Part 8 (2/2)

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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p'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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p's company gave their hearty farewell cheers, and the 'Aurora' sailed north, leaving Wild and his seven companions on the floating ice.

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