The Home Of The Blizzard Part 8

"At 1.30 A.M. on the 23rd the pack-ice was seen to trend to the south-west. After steaming west for twenty-five miles, we stood south in longitude 182 degrees 30' E, shortly afterwards pa.s.sing over the charted position of Cote Clarie. The water here was clear of pack-ice, but studded with bergs of immense size. The great barrier which the French ships followed in 1840 had vanished. A collection of huge bergs was the sole remnant to mark its former position.

"At 10 A.M., having pa.s.sed to the south of the charted position of D'Urville's Cote Clarie, we altered course to S. 10 degrees E. true.

Good observations placed us at noon in lat.i.tude 65 degrees 2' S. and 132 degrees 26' E. A sounding on sand and small stones was taken in one hundred and sixty fathoms. We sailed over the charted position of land east of Wilkes's Cape Carr in clear weather.

"At 5.30 P.M. land was sighted to the southward--snowy highlands similar to those of Adelie Land but greater in elevation.

"After sounding in one hundred and fifty-six fathoms on mud, the ship stood directly towards the land until 9 P.M. The distance to the nearest point was estimated at twenty miles; heavy floe-ice extending from our position, lat.i.tude 65 degrees 45' S. and longitude 132 degrees 40' E., right up to the sh.o.r.e. Another sounding realized two hundred and thirty fathoms, on sand and small stones. Some open water was seen to the south-east, but an attempt to force a pa.s.sage in that direction was frustrated.

"At 3 A.M. on the 24th we were about twelve miles from the nearest point of the coast, and further progress became impossible. The southern slopes were seamed with numerous creva.s.ses, but at a distance the precise nature of the sh.o.r.es could not be accurately determined."

To this country, which had never before been seen, was given the name of Wilkes's Land; as it is only just to commemorate the American Exploring Expedition on the Continent which its leader believed he had discovered in these seas and which he would have found had Fortune favoured him with a fair return for his heroic endeavours.

"We steered round on a north-westerly course, and at noon on January 24 were slightly to the north of our position at 5.30 A.M. on the 23rd.

A sounding reached one hundred and seventy fathoms and a muddy bottom.

Environing us were enormous bergs of every kind, one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet in height. During the afternoon a westerly course was maintained in clear water until 4 P.M., when the course was altered to S. 30 degrees W., in the hope of winning through to the land visible on the southern horizon."

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

At 8 P.M. the sky was very clear to the southward, and the land could be traced to a great distance until it faded in the south-west. But the ship had come up with the solid floe-ice once more, and had to give way and steam along its edge. This floating breakwater held us off and frustrated all attempts to reach the goal which we sought.

"The next four days was a period of violent gales and heavy seas which drove the ship some distance to the north. Nothing was visible through swirling clouds of snow. The 'Aurora' behaved admirably, as she invariably does in heavy weather. The main pack was encountered on January 29, but foggy weather prevailed. It was not until noon on January 31 that the atmosphere was sufficiently clear to obtain good observations. The ship was by this time in the midst of heavy floe in the vicinity of longitude 119 degrees E., and again the course had swung round to south. We had soon pa.s.sed to the south of Balleny's Sabrina Land without any indication of its existence. Considering the doubtful character of the statements justifying its appearance on the chart, it is not surprising that we did not verify them.

"At 11 A.M. the floes were found too heavy for further advance. The ship was made fast to a big one and a large quant.i.ty of ice was taken on board to replenish the fresh-water supply. A tank of two hundred gallons' capacity, heated within by a steam coil from the engineroom, stood on the p.o.o.p deck. Into this ice was continuously fed, flowing away as it melted into the main tanks in the bottom of the ship.

"At noon the weather was clear, but nothing could be discerned in the south except a faint blue line on the horizon. It may have been a 'lead'

of water, an effect of mirage, or even land-ice--in any case we could not approach it."

The position as indicated by the noon observations placed the ship within seven miles of a portion of Totten's High Land in Wilkes's charts. As high land would have been visible at a great distance, it is clear that Totten's High Land either does not exist or is situated a considerable distance from its charted location. A sounding was made in three hundred and forty fathoms.

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Ship's track in the vicinity of Knox Land and Budd Land

Towards evening the 'Aurora' turned back to open water and cruised along the pack-ice. A sounding next day showed nine hundred and twenty-seven fathoms.

It was about this time that a marked improvement was noted in the compa.s.s. Ever since the first approach to Adelie Land it had been found unreliable, for, on account of the proximity to the magnetic pole, the directive force of the needle was so slight that very large local variations were experienced.

The longitude of Wilkes's Knox Land was now approaching. With the exception of Adelie Land, the account by Wilkes concerning Knox Land is more convincing than any other of his statements relating to new Antarctic land. If they had not already disembarked, we had hoped to land the western party in that neighbourhood. It was, therefore, most disappointing when impenetrable ice blocked the way, before Wilkes's "farthest south" in that locality had been reached. Three determined efforts were made to find a weak spot, but each time the 'Aurora' was forced to retreat, and the third time was extricated only with great difficulty. In lat.i.tude 65 degrees 5' S. longitude 107 degrees 20' E., a sounding of three hundred fathoms was made on a rocky bottom. This sounding pointed to the probability of land within sixty miles.

Repulsed from his attack on the pack, Captain Davis set out westward towards the charted position of Termination Land, and in following the trend of the ice was forced a long way to the north.

At 7.40 A.M., February 8, in foggy weather, the ice-cliff of floating shelf-ice was met. This was disposed so as to point in a north-westerly direction and it was late in the day before the ship doubled its northern end. Here the sounding wire ran out for eight hundred and fifty fathoms without reaching bottom. Following the wall towards the south-south-east, it was interesting at 5.30 P.M. to find a sounding of one hundred and ten fathoms in lat.i.tude 64 degrees 45'. A line of large grounded bergs and ma.s.sive floe-ice was observed ahead trailing away from the ice-wall towards the north-west.

On plotting the observations, it became apparent that the shelf-ice was in the form of a prolonged tongue some seven miles in breadth. As it occupied the position of the "Termination Land" which has appeared on some charts, (after Wilkes) it was named Termination Ice-Tongue.

A blizzard sprang up, and, after it had been safely weathered in the lee of some grounded bergs, the 'Aurora' moved off on the afternoon of February 11. The horizon was obscured by mist, as she pursued a tortuous track amongst bergs and scattered lumps of heavy floe. Gradually the sea became more open, and by noon on February 12 the water had deepened to two hundred and thirty-five fathoms. Good progress was made to the south; the vessel dodging icebergs and detached floes.

The discovery of a comparatively open sea southward of the main pack was a matter of some moment. As later voyages and the observations of the Western Party showed, this tract of sea is a permanent feature of the neighbourhood. I have called it the Davis Sea, after the captain of the 'Aurora', in appreciation of the fact that he placed it on the chart.

At noon, on February 13, in lat.i.tude 65 degrees 54 1/2' S. longitude 94 degrees 25' E., the western face of a long, floating ice-tongue loomed into view. There were five hundred fathoms of water off its extremity, and the cliffs rose vertically to one hundred feet. Soon afterwards land was clearly defined low in the south extending to east and west. This was thenceforth known as Queen Mary Land.

The sphere of operations of the German expedition of 1902 was near at hand, for its vessel, the 'Gauss', had wintered, frozen in the pack, one hundred and twenty-five miles to the west. It appeared probable that Queen Mary Land would be found to be continuous** with Kaiser Wilhelm II Land, which the Germans had reached by a sledging journey from their ship across the intervening sea-ice.

** Such was eventually proved to be the case.

The 'Aurora' followed the western side of the ice-tongue for about twenty miles in a southerly direction, at which point there was a white expanse of floe extending right up to the land. Wild and Kennedy, walking several miles towards the land, estimated that it was about twenty-five miles distant. As the surface over which they travelled was traversed by cracks and liable to drift away to sea, all projects of landing there had to be abandoned; furthermore, it was discovered that the ice-tongue, alongside of which the ship lay, was a huge iceberg. A landing on it had been contemplated, but was now out of question.

The main difficulty which arose at this juncture was the failing coal-supply. It was high time to return to Hobart, and, if a western base was to be formed at all, Wild's party would have to be landed without further delay. After a consultation, Davis and Wild decided that under the circ.u.mstances an attempt should be made to gain a footing on the adjacent shelf-ice, if nothing better presented itself.

The night was pa.s.sed anch.o.r.ed to the floe, on the edge of which were numerous Emperor penguins and Weddell seals. A fresh south-easterly wind blew on February 14, and the ship was kept in the shelter of the iceberg. During the day enormous pieces were observed to be continually breaking away from the berg and drifting to leeward.

Captain Davis continues: "At midnight there was a strong swell from the north-east and the temperature went down to 18 degrees F. At 4 A.M., February 15, we reached the northern end of the berg and stood first of all to the east, and then later to the south-east.

"At 8.45 A.M., shelf-ice was observed from aloft, trending approximately north and south in a long wall. At noon we came up with the floe-ice again, in about the same lat.i.tude as on the western side of the long iceberg. Land could be seen to the southward. At 1 P.M. the ship stopped at the junction of the floe and the shelf-ice."

Wild, Harrison and Hoadley went to examine the shelf-ice with a view to its suitability for a wintering station. The cliff was eighty to one hundred feet in height, so that the ice in total thickness must have attained at least as much as six hundred feet. a.s.sisted by snow-ramps slanting down on to the floe, the ascent with ice-axes and alpine rope was fairly easy.

Two hundred yards from the brink, the shelf-ice was thrown into pressure-undulations and fissured by creva.s.ses, but beyond that was apparently sound and unbroken. About seventeen miles to the south the rising slopes of ice-mantled land were visible, fading away to the far east and west.

The ice-shelf was proved later on to extend for two hundred miles from east to west, ostensibly fusing with the Termination Ice-Tongue, whose extremity is one hundred and eighty miles to the north. The whole has been called the Shackleton Ice-Shelf.

Wild and his party unanimously agreed to seize upon this last opportunity, and to winter on the floating ice.

The work of discharging stores was at once commenced. To raise the packages from the floe to the top of the ice-shelf, a "flying-fox" was rigged.

"A kedge-anchor was buried in the sea-ice, and from this a two-and-a-half-inch wire-hawser was led upwards over a pair of sheer-legs on top of the cliff to another anchor buried some distance back. The whole was set taut by a tackle. The stores were then slung to a travelling pulley on the wire, and hauled on to the glacier by means of a rope led through a second pulley on the sheer-legs. The ship's company broke stores out of the hold and sledged them three hundred yards to the foot of an aerial, where they were hooked on to the travelling-block by which the sh.o.r.e party, under Wild, raised them to their destination."

"It was most important to accelerate the landing as much as possible, not only on account of the lateness of the season--the 'Gauss' had been frozen in on February 22 at a spot only one hundred and seventy miles away--but because the floe was gradually breaking up and floating away.

When the last load was hoisted, the water was lapping within ten yards of the 'flying-fox'".

A fresh west-north-west wind on February 17 caused some trouble. Captain Davis writes:

"February 19. The floe to which we have been attached is covered by a foot of water. The ship has been b.u.mping a good deal to-day.

Notwithstanding the keen wind and driving snow, every one has worked well. Twelve tons of coal were the last item to go up the cliff."

In all, thirty-six tons of stores were raised on to the shelf-ice, one hundred feet above sea-level, in four days.

"February 20. The weather is very fine and quite a contrast to yesterday. We did not get the coal ash.o.r.e a moment too soon, as this morning the ice marked by our sledge tracks went to sea in a north-westerly direction, and this afternoon it is drifting back as if under the influence of a tide or current. We sail at 7 A.M. to-morrow.

"I went on to the glacier with Wild during the afternoon. It is somewhat creva.s.sed for about two hundred yards inland, and then a flat surface stretches away as far as the eye can see. I wished the party 'G.o.d-speed'

this evening, as we sail early to-morrow."

Early on February 21, the ship's company gave their hearty farewell cheers, and the 'Aurora' sailed north, leaving Wild and his seven companions on the floating ice.