Chapter VI: Making Winter Quarters at Cape Evans (12)

“(Written Saturday 8 a.m.) We were about two miles from the coast, the
nearest being the end of the _Kar Plateau_. We loaded up the sledge
and gaily proceeded in that direction, anticipating arrival about
noon. But we found we could not pull the sledge, though I doubt if
there is 400 lbs. on it. It just stuck, with the prow covered with
soft snow. Forde gave words to ‘pull all together’ (for he could see
better than I, being at the back), but it was no good. So we stuck up
the flag pole and packed all we could carry on our backs. Gran went
first with his very heavy bag (half water) and the tent poles. He
plugged away in great style, but made rather a devious track as
different parts of the coast appealed to him! Deb followed with a
rucksack on his back and his bag also (and the plane-table halfway).
Forde took the tent and cloth, but didn’t wrap them up carefully, so
that they rather impeded his movements. I came last with a proper
swag—rucksack in front and bag behind, hung over my shoulders on my
belt. There we were trekking for the land to dry our things a bit and
do some geology. Gran got rather far ahead, and by the time we arrived
near the rocks he was manœuvring with the tent poles near the tide
crack.

“This was most unsatisfactory; a high ice-foot about two feet or more,
separated by one or two feet space of open water, was bad enough, but
nearly forty feet of the floe was soft and mushy, and through the
thick snow you could not tell which was hard ice and which was open
water.

A TIGHT CORNER! CROSSING THE FORTY-FOOT TIDE CRACK OFF POINT
DISAPPOINTMENT, GRANITE HARBOUR.

From a drawing by D. Low.
]

“There were seals all over this mushy stuff, and one came unexpectedly
on their holes nearly buried in snow. Deb and Forde were looking down
one to see the thickness of the mushy ice when one leaped out three
feet and, as Forde said, ‘It nearly frightened a life out of me!’

“Gran had laid the poles up against the floe and left his bag just
behind, when the mush gave way and in he went to his waist. He rescued
his bag clinging to the pole, and somehow managed to crawl up the
ice-foot, but he was pretty wet and soon very cold.

“Deb and Forde sat on their packs by the firmer ice, and I walked
along the sea-ice (while Gran went along the ice-foot) to the north.
We found it all just the same. At every footstep water oozed up, and
evidently the floe was melting top and bottom and had never been
thick. This doubtful area was forty feet wide. At the north, a quarter
of a mile from our track, I managed to get on the ice-foot over three
visible cracks, and I don’t know how many buried in snow. We returned
to the others to find Deb had had one foot through. Having regard to
the difficulty of the surface all the way to our camp—eight miles of
two-foot soft snow, through which we could only pull the sledge at
half a mile an hour with every muscle taut,—I decided it was not safe
to stay over on this shore; for a few days’ sun would probably convert
this mushy belt into open water, and we should have no ready line of
retreat at all. So in view of the Owner’s lectures on caution and my
sledging instructions, I abandoned the idea of camping two or three
days on this north side, and we lugubriously determined to push back
with our packs to the sledge two miles away. First, however, we had to
get Trigger off the ice-foot. I went forward to pick up his bag, and
suddenly went through halfway up to my thigh. Luckily the other foot
kept firm, and I leant backwards and sat back on the less tricky mush.
Then we lashed bag ropes and threw them towards him. He threw the tent
poles on to the mush and then launched himself full length on the
stuff, gripping the poles. The whole floe rocked up and down like
jelly, but the poles kept him up, and he got across to us without
further mishap. It would have been impossible to scramble out if we
had gone through, for there was nothing firm to grip.

“Forde also volunteered that he thought ‘You done a wise thing to give
that place a miss.’

“On our way back Deb stopped to take some angles with the plane-table,
but found that he’d forgotten his sight-rule, so that even _that_
weight was uselessly lugged forward. We camped for lunch at our night
camp, and then the sun was so hot that it dried our bags nicely. My
feet were very cold and wet, and so were Gran’s. I took a complete
round of angles both vertical and horizontal, and with the necessary
sketching this occupied about two hours.

“Then about four we pulled off for Camp Blizzard and had a diabolical
time over the two and a quarter miles of soft snow. The old track was
nearly all filled up by a drift from the west, and, though the snow
had compacted a little, it was frightfully heavy work. The marks of
the bamboos on the sledge floor showed that the whole sledge was
resting on the snow. Only off the point of the Tongue did a little of
the old track show and helped us somewhat. My sledge belt began to
feel as if it was being pulled out through my back, and I had to pull
with my hands. We camped about 8 p.m. just near our old Blizzard Camp,
where we had to sweep off a foot of soft snow. I went up the Glacier
Tongue to get ice, but could not reach real ice and had to go over to
a cornice to get air-filled ice. We had an excellent hoosh, four cups
of ‘Forde’s concentrated’ with water added. It made a sort of liver
jelly when boiled a little more, and I had two cups and a glorious cup
of cocoa, cooled so that you could get a good long drink!

“... And then I gave the diary a miss, hung socks and wet breeches
outside the tent, and slept right through till 8 a.m.!”

We pushed off for our headquarters next morning and found we could
hardly move the sledge. After struggling a few hundred yards I decided
to see how the runners looked. We unpacked everything, and found an
irregular lamina of ice about a quarter of an inch thick had coated
the runners. This we scraped off with a tin matchbox and then turned
the sledge to face the sun, and in about half an hour they were clean
and dry. The improvement was most marked, and made our light sledge
now only as difficult as the two heavy sledges we had dragged to
headquarters! We read in Arctic books that ice is purposely moulded on
the sledges, but I expect the temperatures are lower, when that method
is useful.

At lunch we had dragged it about a mile and a half, and we dried the
runners again. I noted that my amber-coloured glasses had a very
pleasing effect; they turned the most gloomy clouds into a beautiful
Italian sky. Everything in the heavens is turned into blue and white,
which is a great change from the dismal views seen through the green
goggles of last year! The relief through using them and the help they
give in picking out hollows in the surface is enormous, but they fog
up somewhat, of course, with perspiration after a short time.

As we were nearing our headquarters we had a great discussion as to
what had happened to the signal flag. Debenham has excellent sight,
and with the aid of the glasses he swore that he could see the bamboo
lying, broken down. This seemed impossible to me, and I bet him one of
our usual 1_s._ 3_d._ dinners that it had not broken! However, after a
time I saw myself that the thick and solid bamboo pole had snapped. It
was some consolation that his cairn and flag at headquarters had blown
down also!

We had some difficulty crossing the shear cracks near the camp, for
the snow had covered everything. I prodded cautiously ahead when we
seemed near the largest, and, stepping on, went right in. I had been
standing on the exact edge and tested too far off! However, I escaped
with a slight wetting, which is the proud privilege of the leader, and
we crossed without difficulty.

We reached our front door at 6.30, finding that the ice had buckled in
our absence, but had not cut us off from shore. Dodging between two
pressure ridges we reached the ice-foot amid the huge storm-blocks of
ice and unloaded with great joy. Everything was buried in snow.

The 40-lb. biscuit tin was hurled six feet off a rock, and Granite Hut
was half filled with snow. We cleared the gravel patch and soon
pitched our tent, and had a good hoosh inside us.

Shortly after we turned in it began to blow from the west, a most
unusual quarter. This cold plateau wind increased very rapidly, and by
2 a.m. was blowing as hard as any wind I ever felt in a tent. It bent
in the stout poles of the tent like whale-bone, and covered the sledge
with a huge ridge of hard snow. The door flapped so violently that
some of us could get no sleep. The wind died down about 5 a.m., and
the 10th turned out to be a beautiful day. We spent an hour clearing
the huge drifts off our sledges, which were completely lost to sight.

As this was Sunday, I decided we would spend it in tidying up our
camp. Gran and I planted his sea-kale seed in the evening. He said the
Norwegians in Graham Land (West Antarctica) got large crops of this
succulent vegetable! I had my doubts, but it seemed worth trying.
Behind our camp was a huge cluster of granite rocks enclosing a small
cave. We collected some mossy soil and placed it in this hollow,
facing the noon sun. It seemed a bit wet and soggy, but Gran swore the
seedlings would be up in a week and edible in a month.

“The skuas are squawking like fussy ducks all round us, sometimes
cheeping like young chicks; but they don’t lay eggs, which is their
main duty now.”

All the moss, which formed a regular peaty layer an inch thick in some
of the gulleys, implied plenty of soakage. But it was a cold summer,
and we never found any drainage when we dug into the hollows.
Moreover, the blackened appearance of the moss made me sure that we
were not seeing it under favourable or even normal conditions.

A small discomfort, which was to bulk largely in the next few weeks,
began to trouble me. During the seal-killing and flensing I managed to
inflict eight cuts on my hands, all of which healed up in the pure
Polar air, with one exception. It was on the forefinger of my right
hand, and was beginning to fester badly. Gran was our self-constituted
doctor, though I’m bound to say that the stories he told of deathbeds
which he had attended on Norwegian ships were not at all reassuring.
Gravely he felt my pulse and armpit, and then said, “Do you feel pain
here?” I truthfully said “No!” “No blood-poisoning in that finger,”
said he. At any rate it rapidly became worse, and for days I could not
write, sketch, or photograph, while the pain prevented my sleeping at
night.

The first duty before us was to replace the flag on the rendezvous.
Gran decided it should be of a bolder pattern, and so he inserted a
white specimen bag in the middle of a black depôt flag, which made a
very showy standard indeed.

After lunch we marched across the bay just east of our camp. This
washed the beach where the moss grew, and in our exiled position it
was natural that Debenham and myself felt that there could be no
better name than Botany Bay for this inlet! The ice surface was in a
peculiarly unpleasant condition. A frozen layer of snow over a foot of
soft snow made walking exceptionally tiring. Flanking the Discovery
Bluff—as we called our rendezvous—was a tumbled scree of granite
blocks mingled with smaller talus and snow. Here, moreover, numerous
little rivulets were rushing down the chimneys scored in the face of
the bluff, so that there was plenty of variety about our walk.

We reached our flag sooner than I expected; in fact, we climbed up
right above it to nine hundred feet; and had to get down somewhat
circuitously, when a hurtling granite block warned us of precipitous
cliffs directly beneath. I found that our bamboo was as firm fixed as
ever, but it had snapped through like matchwood just at the surface.
The wind seemed to have blown _down_ the face of the Bluff, which was
a most unexpected direction. We mounted it again, after hacking off
four feet waste at the bottom. This fragment was to prove very useful
to us, for I carried it back to camp.

From this height we could still see nothing but solid ice. By means of
the formula—

Distance in miles = √(Height in feet)

it was possible to get some idea of the distance of the horizon. In
this case

D = √(500) = 23 miles,

so that the break up of the ice seemed far enough off. To the north by
Point Disappointment I could see the ugly patch of snow-slush which
had nearly engulfed Gran and myself.

We had a merry meal that evening, at which we decided to have a
sweepstake on the day of the arrival of the ship. But we could not
decide on the prize. We wanted lots of things at the moment, but they
would all be plentiful when we got aboard, and money was obviously of
no value. Finally Gran had a brilliant idea, and suggested that the
winner should have the _first bath_! Even this suggestion met with
disapproval, for some one pointed out that we should have no clean
things on board, and would be sledging for weeks after at Evans Coves,
and so might as well not have a bath at all!

Debenham and I continued our discussions on Tennyson and Browning. We
both preferred the latter, but Debenham used to try to prove that
Tennyson was the better poet. Gran would join in occasionally, and was
always ready to give an opinion on some debated stanza of Browning’s.
“What porridge had John Keats,” according to our Norwegian critic,
contained an abstruse reference to the gentleman’s brains! Poor Forde
was out of it in these discussions, and we used to discuss naval
matters as a change, for his benefit. But our Irish mate was
essentially a man of action, and was as far removed from a facile
speaker as any man I’ve met. “The Bishop orders his Tomb” was a poem
which had a fascination for me. Many a weary mile has passed
unnoticed, while I have memorized line after line of that somewhat
lugubrious poem.

On the 12th Gran found two skua eggs. The poor mothers seemed wet and
miserable, and Gran affirmed that the second was sitting in a nest
full of water, and seemed relieved to be free of her charge. We
collected a few every day from now onward. They are smaller than a
hen’s egg, and of a brown colour, with irregular black, tawny and buff
flecks irregularly scattered over the shell.

On this expedition we had more of the trouble with boots which we had
experienced early in the year. My “ironclads” had lasted splendidly.
The steel spikes and bars had protected the leather completely, and
only on the 14th did the first bar break off. For future work of this
description I should certainly use the heaviest and largest Alpine
boots, and that is the most valuable advice as to equipment that I can
offer to future Antarctic geologists.

I had been busy planning how to measure the velocity of the Mackay
Tongue. This flowed eastward between us and the Kar Plateau, so that
by sighting from our granite cape to a fixed point on the Kar Plateau
cliffs, I could fix very accurately a datum line. It only remained to
plant a mark on the moving glacier somewhere on this line, and our
investigation would be well started. Unfortunately we had nothing for
a mark. I thought of placing a seal carcase on the glacier; for stones
would sink into the ice in a very short time. Finally I used the butt
end of the flag pole from the Discovery Bluff. Here at last we found
the blubber-soot useful, for I used it as a paint to increase the
visibility of a swab of sealskin which I bound on the bamboo stake.
Gran and I marched across to the Tongue carrying the stake and the
theodolite. I never remember any hotter walk than that two miles. The
sun simply made the perspiration pour off us! However, one could
always sit down and have _glace au naturel_ to cool one. Personally, I
never felt any ill result from eating snow in the Antarctic, and all
our party quenched their thirst in this way.

Looking north-west from Cape Geology, showing the granite cliffs of
the Kar Plateau (1000 feet) capped by dolerite. The latter enclosed
the granite “datum” whereby the movement of the Mackay Tongue was
measured.
]

We climbed up the Tongue without difficulty, but soon entered into a
region riddled with crevasses. They were parallel to the edge of the
tongue, and looked like relics of old lateral pressure rather than
crevasses due to present movement. They were difficult to cross,
especially as Gran’s boots were so slippery. We had to make a big
detour to get on to the transit line. Finally, I got the theodolite
set up, and sighted “fore and back,” until I got the cape and a crack
in the Kar Cliffs in transit with my station. Here we planted the
stake, and then returned _viâ_ the maze of crevasses to the camp.

At first I could hardly see the stake from Cape Geology. The cold air
close to the ice surface is always flickering on a warm day and
mirages all objects; but soon I made it out at two miles through the
telescope, and I could see that we could readily measure a movement of
one foot a day.

By this time we had collected enough eggs to have a feast. We took the
precaution of frying them, and Forde and I tested them before cooking.
The whites are translucent and faintly bluish, and have very little
taste, but I don’t think we had much fault to find with them. It was
amusing to see Gran’s horror when a twelve-day chicken appeared in one
of the eggs. It was really an interesting discovery, for it showed
that the skuas commenced laying about the 4th of December. We could
not preserve the specimen, but I knew Dr. “Bill” would be interested,
and so I made a sketch of Gran’s _bête noire_. We had a splendid
seal-hoosh, tender, and flavoured with onion powder, and on top of
this was a fried egg for each of us. It was Forde’s _chef d’œuvre_,
and celebrated the close of his week of cooking.

For the purpose of my survey I laid out a base-line about a mile long
on the bay ice. From the known length of this, as measured by the
sledge-meter, and angles from the two ends it was, of course, possible
to determine the distance of any visible point. Each of these three
points forms a station to which others may be linked; and indeed, in
exactly this manner is a “triangulation” carried out.

On the 16th we started off to examine and survey the western coast of
the harbour. Here the Mackay Glacier entered the sea, chiefly by the
great tongue, but also by huge ice cliffs to the south, and by the new
glacier in the south-west corner. We headed for a striking cape which
projected from the glacier like a black hand stretched forth from a
snowy cuff of glacier. We called this promontory Cuff Cape.

Sketch-map of region near the Devil’s Punch Bowl, December, 1911.
]

My finger was very painful, and the swelling now extended right
through my right hand. Luckily I could pull in harness as well as
ever, but for many nights I had no sleep, and I could do little or
nothing in the way of making records during the day.

However, I became a fairly expert writer with my left hand in the
course of time, but it was very galling to be incapacitated in almost
the most interesting part of our journey.

We camped on the ice-foot at Cuff Cape and scrambled up to see the
glacier behind. Like all the land hereabouts the rock was covered with
a layer of jumbled blocks of granite mixed up with gravel and clay.
The ice cliff was fifty feet high, and almost free from silt or rock.
Hence the debris on the cape surely marks the condition of the land
prior to the last advance of the glaciers. It is not rock crumbled _in
situ_, for I am sure that would be more in the form of a
gravel—moreover, erratics were common.

There was, of course, some moraine material, and a few perched blocks
especially along the north shore. In the bay near the Tongue the
latter had broken the bay ice into square cakes, evidently by the
pressure of the glacier; and the movement of the Tongue along the
stagnant ice of Cuff Cape had piled a rampart of ice on top of the
latter.

The hot sun acting on the ebony front of my camera had actually split
it! Luckily I discovered it in time, and no damage was done to my
photographs. Gran was very pleased at finding an insect on this cape,
and while we were examining this wild animal, he also discovered
“gold.” This latter, however, was only golden mica, though it quite
resembled the precious metal.

On the 18th we moved across to the next cape. This stood out boldly
with nearly vertical crags a thousand feet high bounding it on two
sides. It closely resembled in shape the sky-scraper called the “Flat
Iron,” and as it also had a flat top we gave it that name. We camped
on the south-east side at the foot of a chimney which led up to a
pretty little tarn. The summit was 1200 feet above the sea and was
covered with a wonderful variety of rocks.

Looking up the glacier to the west we could see a plateau of dead ice.
The moving glacier split on Mount Suess, and the greater part of the
ice entered the sea as the Mackay Tongue. A small amount flowed down
just south of the Flat Iron forming the “New Glacier” (see map, p.
376). In my opinion there is a tendency for greater erosion at the
edge of the ice, for here the sapping action in the “lateral moat” is
very active. In the centre of a glacier the only erosion is that due
to glacier planation, and as I have explained, very little of this is
taking place in Antarctica at present.

There was a marked descent from the top of the Flat Iron to the snow
plateau, and then a steep drop into the “Devil’s Punchbowl.” The
latter was a fascinating spot, and on the 20th we shifted camp so as
to examine it more closely.

We were encamped on a small beach beneath the rocky wall of the new
glacier, which we called the “Devil’s Ridge.” Probably the state of my
finger accounted for His Satanic Majesty’s frequent presence on the
map hereabouts. The Punch Bowl was an empty cwm or bowl-valley, which
had been eaten into the steep southern edge of the Flat Iron. Its
floor was below sea-level, and it would thus appear to indicate
subsidence, for we have no idea how the accepted methods of eroding
cwms (by “thaw and freeze” chiefly) could act _under_ water. The New
Glacier had very lately ceased to fall over the Devil’s Ridge into the
cwm. It is only six feet below the ridge, and there is a drop of five
hundred feet to the floor of the latter. In fact, thaw waters still
cross the ridge and flow through the debris and down into the cwm. It
is perfectly obvious that very little power is exercised by the “New
Glacier,” or it would have swept the Punch Bowl out of existence.

There was a little tarn held back by a large bank of snow near the top
of the ridge, and here Gran celebrated midsummer by a bathe! I envied
him, but could not follow suit owing to my disabled hand.

Across the bowl a small hanging glacier entered the cwm but did not
reach the sea-ice below. We called this the Dewdrop Glacier. It
terminated in a rhomb-shaped face which was three hundred feet above
the bay. In the bay itself was a great thickness of ice, and Debenham
and myself had many arguments as to its origin. He believed it was an
ancient relic of the Dewdrop Glacier; but I inclined to the belief
that it represented old floe ice jammed up the narrow bowl by sea-ice
from without. Gran and I ran a line of levels across it with the
theodolite, which showed that it was still afloat although in places
it rose many feet above the bay level.

We were running short of stores, so Gran and I marched back to our
headquarters. While I collected the stores he looked around for skua
eggs and soon found eight. The sea-kale did not show that verdant
growth which Gran had anticipated. However, he dug up one corner of
the “garden” and proudly showed me that one of the seeds was
sprouting!

Gran put the eggs in a tin to carry them to the Punch Bowl. For
security he carefully packed them; but as the tin was black and the
sun was hot his packing, consisting of snow, soon vanished! However,
we got the eggs safely to the others. Unfortunately five were bad, but
the others assisted the menu at our midsummer feast.

On the 22nd Gran and I explored the ridge and examined the Devil’s
Thumb. This knob is eight hundred feet above the bowl and is composed
of granite stiffened by porphyry dykes. Next day we spent some time
examining a huge enclosure of limestone caught up in the rocks forming
the Flat Iron. The crumpling and heat had turned the limestone into
marble, and along the junction with the granite many unusual minerals
had been formed. There were huge brown augites several inches long,
and large masses of natrolite, tremolite, and other similar minerals,
which filled Debenham’s petrological soul with joy.

We returned to Cape Geology on the 23rd of December. In our absence
the tide crack and pressure ridges had been torn wider by the pressure
of the Mackay Tongue on the sea-ice. However, we got ashore without
much difficulty by zigzagging along the torn edges of the crack (see
p. 369).

We found the floor of the hut inches deep in ice, which Forde cleared
out with the ice-axe. Meanwhile Gran was busy at the medical chest,
where the long names rather confused him. However, he seemed to
remember “aspirin” as a useful friend, and said it was suited to my
case. I swallowed some of the tabloids. Then he came across
“salicylate,” and apologetically remarked that the latter was what he
had been thinking of. So I tried them also. I was of the opinion
myself that my trouble was a combination of frostbite, blood-poisoning
and rheumatism, due primarily to an infected cut, and later to cold
and a diet of seal meat. However, on return to civilization I was
assured that I ought to have had my finger cut off, and that the bone
had been affected. Gran very willingly started operating on it with a
lancet; but I am thankful to say that I distrusted his powers as a
surgeon, with the result that now all is well.

On Christmas Day we roamed about Cape Geology collecting specimens and
skua eggs. I was pleased to see signs of intellect in two of the
skuas, for my observations of seals, penguins, and skuas left me
convinced of their stupidity. However, in one nest the bird had
dragged some moss from a patch a foot distant, and in another case
some quill feathers were arranged around the nest. All the other birds
nested anyhow and anywhere. A gully, where water often trickled down
on a specially hot day, was a favoured spot!

For lunch we cracked twenty-seven eggs, of which eight were edible.
Then we opened the Christmas bag and we found therein a small pudding
ready cooked and some caramels and ginger. Forde had rigged up the
flap again, and had raised the Irish flag on his own behalf. He cut
out a white harp from a linen specimen bag and sewed it on to a piece
of green burberry. The result was patriotic and striking. Gran’s
sledge flag was a beautiful piece of embroidery presented by Queen
Maud, and contained the Norwegian arms. Debenham’s and mine bore the
arms of our universities.

I had carved a spoon out of a piece of bamboo from the broken end of
our depôt flag, and Debenham used this as a lever to photograph our
group. This primitive arrangement took a lot of fixing, but he
obtained quite a successful picture finally.

A heavy sea fog rolled up that evening, and most of us suffered from
rheumatic pains. As a rule, we never caught cold while sledging,
though I remember a touch of influenza on one occasion. This freedom
from some of the minor ills of life speaks well for the purity of the
air in the Antarctic.

Debenham’s birthday is the 26th of December, and Gran had remembered
this fact and carried a packet of cigarettes from Cape Evans as a
present to him.

THE FIRST WESTERN PARTY IN A NATURAL ICE-TUNNEL AMID THE PINNACLES OF
THE KOETTLITZ GLACIER.

Edgar Evans standing.
]

THE SECOND WESTERN PARTY AT CAPE GEOLOGY, GRANITE HARBOUR, ON
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1911.

Forde and Gran standing, Debenham and Taylor sitting.
]

We walked along the flank of Mount England to explore the New Glacier
and to find a track to the Upper Mackay. Numerous couloirs or chimneys
grooved the steep face, and Gran and I climbed four hundred feet up
one of them. The snowline was about eight hundred feet up, and below
this was a tumbled pile of debris and granite blocks with a little
water running between. It was obvious that frost action was now
leading to a great deal of erosion; while at the head of the couloir
where the snow lay, less action was taking place. In short, true
glacier erosion (planation) was absent, and yet all round were
specimens of cwms in all stages of their evolution. Here a gully,
there a couloir somewhat deeper, on the Kar Cliffs a couloir cut into
a “half funnel” (p. 374); at the “Spillover” near by, a small bowl at
the back of the eroded notch, and along the mountain ridge (named
later after Gonville and Caius College), a series of giant cwms which,
in my opinion, originated in some small gully such as that I had just
climbed. At the foot of each of these deep couloirs was a delta or
debris fan.

We climbed up the steep face of the New Glacier just where it joined
the talus of the mountain slope. Higher up was a deep lateral gully
which had been dammed by debris, and contained a lake about a quarter
of a mile long. This was bounded by steep granite cliffs on the south,
which showed no sign of grooving by the glacier, but was breaking off
in “shells” owing to frost action.

We could see up the New Glacier, which was badly crevassed in many
places. I came round to the opinion of Debenham and Gran, that it
would be wiser to portage all our gear up the 1000 feet cliffs of the
Flat Iron, and so gain the quiet area behind the latter. We returned
to Cape Geology, and packed a fortnight’s provisions and gear for our
journey up the Mackay Glacier.

I caught many of the insects I had discovered on arriving at Cape
Geology. Indeed, later Debenham found them under most of the stones,
clustering among the whitish roots or hyphæ of the moss. They would be
frozen stiff in a thin film of ice until one turned the stone into the
sun. Then the ice would melt, and they would move sluggishly about
until the sun left them, when their damp habitation froze again! I
cannot imagine a finer example of hibernation, for it looked as if
they pursued an active life only when a beneficent explorer let in a
little sunlight on them! Debenham detected a little red species which
was much more nimble than the millimetre-long blue ones, and I had
much trouble in catching six of them; but the others were more easily
managed. I smeared a piece of paper with seccotine, and then, taking a
small brush from the medical outfit, I brushed them by hundreds on to
the paper. “Seccotine sticks everything,” and the _aptera_ were no
exception. In a few moments they were securely embalmed like the flies
in amber, and so we safely carried a thousand of these unknown insects
back to civilization.

At noon on the 27th we arrived at the foot of the Flat Iron again, and
started our big task. Like most premeditated ills, it was not so
difficult as anticipated. First we had some tea on a little gravelly
ledge about a hundred feet up, and then packed the gear for transport
up the mile of angular granite blocks which lay between us and the top
of the Flat Iron. Forde and Gran carried the sledge on their
shoulders, and, as may be imagined, had a most uncomfortable journey
with this “old man of the ice” to handicap their scramble. Debenham
and I carried food and gear, and in about a dozen journeys everything
was perched high up on the Flat Iron’s summit. Open water was visible
from five hundred feet, so that it was still about twenty-five miles
away. Pennell had not much chance of reaching the rendezvous unless
the ice went out at a mile a day.

We left our snug gravel island next day, and knotted ourselves well to
the sledge. We were now to journey for some days over the Mackay
Glacier, and though we naturally chose the smoothest and least
disturbed ice for our route, yet we had to pass near areas full of
huge crevasses. I had less anxiety than ever to fall into one, for I
could not use my right hand at all yet. However, the other three were
almost too prompt to pull me out, as I realized a week or two later.

We zigzagged down on the snow plateau. This is about ten miles wide,
and seven miles from east to west. It is bounded by the New Glacier
crevasses on the south, and by rock islands which we called Redcliff
and Mount Suess on the west, by the chaos of the Mackay Skauk on the
north, and by the Flat Iron and Cuff Cape Glaciers to the east, where
there is a 1000 feet drop into Granite Harbour.

“The surface was covered with deep snow; we don’t know what is
beneath. There are many indications of east-west depressions in the
snow into which we fell occasionally, but I am not sure if they were
crevasses. The surface often fell in with a widespread sigh, which was
eerie but harmless.

“To the south is a wonderful series of peaks about five thousand feet
high, forming a wall of giant cwms. Probably they form the divide from
the next great valley (of the Debenham Glacier). Quite a number of
these peaks show a recurved spine on the summit, which is probably due
to the weathering of dolerite crags. To the north-west is a mountain
approaching seven thousand feet, which is capped by dolerite lava.”
(We called it Black-cap at first, but it is now officially known as
Mount Tryggve Gran, after our ever-cheerful comrade.) “In the face of
this mountain are faulted white bands which are probably Beacon
Sandstone.”

That evening we camped on Redcliff _Nunakol_. This latter term I
invented with Gran’s assistance to describe a rock island resembling a
_nunatak_, but rounded by previous glacial erosion. The nunatak has
properly never been below the ice; hence its name, from the Icelandic
_nuna_, lonely, and _tak_, a jagged peak. Nunakol is from _nuna_,
lonely, and _kol_, a rounded ridge.

Mount Suess Nunatak, looking west from Redcliff, December 29, 1912.
]

We placed the tent on a patch of gravel near to a little waterfall. I
followed up this stream, and found that it rose in some swampy ground
where a little moss was growing. Next morning we all explored the
Nunakol, which was 1080 feet above the glacier. The top was more or
less flat, and as usual consisted of granite covered with much debris.
I managed to do some sketching, and was especially interested in the
numerous pot-holes cut out in granite by the wind. They were about a
foot in diameter and eight inches deep, and each contained some
pebbles by which they had been scoured out.

To assist our survey we named many of the peaks and glaciers around
us. The sharp peak to the north (which I usually made the datum for
the theodolite angles) we called the “Referring Facet.” A large
tributary glacier to the east of this was named the Cleveland Glacier
by Debenham. He explained that it was after a large family, and so
required a correspondingly large natural feature! Red Ridge was to the
south, and formed of red granite. Killer Ridge had the shape of an
_orca_, Sperm Bluff was a black headland like the blunt head of the
sperm whale. Pegtop and Dome nunataks are self-explanatory. We were
quite close to Mount Suess, and obtained a fine view of this nunatak.
Its three dolerite peaks, the armchair hollow, and the bulwark on the
north-east, supported by huge granite cliffs, made it a very striking
object.

On the 30th the day was overcast, and it snowed most of the time. We
could not leave the tent, and lay snug in our bags and mended gear. I
did some useful darning, using seaming twine to repair my socks. They
were lasting splendidly. “I mended them with my left hand; so far I am
still wearing the same socks for eight weeks. If I could darn easily,
I’d keep to them for our whole fourteen weeks....” Such was the
practical value of my patent canvas heel-tips!

Debenham and I made a set of chess pieces from cardboard, and we
played on his survey plane-table. It took a week or two to get used to
the men, but we had many games later while we were marooned on Cape
Roberts.

On the last day of the year we pulled westward to Gondola Ridge. “All
was snow-covered, and we sank four inches into it, but the sledge
pulled pretty well. There was no sun, but I got in a cold sweat with
the work. Now and again our feet would sink a foot or two. There must
be plenty of crevasses round this corner of the nunakol, but we
trusted the fates and plugged on. The snow was so deep that we did not
break through the bridges anywhere. The sun came out to cheer us, and
soon we heard the old creaking due to ‘bottle-glass’ ice and
‘glass-house’ ice....” I knew this meant an ancient undisturbed
glacier from our experience up the Koettlitz Glacier, and felt that we
were safely past the crevasses.

About noon we had approached close to Gondola Ridge, which extends
northward from Mount Suess. Here we came to a sudden ice cliff, but
the slope was not too steep for us to toboggan down it on to a lake
surface fringing the moraines. I expect thaw waters had cut out the
cliff. Here were fine debris cones just like those of Cape Evans, but
larger, and formed not only of dolerite, but of granite and Beacon
Sandstone.

“We pushed on for a whitish silt-bank, and then left the sledge near
it among the black and white rocks composing the moraine. The
silt-bank was a huge heap like a railway embankment. It was twenty
feet high, and composed of Beacon Sandstone debris. A little lake lay
at the foot, and its flat top made a splendid camp site. ‘Here, on
soil formed of real sand, like that near Sydney, we pitched our
tent:’—probably the first time such a thing had been done in Victoria
Land. We found a bounteous water supply by cutting through the ice of
the little lake, for alongside a big black boulder the radiation of
the sun’s heat had melted the ice. This was a great saving, for none
of our precious oil was now wasted in melting the ice.”

There was an extraordinary mixture of dolerite and sandstone all over
the Gondola Ridge. The sandstone was characterized by blebs, which in
Germany would be called “Knoten.” We called it briefly “smallpoxy,”
and it did not look hopeful for fossils. However, there was some shale
near the tent, which looked more hopeful. We did not find much beyond
worm-casts and ripple-marks at first.

The discovery of fossils was of especial importance to Australia,
because the central Antarctic area had served as a distributing base
for Australian animals and plants. The marsupials are represented by a
few forms in South America and New Guinea, and there seems little
doubt that land extended more or less continuously between these
limits. Earlier still South Africa was joined to this Antarctic world,
for land-worms allied to those in the other southern continents are
now known from Cape Colony.

When Gran and I returned from our first survey of the ridge we found
that Debenham had already been successful in the shales. He had found
some vesicular horny plates. I turned to, and soon obtained two large
pieces like the red tiles capping a roof-ridge. They were nearly two
inches long, and had a well-marked keel. There were also smaller
complete plates. On our return to Europe these were identified as the
armour-plate of primitive fish, and probably of Devonian age. So that
our find on Gondola Ridge added a new epoch to Antarctic fossils, for
Cambrian limestones were known, and Permian coal-measures were
indicated by Shackleton’s specimens. These fish plates identified
another set of sediments midway between them.

The moraines near our camp, though by no means so abundant as on a
smaller European glacier, were the most important which I saw actually
on a glacier in the Antarctic. To the north-east two medial moraines
stretched out from the ridge and enclosed an area which we called the
Harbour (see p. 391). In a warm summer this is probably a lake. One
striking “piebald” debris cone was half white and half black. It was
twenty-five feet high, and the eastern portion had resulted from the
weathering of a huge “erratic” of sandstone, while a similar mass of
dolerite had broken up to form the western half of the heap.

Even so far up and away from the sea we found some lichens. These
diminutive plants were busily etching the surface of the granite just
as in more clement climes. Beautiful rounded and polished platforms
were quite abundant on the ridge. Occasionally a hard band of porphyry
would project and show almost a glaze where the coarser granite had
been weathered and dulled.

We could now see uninterruptedly to the great ice plateau. Only one
nunatak lay between us and the outlet ice-falls near Mount Gran. We
saw many examples of perched blocks, some being deposited on top of
polished faces of granite. One huge block, which I sketched, had been
lowered gently by the ice on to four “legs,” at one corner composed of
two small stones. Between Mount Suess and Gondola Ridge was a definite
“col” or low pass containing small tarns and covered with debris. We
returned to the camp by this route, and had no difficulty in
clambering down its eastern outlet.

The 2nd of January was a cold gloomy morning. The clouds settled down
and swathed everything in a clammy mantle. I dared not move far from
the tent, and so we broke up shales and collected more of what Evans
called “sarpent critters.” I found a few brilliant blue plates with a
lustre like that on the elytræ of beetles! I walked over the north end
of the ridge where the solid granite was broken into large “bricks”
separated by several inches. These blocks seemed to have moved to the
east, and this movement may be due to glacier “plucking”; but I think
it is merely the result of frost cleavage followed later by rock
“creep.” At any rate it was very common on the “floors” left by the
recession of the ice-sheet.

Debenham in his prowl for specimens had discovered a coal-mine! In
this case it was not a large one, and consisted of a fine lump of
brown coal about four inches across.

On the 3rd Gran and I determined to circumnavigate Mount Suess. This
most striking mountain lay about one mile south of us. It towered 3000
feet above Gondola ridge and was a most impressive sight. The upper
layer consisted of black dolerite, largely showing columnar structure.
The main mass was formed of reddish granite. It stood out foursquare
like some gigantic castle keep (see Fig., p. 383). The centre was
hollowed out and three cusps or peaks rose at the north, west, and
south angles respectively. In fact, it resembled more than anything an
ancient molar tooth, though this parallel libels its rugged grandeur.

As we marched round its east face we came on more and more dolerite in
the moraine. This had evidently been swept round the south of the
mount, and as this moraine contained the sandstone fossils it was very
important to see where the moraine originated. Between the mount and
the glacier to the south was a low col of granite from which talus
debris reached upwards almost to the dolerite cap. The mount itself
looked yellow, but I found this was due to a yellow tint in the
granite.

The sky was clouding, and we had still a long way to go. So we hurried
round to the west side of the mount, and here I saw what I had
expected, that between the granite base and the dolerite capping there
was a long “lenticle” of yellow sediments. It was, however, quite
inaccessible from below, and after making a sketch we marched on the
north. On this side there was very little talus. We clambered along
over granite terraces some 300 feet above the glacier. We crossed the
top of the north col without difficulty and proceeded over Gondola
Ridge to the tent. Later, Debenham and Forde appeared. They had found
an easy route to the central hollow of the mount, which we called “The
Deck,” but had not had time to ascend one of the peaks.

On the 4th the morning was clear, and I felt that we could not do
better than get the theodolite on the top of Mount Suess, and so
connect up many of the distant peaks with our survey.

Debenham decided to stay below and continue his plane-table survey.
Gran took his camera, and Forde and I carried the theodolite, etc. We
climbed up the gap at the north corner, and then scrambled along a
slope full of snow-covered boulders which lay between the main peaks
and the 1800 feet Rampart. This latter feature seemed as if pierced
for guns also! Possibly the gap and the “ports” were due to the
weathering away of volcanic dykes in the granite. They did not look as
if ice had cut them out. Where the gap emerged on the “Deck” were two
little tarns at about 1200 feet above the tent.

Gran proceeded to climb the central-west cusp of the mount, thinking
it the highest. Forde and I attacked the south-west peak. The slope
was very steep and covered at first with grey granite, black dolerite,
and yellow sandstone blocks. At 2000 feet only the dolerite blocks
were seen, so that I feel sure that the sandstone crops out _inside_
the hollow of the mount (between the granite and dolerite) as well as
on its western face.

At 1.40 I reached the top and found that it was 3000 feet above the
tent. I set up the theodolite and obtained a fine series of angles.
Sighting on Gran’s peak, which he had just surmounted, I found it was
two degrees lower, which I estimated at about a hundred feet, whereat
he was somewhat crestfallen. However, he walked across after obtaining
a splendid set of photos of the landscape spread out before us. The
actual summit was fairly flat for a few yards, with a thousand feet
precipice on the south and west. Far out to sea we could see miles of
open water, especially to the south, with floes drifting in it, but it
did not seem much nearer than a month ago.

To the south a deep fiord-like valley seemed to pierce right through
the Gonville Range. It was of course filled with ice, and was, I
think, what the Americans call a transection glacier. Probably it
connected the Mackay Glacier with the Debenham Glacier. The cliffs at
its west portal were cut into giant “forts,” and bands of beacon
sandstone showed clearly enough above the granite.

To the south lay the Sperm nunakol. It was only a mile away, and we
seemed to be right over it. It showed a flat surface covered with
debris much like the Flat Iron. The Peg Top nunakol seemed to have
lost its knob-like appearance. It was somewhat =Ꭲ=-shaped, the front
bar rising like a crocodile’s head from the covering of ice. To the
south of this rock island there seemed an easy route up to the
Plateau—good enough for ponies, if the first step up to the “Flat
Iron” could be negotiated.

A very high mountain, possibly 10,000 feet, showed to the west. We
could not estimate its distance properly, for all our survey angles to
it were so acute.

After spending two and a half hours on the summit we hurried back to
the camp, and found that Debenham had passed a useful if uneventful
day.

Gondola Ridge from the top of Mount Suess, looking north-east, January
4, 1912, showing the “deck,” ramparts, and medial moraines.
]

On the 6th of January we took down the tent and transported our gear
across the rugged moraines to the sledge. While I was packing the fish
scales in cotton-wool, the other three had found more coal near the
sledge, and they soon collected five specimen bags full. It was
undoubtedly derived from Beacon Sandstone beds close to our camp, and
possibly from the outcrop we had seen on Mount Suess.

We marched straight back to the Flat Iron, camping for lunch about
halfway. It was interesting to note the way the snow lay in various
regions. Small cwm valleys at low levels were filled with snow and
ice, while large plains at higher elevations to the west were seen to
be almost bare. Perhaps the snowfall varies with height, while the
ablation (evaporation) may depend largely on the wind direction.

Next day we devoted to a survey of the Flat Iron. I went to the
northern face to see if we could drag or lower the sledge down the
glacier without unloading it. I had a light camera and was able to
take a few interesting photographs. The first looking over Cuff Cape
to the north illustrated the following physiographic features: the ice
face, crevasses, skauk, young calf-bergs, moraines, retreating
glacier, granite pavements, shear cracks in bay ice, the ice tongue,
facets on the cliffs, cwms, overflows, hog-bag ridges, the junction of
the granite and dolerite, and the Kar Plateau—all on one quarter-plate
negative!

To the south was the small tarn I have mentioned earlier. The furrowed
face of Mount England was reflected in its still water, and a solitary
skua gull was preening his feathers on a boulder in the lake. I
managed to get a successful photo here also.