north-east was a patch of open sea and above it, round to the north, lowering banks of steel-blue cloud. We had come to the eastern side of Ninnis Glacier.

At this point any a.n.a.logy which could possibly have been found with Wilkes's coastline ceased. It seems probable that he charted as land the limits of the pack-ice in 1840.

The excitement of exploring this new realm was to be deferred. Even as we raised the tent, the wind commenced to whistle and the air became surcharged with snow. Three skua gulls squatted a few yards away, squawking at our approach, and a few snow petrels sailed by in the gathering blizzard.

Through the 6th, 7th and 8th and most of the 9th it raged, during which time we came definitely to the conclusion that as social entertainers we were complete failures. We exhausted all the reserve topics of conversation, discussed our Universities, sports, friends and homes. We each described the scenery we liked best; notable always for the sunny weather and perfect calm. McLean sailed again in Sydney Harbour, Correll cycled and ran his races, I wandered in the South Australian hills or rowed in the "eights," while the snow swished round the tent and the wind roared over the wastes of ice.

Avoiding a few creva.s.ses on the drop to sea-level on December 10, the sledge was manoeuvred over a tide-crack between glacier and sea-ice. The latter was traversed by frequent pressure-ridges; hummocks and broken pinnacles being numerous.

The next six days out on the broken sea-ice were full of incident. The weather was gloriously sunny till the 13th, during which time the sledge had to be dragged through a forest of pinnacles and over areas of soft, sticky slush which made the runners execrable for hours. Ponds of open water, by which basked a few Weddell seals, became a familiar sight. We tried to maintain a south-easterly course for the coast, but miles were wasted in the tortuous maze of ice--"a wildering Theban ruin of hummock and serrac."

The sledge-meter broke down and gave the ingenious Correll a proposition which he ably solved. McLean and I had a chronic weakness of the eyes from the continual glare. Looking at the other two fellows with their long protruding goggles made me think of Banquo's ghost: "Thou hast no speculation in those eyes that thou dost glare with."

I had noticed that some of the tide-cracks had opened widely and, when a blizzard blew on December 13, the thought was a skeleton in my brain cupboard.

On the 15th an Emperor penguin was seen sunning himself by a pool of water, so we decided to kill the bird and carry some meat in case of emergency. McLean found the stomach full of fish and myriads of cestodes in the intestines.

By dint of hard toil over cracks, ridges and jagged, broken blocks, we came, by diverging to the south-west, to the junction between shifting pack and fast bay-ice, and even there, we afterwards shuddered to find, it was at least forty-five miles, as the penguin skis, to the land.

It was a fine flat surface on which the sledge ran, and the miles commenced to fly by, comparatively speaking. Except for an occasional deep rift, whose bottom plumbed to the sea-water, the going was excellent. Each day the broken ice on our left receded, the mainland to the south grew closer and traces of rock became discernible on the low, fractured cliffs.

On December 17 a huge rocky bluff--Horn Bluff--stood out from the sh.o.r.e.

It had a ram-shaped bow like a Dreadnought battleship and, adjoining it, there were smaller outcrops of rock on the seaward ice-cliffs. On its eastern side was a wide bay with a well-defined cape--Cape Freshfield--at the eastern extremity about thirty miles away.

The Bluff was a place worth exploring. At a distance of more than fifteen miles, the spot suggested all kinds of possibilities, and in council we argued that it was useless to go much farther east, as to touch at the land would mean a detour on the homeward track and time would have to be allowed for that.

At a point two hundred and seventy miles from the Hut, in lat.i.tude 68 degrees 18' S., longitude 150 degrees 12' E., we erected our "farthest east" camp on December 18, after a day's tramp of eighteen miles. Here, magnetic "dips" and other observations were made throughout the morning of the 19th. It was densely overcast, with sago snow falling, but by 3 P.M. of the same day the clouds had magically cleared and the first stage of the homeward journey had commenced.

CHAPTER XVI HORN BLUFF AND PENGUIN POINT

by C. T. MADIGAN

What thrill of grandeur ours When first we viewed the column'd fell!

What idle, lilting verse can tell Of giant fluted towers, O'er-canopied with immemorial snow And riven by a glacier's azure flow?

As we neared Horn Bluff, on the first stage of our homeward march, the upper layers of snow were observed to disappear, and the underlying ice became thinner; in corrugated sapphire plains with blue reaches of sparkling water. Cracks bridged with flimsy snow continually let one through into the water. McLean and I both soaked our feet and once I was immersed to the thighs, having to stop and put on dry socks and finnesko. It was a chilly process allowing the trousers to dry on me.

The mountain, pushing out as a great promontory from the coast amid the fast sea-ice, towered up higher as our sledge approached its foot. A great shadow was cast on the ice, and, when more than a mile away, we left the warm sunshine.

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

Rising out of the flat wilderness over which we had travelled was a mammoth vertical barrier of rock rearing its head to the skies above.

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

The deep shade was heightened by the icy glare beyond it. Here was indeed a Cathedral of Nature, where the "still, small voice" spoke amid an ineffable calm.

Far up the face of the cliff snow petrels fluttered like white b.u.t.terflies. It was stirring to think that these majestic heights had gazed out across the wastes of snow and ice for countless ages, and never before had the voices of human beings echoed in the great stillness nor human eyes surveyed the wondrous scene.

From the base of the organ-pipes sloped a ma.s.s of debris; broken blocks of rock of every size tumbling steeply to the splintered hummocks of the sea-ice.

Standing out from the top of this talus-slope were several white "beacons," up to which we scrambled when the tent was pitched. This was a tedious task as the stones were ready to slide down at the least touch, and often we were carried down several yards by a general movement. Wearing soft finnesko, we ran the risk of getting a crushed foot among the large boulders. Amongst the rubble were beds of clay, and streams of thaw-water trickled down to the surface of a frozen lake.

After rising two hundred feet, we stood beneath the beacons which loomed above to a height of one hundred and twenty-eight feet. The organ-pipes were basaltic** in character but, to my great joy, I found the beacons were of sedimentary rock. After a casual examination, the details were left till the morrow.

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

That night we had a small celebration on raisins, chocolate and apple-rings, besides the ordinary fare of hoosh, biscuit and cocoa.

Several times we were awakened by the crash of falling stones. Snow petrels had been seen coming home to their nests in the beacons, which were weathered out into small caves and crannies. From the camp we could hear their harsh cries.

The scene in the morning sun was a brilliant one. The great columnar rampart ran almost north and south and the tent was on its eastern side. So what was in dark shadow on the day before was now radiantly illumined.

Correll remained behind on the sea-ice with a theodolite to take heights of the various strata. McLean and I, armed with aneroid, gla.s.ses, ruck-sack, geological hammer (ice-axe) and camera, set out for the foot of the talus-slope.

The beacons were found to be part of a horizontal, stratified series of sandstones underlying the igneous rock. There were bands of coa.r.s.e gravel and fine examples of stream-bedding interspersed with seams of carbonaceous shale and poor coal. Among the debris were several pieces of sandstone marked by black, fossilized plant-remains. The summits of the beacons were platforms of very hard rock, baked by the volcanic overflow. The columns, roughly hexagonal and weathered to a dull-red, stood above in sheer perpendicular lines of six hundred and sixty feet in alt.i.tude.

After taking a dozen photographs of geological and general interest and stuffing the sack and our pockets with specimens, we picked a track down the shelving talus to a lake of fresh water which was covered with a superficial crust of ice beneath which the water ran. The surface was easily broken and we fetched the aluminium cover of the cooker, filling it with three gallons of water, thus saving kerosene for almost a day.

After McLean had collected samples of soil, lichens, algae and moss, and all the treasures had been labelled, we lunched and harnessed-up once more for the homeward trail.

For four miles we ran parallel to the one-thousand-foot wall of Horn Bluff meeting several boulders stranded on the ice, as well as the fragile sh.e.l.l of a tiny sea-urchin. The promontory was domed with snow and ice, more than one thousand two hundred feet above sea-level. From it streamed a blue glacier overflowing through a rift in the face. Five miles on our way, the sledge pa.s.sed from frictionless ice to rippled snow and with a march of seven miles, following lunch, we pitched camp.

Every one was tired that night, and our prayer to the Sleep Merchant in the book of Australian verse was for:

Twenty gallons of balmy sleep, Dreamless, and deep, and mild, Of the excellent brand you used to keep When I was a little child.

For three days, December 22, 23 and 24, the wind soughed at thirty miles per hour and the sky was a compact nimbus, unveiling the sun at rare moments. Through a mist of snow we steered on a north-west course towards the one-hundred-and-fifty-two mile depot. The wind was from the south-east true, and this information, with hints from the sun-compa.s.s, gave us the direction. With the sail set, on a flat surface, among ghostly bergs and over narrow leads we ran for forty-seven miles with scarce a clear view of what lay around. The bergs had long ramps of snow leading close up to their summits on the windward side and in many cases the intervals between these ramps and the bergs were occupied by deep moats.

One day we were making four knots an hour under all canvas through thick drift. Suddenly, after a gradual ascent, I was on the edge of a moat, thirty feet deep. I shouted to the others and, just in time, the sledge was slewed round on the very brink.

We pushed on blindly: