The Home Of The Blizzard Part 57

Meanwhile, it was suggested that if a heavy kite were made and induced to fly in the continuous winds, the aerial thus provided would be sufficient to receive wireless messages. To this end, Bage and Bickerton set to work, and the first invention was a Venesta-box kite which was tried in a steady seventy-mile wind. Despite its weight,--at least ten pounds --the kite rose immediately, steadied by guys on either side, and then suddenly descended with a crash on to the glacier ice. After the third fall the kite was too battered to be of any further use. Another device, in which an empty carbide tin was employed, and still another, making use of an old propeller, shared the same fate.

On the evening of the 19th a perfect coloured corona, three degrees in diameter, was observed encircling the moon in a sky which lit up at intervals with dancing auroral curtains. Coronae or "glories," which closely invest the luminary, are due to diffraction owing to immense numbers of very minute water or ice particles floating in the air between the observer and the source of light. The larger the particles the smaller the corona, so that by a measurement of the diameter of a corona the size of the particles can be calculated. Earlier in the year, a double corona had been seen when the moon was shining through cirro-c.u.mulus clouds. Haloes, on the other hand, are wide circles (or arcs of circles) in the sky surrounding the sun or moon, and arising from light-refraction in myriads of tiny ice-crystals suspended in the atmosphere. They were very commonly noted in Adelie Land where the conditions were so ideal for their production.

Midwinter's Day 1913! we had reached a turning-point in the season.

The Astronomer Royal told us that at eight o'clock on June 22 the sun commenced to return, and every one took note of the fact. The sky was overcast, the air surcharged with drifting snow, and the wind was forty miles an hour--a representative day as far as the climate was concerned.

The cook made a special effort and the menu bore the following foreword:

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer....

On July 6 the wind moderated, and we set about repairing once more the fortunes of the "wireless." The shattered topmast used to sway about in the heavy winds, threatening to bring down the rest of the mast.

Bickerton, therefore, climbed up with a saw and cut it almost through above the doubling. All hands then pulled hard, and the upper part cracked off, the lower section being easily removed from the cross-trees. The mast now looked "shipshape" and ready for future improvements.

It was decided to use as a topmast the mast which had been formerly employed to support the northern half of the aerial. So on the 29th this was lowered and removed to the veranda to be fitted for erection.

Almost a fortnight now elapsed, during which the weather was "impossible." In fact, the wind was frightful throughout the whole month of July, surpa.s.sing all its previous records and wearing out our much-tried patience. All that one could do was to work on and try grimly to ignore it. On July 2 we noted: "Thick as a wall outside with an eighty-five miler." And so it commenced and continued for a day, subsiding slowly through the seventies to the fifties and then suddenly redoubling in strength, rose to a climax about midnight on the 5th--one hundred and sixteen miles an hour! For eight hours it maintained an average of one hundred and seven miles an hour, and the timbers of the Hut seemed to be jarred and wrenched as the wind throbbed in its mightier gusts. These were the highest wind-velocities recorded during our two years' residence in Adelie Land and are probably the highest sustained velocities ever reported from a meteorological station.

With the exception of a few Antarctic and snow petrels flying over the sea on the calmer days, no life had been seen round the Hut during June.

So it was with some surprise that we sighted a Weddell seal on July 9 attempting to land on the harbour-ice in a seventy-five-mile wind.

Several times it clambered over the edge and on turning broadside to the wind was actually tumbled back into the water. Eventually it struggled into the lee of some icy hummocks, but only remained there for a few minutes, deciding that the water was much warmer.

On the 11th there was an exceptionally low barometer at 27.794 inches. At the same time the wind ran riot once more--two hundred and ninety-eight miles in three hours. The highest barometric reading was recorded on September 3, 30.4 inches, and the comparison indicates a wide range for a station at sea-level.

To show how quickly conditions would change, it was almost calm next morning, and all hands were in readiness to advance the wireless mast another stage. Previously there had been three masts, one high one in three lengths, and two smaller ones of one length each, between which the aerial stretched; the "lead-in" wires being connected to the middle of the aerial. This is known as an "umbrella aerial." Since we were without one short mast it was resolved to erect a "directive" [capital gamma gjc]-shaped aerial. The mainmast was to be in two instead of three lengths, and we wondered if the aerial would be high enough. In any case, it was so calm early on the 11th that we ventured to erect the topmast and had hauled it half-way, when the wind swooped down from the plateau, and there was just time to make fast the stays and the hauling rope and to leave things "snug" for the next spell of bad weather.

In eight days another opportunity came, and this time the topmast was hoisted, wedged and securely stayed. Bickerton had fixed a long bolt through the middle of the topmast and just above it three additional wire stays were to be placed. Another fine day and we reckoned to finish the work.

From July 26 onwards the sky was cloudless for a week, and each day the northern sun would rise a fraction of a degree higher. The wind was very constant and of high velocity.

It was a grand sight to witness the sea in a hurricane on a driftless, clear day. Crouched under a rock on Azimuth Hill, and looking across to the west along the curving brink of the cliffs, one could watch the water close insh.o.r.e blacken under the lash of the wind, whiten into foam farther off, and then disappear into the hurrying clouds of spray and sea-smoke. Over the Mackellar Islets and the "Pianoforte Berg" columns of spray would shoot up like geysers, and fly away in the mad race to the north.

Early in July Jeffryes became ill, and for some weeks his symptoms were such as to give every one much anxiety. His work on the wireless had been a.s.siduous at all times, and there is no doubt that the continual and acute strain of sending and receiving messages under unprecedented conditions was such that he eventually had a "nervous breakdown."

Unfortunately the weather was so atrocious, and the conditions under which we were placed so peculiarly difficult, that nothing could be done to brighten his prospects. McLean considered that as the spring returned and it became possible to take more exercise outside, the nervous exhaustion would pa.s.s off. In the meantime Jeffryes took a complete rest, and slowly improved as the months went by, and our hopes of relief came nearer. It was a great misfortune for our comrade, especially as it was his first experience of such a climate, and he had applied himself to work with enthusiasm and perhaps in an over-conscientious spirit.

July concluded its stormy career with the astonishing wind-average of 63.6 miles an hour. We were all relieved to see Friday, August 1, appear on the modest calendar, which it was the particular pleasure of each night-watchman to change. More light filtered day by day through the ice on the kitchen window, midwinter lay behind, and we were ready to hail the first signs of returning spring.

CHAPTER XXIV NEARING THE END

Seven men from all the world, back to town again, Seven men from out of h.e.l.l.

Kipling

It is wonderful how quickly the weeks seemed to pa.s.s. Situated as we were, Time became quite an object of study to us and its imperceptible drift was almost a reality, considering that each day was another step towards liberty--freedom from the tyranny of the wind. In a sense, the endless surge of the blizzard was a slow form of torture, and the subtle effect it had on the mind was measurable in the delight with which one greeted a calm, fine morning, or noted some insignificant fact which bespoke the approach of a milder season. Thus in August, although the weather was colder, there were the merest signs of thawing along the edges of the snow packed against the rocky faces which looked towards the sun; Weddell seals came back to the land, and the petrels would at times appear in large flocks; all of which are very commonplace events which any one might have expected, but at the time they had more than their face value.

August 5 was undoubtedly a great day from our very provincial point of view. On the 4th there had been a dense drift, during which the Hut was b.u.t.tressed round with soft snow which rose above the eaves and half filled the entrance-veranda. The only way in which the night-watchman could keep the hourly observations was to dig his way out frequently with a shovel. In the early morning hours of the 5th the wind abated and veered right round from south through east to north-east, from which quarter it remained as a fresh breeze with falling snow. By 7 A.M.

the air was still, and outside there was a dead world of whiteness; flocculent heaps of down rolling up to where glimpses of rock streaked black near the skyline of the ridges, striated ma.s.ses of livid cloud overhead, and to the horizon the dark berg-strewn sea, over which the snow birds fluttered.

We did not linger over the scenery, but set to work to hoist to the head of the mainmast the aerial, which had been hurriedly put together. The job occupied till lunch-time, and then a jury-mast was fixed to the southern supporting mast, and by dusk the aerial hung in position.

Bickerton was the leading spirit in the work and subsequently steadied the mainmast with eighteen wire stays, in the determination to make it stable enough to weather the worst hurricane. The attempt was so successful that in an ordinary fifty-mile "blow" the mast vibrated slightly, and in higher winds exhibited the smallest degree of movement.

At eight o'clock that night, Jeffryes, who felt so benefited by his rest that he was eager to commence operating once more, had soon "attuned"

his instrument to Macquarie Island, and in a few minutes communication was reestablished.

We learned from the Governor-General, Lord Denman, that her Majesty the Queen was "graciously pleased to consent to the name 'Queen Mary Land'

being given to newly discovered land." The message referred to the tract of Antarctic coast which had been discovered and mapped by Wild and his party to the west.

On August 6 Macquarie Island signalled that they had run short of provisions. The message was rather a paradox: " Food done, but otherwise all right." However, on August 11, we were rea.s.sured to hear that the 'Tutanekai', a New Zealand Government steamer, had been commissioned to relieve the party, and that Sawyer through ill-health had been obliged to return to Australia. A sealing-ship, the 'Rachel Cohen', after battling for almost the whole month of July against gales, in an endeavour to reach the island, with stores for our party and the sealers, had returned damaged to port.

Marvellous to relate we had two calm days in succession, and on the 6th the snow lay so deeply round the Hut that progression without skis was a laborious flounder. The dogs plunged about in great glee, rolling in the snow and "playing off" their surplus energy after being penned for a long spell in the shelter.

On skis one could push up the first slopes of the glacier for a long distance. Soft snow had settled two feet thick even on the steep icy downfalls. The sea to the north was frozen into large cakes between which ran a network of dark water "leads." With gla.s.ses we could make out in the near distance five seals and two tall solitary figures which were doubtless Emperor penguins. During the whole day nimbus clouds had hung heavily from the sky, and snow had fallen in grains and star-like crystals. Gradually the nimbus lightened, a rift appeared overhead, and,the edges of the billowy c.u.mulus were burnished in the light of the low sun. The sea-horizon came sharply into sight through fading mist.

Bergs and islands, from being ghostly images, rose into sharp-featured reality. The masts and Hut, with a dark riband of smoke floating from the chimney, lay just below, and two of the men were walking out to the harbour-ice where a seal had just landed, while round them scampered the dogs in high spirits. That was sufficient to set us sliding downhill, ploughing deep furrows through the soft drift and reaching the Hut in quick time.

During August we were able to do more work outside, thus enlarging our sphere of interest. Bage, who had been busy up till August 8 with his daily magnetograph records, ran short of bromide papers and now had to be contented with taking "quick runs" at intervals, especially when the aurora was active. His astronomical observations had been very disappointing owing to the continuous wind and drift. Still, in September, which was marked by periods of fine weather, a few good star observations were possible. Shafts were sunk in the sea-ice and up on the glacier, just above the zone where the ice was loaded with stones and debris--the lower moraine. The glacier shaft was dug to a depth of twenty-four feet, and several erratics were met with embedded in the ice. In this particular part the crystalline structure of the ice resembled that of a gneiss, showing that it had flowed under pressure.

I was able to make measurements of ablation on the glacier, to take observations of the temperature and salinity of the sea-water, and to estimate the forward movement of the seaward cliffs of the ice-cap.

Geological collecting now became quite a popular diversion. With a slight smattering of "gneiss," "felspar," "weathered limestone,"

"garnets," and "glacial markings" the amateurs went off and made many finds on the moraines, and the specimens were cached in heaps, to be later brought home by the dogs, some of which were receiving their first lessons in sledge-pulling.

Rather belated, but none the less welcome, our midwinter wireless greetings arrived on August 17 from many friends who could only imagine how much they were appreciated, and from various members of the Expedition who had spent the previous year in Adelie Land and who knew the meaning of an Antarctic winter. A few evenings later, Macquarie Islanders had their reward in the arrival of the 'Tutanekai' from New Zealand with supplies of food, and, piecing together a few fragments of evidence "dropped in the ether," we judged that they were having a night of revelry.

The wind was in a fierce humour on the morning of August 16, mounting to one hundred and five miles per hour between 9 and 10 A.M., and carrying with it a very dense drift.

We were now in a position to sit down and generalize about the wind. It is a tiresome thing to have it as the recurring insistent theme of our story, but to have had it as the continual obstacle to our activity, the opposing barrier to the simplest task, was even more tedious.

A river, rather a torrent, of air rushes from the hinterland northward year after year, replenished from a source which never fails. We had reason to believe that it was local in character, as apparently a gulf of open water about one hundred miles in width--the D'Urville Sea--exists to the north of Adelie Land. Thus, far back in the interior--back to the South Geographical Pole itself--across one thousand six hundred miles of lofty plateau--is a zone of high barometric pressure, while to the north lies the D'Urville Sea and beyond it the Southern Ocean--a zone of low pressure. As if through a contracted outlet, thereby increasing the velocity of the flow, the wind sweeps down over Adelie Land to equalize the great air-pressure system.

And so, in winter, the chilling of the plateau leads to the development of a higher barometric pressure and, as the open water to the north persists, to higher winds. In summer the suns shines on the Pole for six months, the uplands of the continent are warmed and the northern zone of low pressure pushes southward. So, in Adelie Land, short spells of calm weather may be expected over a period of barely three months around the summer solstice. This explanation is intentionally popular. The meteorological problem is one which can only be fully discussed when all the manifold observations have been gathered together, from other contemporary Antarctic expeditions, from our two stations on the Antarctic continent, and from Macquarie Island; all taken in conjunction with weather conditions around Australia and New Zealand. Then, when all the evidence is arrayed and compared, some general truths of particular value to science and, maybe, to commerce, should emerge.

Of one thing we were certain, and that was that Adelie Land was the windiest place in the world. To state the fact more accurately: such wind-velocities as prevail at sea-level in Adelie Land are known in other parts of the world only at great elevations in the atmosphere.

The average wind-velocity for our first year proved to be approximately fifty miles per hour. The bare figures convey more when they are compared with the following average annual wind-velocities quoted from a book of reference: Europe, 10.3 miles per hour; United States, 9.5 miles per hour; Southern Asia, 6.5 miles per hour; West Indies, 6.2 miles per hour.

Reference has already been made to the fact that often the high winds ceased abruptly for a short interval. Many times during 1913 we had opportunities of judging this phenomenon and, as an example, may be quoted September 6.

[TEXT ILl.u.s.tRATION]

A diagrammatic sketch ill.u.s.trating the meteorological conditions at the main base, noon, September 6, 1913

On that day a south-by-east hurricane fell off and the drift cleared suddenly from about the Hut at 11.20 A.M. On the hills to the south there was a dense grey wall of flying snow. Whirlies tracked about at intervals and overhead a fine c.u.mulus cloud formed, revolving rapidly.

Over the recently frozen sea there was an easterly breeze, while about the Hut itself there were light northerly airs. Later in the day the zone of southern wind and drift crept down and once more overwhelmed us.

Evidently the "eye" of a cyclonic storm had pa.s.sed over.

During September the sea was frozen over for more than two weeks, and the meteorological conditions varied from their normal phase. It appeared as if we were situated on the battlefield, so to speak, of opposing forces. The pacific influence of the "north" would hold sway for a few hours, a whole day, or even for a few days. Then the vast energies of the "south" would rise to bursting-point and a "through blizzard" would be the result.

On September 11, although there was a wind of seventy miles per hour, the sea-ice which had become very solid during a few days of low temperature was not dispersed. Next day we found it possible to walk in safety to the Mackellar Islets. On the way rushes of southerly wind accompanied by a misty drift followed behind us. Then a calm intervened, and the sun momentarily appeared and shone warmly. Suddenly from the north-west came breezy puffs which settled into a light wind as we went north. On the way home we could not see the mainland for clouds of drift, and, when approaching the mouth of the boat-harbour, these clouds were observed to roll down the lower slopes of the glacier and, reaching the sh.o.r.e, rise into the air in columns. They then sailed away northward at a higher alt.i.tude, almost obscuring the sun with a fine fog. On the same night the "south" had gained the mastery, and the wind blew with its accustomed strength.

Again, on September 24, McLean had a unique experience. He was digging ice in a fifty-mile wind with moderate drift close to the Hut and, on finishing his work, walked down to the harbour-ice to see if there were any birds about. He was suddenly surprised to leave the wind and drift behind and to walk out into an area of calm. The water lapped alongside the ice-foot, blue in the brilliant sunlight. Away to the west a few miles distant a fierce wind was blowing snow like fine spume over the brink of the cliffs. Towards the north-west one could plainly see the junction between calm water and foam-crested waves. To the south the drift drove off the hills, pa.s.sed the Hut, and then gyrated upwards and thinned away seawards at an alt.i.tude of several hundred feet.