Part 49 (2/2)
A few seconds later, the cornice fell and an immense ma.s.s of hard snow crashed down, cracking the sea-ice for more than a hundred yards around.
July had been an inclement month with three really fine and eight tolerable days. In comparison with June's, which was -14.5 degrees F., the mean temperature of July was high at -1.5 degrees F. and the early half of August was little better.
Sunday August 11 was rather an eventful day. Dovers and I went out in the wind to attend to the dogs and clear the chimney and, upon our return, found the others just recovering from rather an exciting accident. Jones had been charging the acetylene generators and by some means one of them caught fire. For a while there was the danger of a general conflagration and explosion, as the gas-tank was floating in kerosene. Throwing water over everything would have made matters worse, so blankets were used to smother the flames. As this failed to extinguish them, the whole plant was pulled down and carried into the tunnel, where the fire was at last put out. The damage amounted to two blankets singed and dirtied, Jones's face scorched and hair singed, and Kennedy, one finger jammed. It was a fortunate escape from a calamity.
A large capsized berg had been noticed for some time, eleven miles to the north. On the 14th, Harrisson, Dovers, Hoadley and Watson took three days' provisions and equipment and went off to examine it. A brief account is extracted from Harrisson's diary:
”It was a particularly fine, mild morning; we made good progress, three dogs dragging the loaded sledge over the smooth floe without difficulty, requiring a.s.sistance only when crossing banks of soft snow. One and a half miles from 'The Steps,' we saw the footprints of a penguin.
”Following the cliffs of the shelf-ice for six and three quarter miles, we sighted a Weddell seal sleeping on a drift of snow. Killing the animal, cutting off the meat and burying it in the drift delayed us for about one hour. Continuing our journey under a fine bluff, over floe-ice much cracked by tide-pressure, we crossed a small bay cutting wedge-like into the glacier and camped on its far side.
”After our midday meal we walked to the berg three miles away. When seen on June 28, this berg was tilted to the north-east, but the opposite end, apparently in contact with the ice-cliffs, had lifted higher than the glacier-shelf itself. From a distance it could be seen that the sides, for half their height, were wave-worn and smooth. Three or four acres of environing floe were buckled, ploughed up and in places heaped twenty feet high, while several large fragments of the broken floe were poised aloft on the old 'water-line' of the berg.
”However, on this visit, we found that the berg had turned completely over towards the cliffs and was now floating on its side surrounded by large separate chunks; all locked fast in the floe. In what had been the bottom of the berg Hoadley and Watson made an interesting find of stones and pebbles--the first found in this dead land!
”Leaving them collecting, I climbed the pitted wave-worn ice, brittle and badly cracked on the higher part. The highest point was fifty feet above the level of the top of the shelf-ice. There was no sign of open water to the north, but a few seals were observed sleeping under the cliffs.”
Next morning the weather thickened and the wind arose, so a start was made for the Base. All that day the party groped along in the comparative shelter of the cliff-face until forced to camp. It was not till the next afternoon in moderate drift that a pair of skis which had been left at the foot of 'The Steps' were located and the hut reached once again.
After lunch on August 11, while we were excavating some buried kerosene, Jones sighted a group of seven Emperor penguins two miles away over the western floe. Taking a sledge and camera we made after them. A mile off, they saw us and advanced with their usual stately bows. It seemed an awful shame to kill them, but we were sorely in need of fresh meat. The four we secured averaged seventy pounds in weight and were a heavy load up the steep rise to the glacier; but our reward came at dinner-time.
With several fine days to give us confidence, everything was made ready for the sledge journey on August 20. The party was to consist of six men and three dogs, the object of the journey being to lay out a food-depot to the east in view of the long summer journey we were to make in that direction. Hoadley and Kennedy were to remain at the Base, the former to finish the geological shaft and the latter for magnetic work. There remained also a good deal to do preparing stores for later sledge journeys.
The load was to be one thousand four hundred and forty pounds distributed over three sledges; two hundred pounds heavier than on the March Journey, but as the dogs pulled one sledge, the actual weight per man was less.
The rations were almost precisely the same as those used by Shackleton during his Expedition, and the daily allowance was exactly the same--thirty-four ounces per man per day. For his one ounce of oatmeal, the same weighs of ground biscuit was subst.i.tuted; the food value being the same. On the second depot journey and the main summer journeys, a three-ounce glaxo biscuit was used in place of four and a half ounces of plasmon biscuit. Instead of taking cheese and chocolate as the luncheon ration, I took chocolate alone, as on Shackleton's southern journey it was found more satisfactory than the cheese, though the food value was practically the same.
The sledging equipment and clothing were identical with that used by Shackleton. Jaeger fleece combination suits were included in the outfit but, though excellent garments for work at the Base, they were much too heavy for sledging. We therefore wore Jaeger underclothing and burberry wind clothing as overalls.
The weather was not propitious for a start until Thursday, August 22.
We turned out at 5.30 A.M., had breakfast, packed up and left the Hut at seven o'clock.
After two good days' work under a magnificently clear sky, with the temperature often as low as -34 degrees F., we sighted two small nunataks among a cl.u.s.ter of pressure-ridges, eight miles to the south.
It was the first land, in the sense of rocks, seen for more than seven months. We hoped to visit the outcrops--Gillies Nunataks--on our return.
The course next day was due east and parallel to the mainland, then ten miles distant. To the north was Ma.s.son Island, while at about the same distance and ahead was a smaller island, entirely ice-covered like the former--Henderson Island.
A blizzard of three days' duration kept us in camp between August 27 and 30. Jones, Moyes and I had a three-man sleeping-bag, and the temperature being high, 11 degrees to 15 degrees F., we were very warm, but thoroughly tired of lying down for so long. Harrisson, Dovers and Watson had single bags and therefore less room in the other tent.
The last day of August was beautifully bright: temperature -12 degrees to -15 degrees F. We pa.s.sed Henderson Island in the forenoon, and, hauling up a rise to the south of it, had a good view of the surroundings. On the right, the land ran back to form a large bay, seventeen miles wide. This was later named the Bay of Winds, as a ”blow”
was always encountered while crossing it.
In the centre of the bay was a nunatak, which from its shape at once received the name of the Alligator. In front, apparently fifteen miles off, was another nunatak, the Hippo, and four definite outcrops--Delay Point and Avalanche Rocks--could be seen along the mainland. The sight of this bare rock was very pleasing, as we had begun to think we were going to find nothing but ice-sheathed land. Dovers took a round of angles to all the prominent points.
The Hippo was twenty-two miles away, so deceptive is distance in these lat.i.tudes; and in one and a half days, over very heavy sastrugi, we were in its vicinity. The sledges could not be brought very near the rock as it was surrounded by ma.s.sive ridges of pressure-ice.
We climbed to the top of the nunatak which was four hundred and twenty feet high, four hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. It was composed of gneissic granite and schists. Dovers took angles from an eminence, Watson collected geological specimens and Harrisson sketched until his fingers were frost-bitten. Moss and lichens were found and a dead snow petrel--a young one--showing that the birds must breed in the vicinity.
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