The Home of the Blizzard · Douglas Mawson
Dr. R. BAGE
Send me your strongest, those who never fail. I'm the Blizzard, King of the Southern Trail! Sledging song.
On the afternoon of November 10, at Aladdin's Cave, after a convivial hoosh, Webb, Hurley and I said good-bye to Dr. Mawson's party and made off south for the eleven and three-quarter mile cave where our Supporting Party, Murphy, Hunter and Laseron, were waiting for us. At 7 P.M. we started almost at a run over the smooth ice, to the accompaniment of hearty cheers from Dr. Mawson, Ninnis, and Mertz; two of whom we were never to see again.
Half a mile of this easy going, and we were on snow for the first time with a loaded sledge. Uphill snow, too, and the wind rising, so it was no small relief when we finally made the Cathedral Grotto at 11.30 P.M., and found Murphy's tent pitched alongside it. The wind by this time was about forty-five miles per hour and, it being nearly dusk, the crevasses--a five-mile belt--had been fairly difficult to negotiate.
We soon had the cave clear of snow, had a good meal and then slept the sleep of the just, feeling well content with the first day's work--eleven and a half miles from home at an altitude of one thousand nine hundred feet. We were off at last on a search for the Magnetic Pole.
On the morrow some time was spent in rearranging the loads. Finally, both parties moved off south into heavy wind and fairly thick drift. What with the ground rising steadily, the pressure of the wind and our lack of condition, two and a quarter hours of solid work realized only two and a quarter miles; so we decided to camp.
All the night it blew hard, between seventy and eighty miles per hour, and next day it was still blowing and drifting heavily. Our tent was a good deal smaller than Murphy's, and, as Webb and Hurley are both six-footers, we always had to put all gear outside when the sleeping-bags were down. This is really a good thing when the weather is bad, as one is not tempted to stay in the bag all the time.
Early in the afternoon as we were all feeling hungry and had been in bags long enough to feel cold, although the weather was quite warm (10 degrees F.), we rolled bags, and, when our frozen burberrys were once fairly on, quite enjoyed ourselves. After a boil-up and a few minutes' "run" round in the drift and wind, we did some stitching on our light drill tent, which was making very heavy weather of it, although pitched close under the lee of Murphy's strong japara tent. A little reading, some shouted unintelligible conversation with the other tent, another boil-up, and, last but not least, a smoke, found us quite ready for another sleep.
Next day (November 13), the wind having dropped to thirty-five miles per hour, we set out about 11 A.M. in light drift. The sky was still overcast, so the light was very trying. In the worst fogs at home one can at any rate see something of the ground on which one is treading; in Adelie Land, even when the air was clear of snow, it was easy to bump against a four-foot sastruga without seeing it. It always reminded me most of a fog at sea: a ship creeping "o'er the hueless, viewless deep."
When 6 P.M. arrived we had only covered five and a half miles, but were all thoroughly exhausted and glad to camp. Lunch had been rather barbarously served in the lee of the sledge. First came plasmon biscuit, broken with the ice-axe into pieces small enough to go into the mouth through the funnel of a burberry helmet; then followed two ounces of chocolate, frozen rather too hard to have a definite taste; and finally a luscious morsel--two ounces of butter, lovingly thawed-out in the mouth to get the full flavour. Lunches like these in wind and drift are uncomfortable enough for every one to be eager to start again as soon as possible.
By nine o'clock that night the wind had increased to a full gale. We were in camp all the 14th and the 15th, the wind rising to eighty-five miles per hour with very heavy drift during the small hours of the 15th. This was its maximum, and by the afternoon it was down to about seventy miles per hour with a clear sky and light drift. We donned our burberrys (I should like to give Hurley's "Ode to a Frozen Burberry") and dug out our sledges, both of which were completely buried in a ramp forty yards long; the shovel projecting nine inches above the surface.
While we were engaged on this work, I overheard the following conversation being shouted in the Supporting Party's tent:
FIRST VOICE. I'm hungry. Who will go out and get the food-bag?
SLEEPY VOICE. The food-weights ** are in the cooker.
FIRST VOICE. No they're not.
SLEEPY VOICE. Saw them there yesterday, must be somewhere in the tent.
FIRST VOICE. No they're not... I ate them last night.
The exercise, a good hoosh and above all the clear sky made us take a less morbid view of the fact that we were six days out from the Hut and only nineteen and a half miles away.
Early on the 16th we could hear above the roar of the wind the drift still hissing against the tent, but it had diminished by nine o'clock breakfast.
By common consent it was agreed that our loads were too heavy for the conditions under which we were working. I accordingly decided to drop one hundred-pound bag. We had already saved nearly one week's food for three men and had not yet worked up our full sledging appetites. The bag was raised to the top of a six-foot snow mound, a thermograph being placed alongside. As we now seemed to be on plateau snow, I thought it wise to leave behind my heavy boots and Swiss crampons.
By 4 P.M. the wind had decreased to a light breeze. Work was very slow on a steeper up grade, and at six o'clock clouds came up quickly from the south-east and snow began to fall, so we camped at 7.30 P.M. thoroughly tired out. At twenty-four and a half miles the altitude was three thousand two hundred feet.
The snow was a false alarm. It ceased at 9 P.M. and the wind subsided to a dead calm!!
Good headway was being made against a strong breeze next day, when it was noticed that two gallons of kerosene were missing off the supporters' sledge. While Murphy and Laseron went back two miles to recover them, Webb secured a magnetic declination and I took sun observations for time and azimuth.
We were off early on the 18th and for the first time were able to appreciate the "scenery." Glorious sunshine overhead and all around brilliant snow, dappled by livid shadows; very different from the smooth, soft, white mantle usually attributed to the surface of Antarctica by those in the homeland. Here and there, indeed, were smooth patches which we called bowling-greens, but hard and slippery as polished marble, with much the same translucent appearance. Practically all the country, however, was a jumbled mass of small, hard sastrugi, averaging perhaps a foot in height, with an occasional gnarled old veteran twice as high. To either side the snow rolled away for miles. In front, we made our first acquaintance with the accursed next ridge, which is always ahead of you on the plateau. Generally we passed from one ridge to another so gradually that we could never say for certain just when we had topped one; still the next ridge was always there.
The weather had lately been colder with the increased altitude. The temperature in daily range varied from -10 degrees F. to 9 degrees F. It was so hot in the sun, on the 18th, that lunching inside the tent was unbearable. We preferred its shadow outside in the breeze.
Wearing a minimum of clothes, we marched along gaily during the afternoon. The country changed in a wonderful manner, the sastrugi gradually becoming smaller and finally disappearing. The surface was so soft that a bamboo would easily penetrate it for a foot. Evidently it was fairly old and laid down in calm weather, for excavations showed that it became more compact without any hard wind-swept layers marking successive snowfalls.
It was proved that we were commencing a descent of one thousand five hundred feet down the north side of a valley feeding the Mertz Glacier. In order to explain the surface, smooth and unruffled by any wind, the question arose as to whether it is possible that there is a cushion of dead air more or less permanently over the north side of this depression.
On the soft surface we were able to dispense with crampons. Hitherto, it had been impossible to haul over a slippery surface in finnesko. Now we felt as light as air and were vastly cheered when some one calculated that the six of us were saving I don't know how many thousand foot-pounds of work every mile. With a run of twelve miles we were forty-two miles from Winter Quarters.
Another splendid day on the 19th. We had lunch in a curious cup-shaped hollow, estimated to be two miles wide and one hundred and fifty feet deep. Webb obtained here an approximate dip of 88 degrees 44',** a very promising increase from the Hut (87 degrees 27').
Map showing track of the southern sledging party from the Main Base
Snow-blindness had now begun to make itself felt for the first time. I for one had my first experience of it that afternoon. During the halt at lunch I put on yellow goggles in place of the smoked ones I had been wearing, and in a quarter of an hour the change of colour had 'settled' my eyes for the time being.
The afternoon was very hot. The thermometer stood at 10 degrees F. at 4 P.M., but the still air made it almost insupportable. By the time the load was hauled up out of the basin, we were streaming with perspiration.
Before halting, we sighted a dark, distant ridge, thirty miles away, and the course was corrected by its bearing. Our extravagant hopes of finding a permanently calm region had been dwindling for the last few miles, as a hard bottom, a few inches under the surface, had become evident. They were finally dispelled by a south-west wind springing up during the night.
As every one was beginning to feel the hard work after another oppressive afternoon on the 20th, we decided to have an easy march next day and to build our first depot. Of course we had hoped to have been farther out before sending back the supporting party, but the weather had settled the question.
On the 21st, taking things as easily as a thirty-five mile wind would permit, we pulled on, up and down small undulations till 4 P.M. when we encountered a small rise, with the next ridge a considerable distance ahead. The depot was to be built here.
Webb at once proceeded to take full magnetic declination, time and azimuth observations, Laseron recording for him. Murphy put in a miserable hour over the primus melting snow. He was rather snow-blind and his eyes must have contributed a good deal of water to the pot. The water was poured into food-bags filled with snow, which were buried, encircled by wire slings, in holes. Here they froze, making excellent holdfasts for the depot flag. Depot flags had been exercising our ingenuity for months before the start, ordinary forms being destroyed by the wind in a few hours. Webb had finally built the perfect flag of the wind-vane type: a V of pieces of blackened Venesta board with light struts at the back and a piece of aeroplane tubing at the apex which slipped over the bamboo pole. The pole, of two bamboos, stood sixteen feet from the ground and was provided with two sets of flexible steel stays. Close by, Hurley and Hunter had built a snow mound ten feet in diameter and ten feet in height, finished off with a capping of snow blocks wrapped in black bunting.
Next day it was blowing a little harder and the sky was overcast, snow falling all day. What bad light means can be gathered from the fact that Laseron on crawling out of the tent in the morning raised an alarm that our tent had been blown away in the night. It turned out that our tent was hidden by a mound which he could not see, though only about ten yards from it.
I had been given the option of relieving the supporting party of any of their gear I coveted and I used it freely. The sledgemeter was the first thing commandeered, ours, made by Correll, having developed some slight complaint in its interior. Their cooker, being in good condition, was also taken. We all cast longing eyes at the roomy wind-proof tent but finally decided that it was too heavy--forty pounds as against our own of twenty-six pounds, including tent and poles.
At 7 P.M. we said good-bye to our supporters, Hurley exposed the last plate of his big reflex camera, which they carried back to the Hut, and a few minutes later Webb, Hurley, and I were standing alone watching three black specks disappearing in the drift; a stiff wind helping them along in great style. We were left to our own resources now, for better or for worse. "Weird" is how I described my feelings in the diary.
The same night it blew a hurricane and only dropped to sixty miles per hour during the 23rd, compelling us to remain in camp. Not an ideal birthday for Webb, but we made the most of it. I quote from my diary: "Turned out and rolled bags at 3 P.M. for lunch, for which we opened a wee tin of bacon ration brought for the occasion. Had some extra lumps of sugar (collared from the eleven-mile cave) in our tea. After the wine had been round (i.e. after a special second cup of tea), I gave Eric a pair of stockings from Murphy, and then 'Hoyle' and I smoked a cigar each which Webb produced. Dinner at 7 was also a special affair as we had the remains of the bacon ration in the hoosh, with great effect. Also an extra strong brew of cocoa boiled quite smooth. Burberrys on and a stroll outside in the wind for a yard or two to get up a circulation; then into bag where I am smoking a plebeian pipe which is very tame after the glories of the day, especially as I suspect my tobacco of being a bit damp."
Such was the first of the two "auspicious occasions" we had on the journey.
After going carefully through the gear, we discarded a pickaxe, one pair of big spiked boots and some odd clothing. We also decided, as the probability of leisure was not great, to leave our reading matter behind. It was with regret that I added my little 'Virginibus Puerisque' to the small pile of "rejects." The load now amounted to seven hundred and forty-eight pounds in all. Not many days after, the floor-cloth (eight pounds) was left behind, as the japara sail afforded ample protection from damp in the low temperatures of the plateau.
The dip-circle, which was to yield the most important result of our journey, was housed after much thought on a conveniently shaped kerosene tray between the tins of oil. Four light leather straps, buckled tightly, made a solid mass of tray, oil tins, and dip-circle; very safe, and easy to undo.
My orders were to proceed inland, due south, taking magnetic, geographical, meteorological, and such other observations as were possible, returning to the Hut not later than January 15. Dr. Mawson had left it to my discretion, in the event of any great change occurring in the declination, to go either true or magnetic south.
At the Hut and up to about sixty miles south of it, the declination had proved fairly constant, but now at the Southern Cross Depot, as we had christened the sixty-seven-mile camp, the compass, from pointing a little to the east of south, had travelled to 40 degrees east of south, so that it became obvious that there was considerable magnetic disturbance in the country over which we were travelling. Whether we went south or south-east seemed unlikely to affect the value of geographical and other information we might gather, while Webb was of the opinion that the best magnetic results would be obtained by marching directly towards the Magnetic Pole, particularly if there were disturbances over the intervening area. For these reasons the course was maintained magnetic south.
At 11 A.M. on Sunday, November 24, we moved off to the south-east in a wind of fifty miles an hour. The light was bad, and steering had to be done by sastrugi and wind. However, momentary glimpses of the sun served to check the course. The lunch camp was five miles from the depot, and a good mound with a top of black bunting was left there. At almost every halt, thus far on our journey, the snow cut for pitching the tent had been gathered up into a mound which, in addition to forming a landmark, could often be used as a back-mark for checking the course. Our depot thus had a mound four miles on the southern and five miles on the northern side of it. It was not marked as well as I had hoped, but under the circumstances we could not do better. Moreover, at intervals during the day, some very distinctive snow ramps had appeared in the valley, some five miles to the north-east, and their position was fixed relative to the course.
Our hopes for a good afternoon were disappointed, as the wind and drift came up again as strong as ever. The surface, too, grew worse; nothing but sastrugi eighteen inches to thirty inches high and very close together. We were marching a little to the east of the wind, and the sledge was continually blown sideways, making considerable leeway. By 8.30 P.M. it was blowing sixty miles per hour, so we halted, thoroughly tired out, having hauled our one-third of a ton eight and three-quarter miles.
When it is blowing hard, the end of the day's march is not the end of the day's work. As soon as a camping spot has been chosen, the sledge is pulled round head to wind. The straps round the load are loosened carefully, the shovel and tent removed and the straps retightened. One man starts breaking out chunks of snow, experimenting until he finds a place where large pieces come away readily. Lumps of forty pounds are the handiest and quickest, but often only smaller ones can be obtained. These are arranged in a circle round the tent-site, while the man with the tent places it on the ground pointing upwind, the bottom of the poles being just where the middle windward leg will be, and makes a hole for that leg.
When everything is ready, all three catch hold of the tent, one man crawling half into it, gripping hard the leather loop on the windward leg. The others sort out and grip their two side legs. "All ready? Up!" It almost takes one's breath away, the roar and the flap! The side legs are quickly separated as the tent rises, and before it can blow over, the leeward legs are more or less in position, taking the strain. The centre man is throwing all his weight on to the leather loop, while the other two outside each holds down his windward pole with one hand and with the other pulls blocks of snow on to the skirt to windward. Once this is done, the rest is simple: cutting holes in just the right positions for the other legs, pulling out the skirt and making it snug all round. Then in goes the floor-cloth, and, by the time that is spread out properly, the primus and cooker are passed in. The cooker is dissected and the two water vessels passed out to be filled with snow. The cook will have hard work to get the primus started if he does not shield the spirit flame from the wind, which blows through the tent, by putting the whole lamp inside the big cooker lid.
In come the pots filled with lumps of snow. The food tank is placed just outside the entrance, and the proper food-bags for the meal are passed in to the cook, the tank being retied to keep out drift. The cooker will now be going at full pressure, and the cook is ready to receive the gear. Sleeping-bags, "computation bag," hypsometer, "meat block" (a three-inch-square paper pad on which meteorological notes were taken); clothes-bag opened, three ditty-bags passed in and bag retied; a final temperature taken and aneroid read; sledge anchored securely by tow-rope to the ice-axe, and a final look round to see all gear is safely strapped down and snow-tight.
In calm weather, camping is a very different thing. On a fine day, half an hour after the halt would usually find us carefully scraping the last of the hoosh out of our pannikins, ready for the cocoa.
At the seventy-six-mile camp we tried the experiment of a break-wind. The tent was so small and light that it was necessary to protect it in the heavy winds. Hurley and I took about three-quarters of an hour to build the first one, but later we improved, getting into the knack of hewing snow with a sharp-pointed shovel.
That night in bag I wrote: "The result of the breakwind is that for once we have the wind bluffed. It is blowing seventy-five miles per hour--a full hurricane--but all the viciousness is taken out of the flapping and there will be no damage done to the tent by morning."
The wind was too strong for travelling early in the day (November 25). While outside we suddenly observed two snow petrels. It was hard to realize that they had actually flown seventy-six miles inland to a height of two thousand four hundred and fifty feet. I dashed inside for the fishingline; Hurley got out the camera. They were a beautiful sight, hovering with outspread wings just above the snow, tipping it with their feet now and then, to poise without a flutter in a sixty-five-mile gale. Hurley secured a couple of "snaps" at the expense of badly frost-bitten hands. Just as I arrived with the line hooked and baited, the birds flew away to the north-east; our visions of fresh meat went with them. The line was always ready after this.
Towards evening the wind dropped suddenly to twenty miles per hour. Our camp was stationed on the southern side of the large valley we had entered on the 18th, and we could identify the ridge crossed on that date, blue and dim, forty miles away to the north. To the north-east could be seen a distinct dip in the skyline, indicating the bed of the valley, on whose northern side the dip met the higher skyline in a steep bluff, twenty-five miles off. This bluff under the glasses was of heavily crevassed, blue ice.
The wind did not rise again much until 10 P.M., when we had moved on seven and a half miles, rising about three hundred feet over several ridges and practically losing our view to the north.
A steady breeze on the 26th, and, on the whole, good light, allowed us to make twelve miles.
Each day, now, Webb took an approximate magnetic dip and declination in the lee of the break-wind. This was necessary in order to get some idea of local disturbances. Also, it gave us some vague idea as to the direction in which lay the South Magnetic Pole. For instance, at the eighty-three-and-three-quarter-mile camp, the needle showed the Pole to be 18 degrees east of true south, while at our lunch camp that day, six miles farther on, it was given as 50 degrees east of south. The dip was so great that our prismatic compass would not set closer than about 15 degrees, but the long compass needle of the dip-circle, though of course sluggish, continued to give excellent results.
Under these conditions it is obvious that the magnetic needle is quite useless for steering purposes. The sun compass proved itself a more than efficient substitute. On a snowfield there is usually a total absence of landmarks of any kind, so the direction of wind, sastrugi, or perhaps a low cloud is found with the sun-compass, frequently checked, and the course kept accordingly. On camping we would generally carefully note the direction in which the sledge was left, in case the next day proved overcast. Thus we would march in the morning by the wind's direction till the sun, gleaming through the clouds for a few moments, enabled us to use the compass again.
Sastrugi, only six inches high, seen on the 26th, showed the effects of wind-erosion exquisitely. In an individual case the windward end of a sastruga might be completely undercut for six or nine inches, leaving a hard crust, sometimes only one-eighth of an inch in thickness and a couple of inches wide. This would sag downwards under its own weight in a fine curve till the tip rested on the snow beneath. It is marvellous how such a delicate structure can withstand the heavy wind.
November 27 proved a very hard day. The wind kept up sixty miles per hour all the time, so that, after taking four hours to do four and three-quarter miles, we were all thoroughly exhausted. It was not a great run, but the century was hoisted--one hundred and three-quarter miles by sledge-meter; altitude two thousand nine hundred feet. There was a mild celebration that night over a square of butter-scotch and half an ounce of chocolate, besides the regular hoosh and cocoa.
Next day the light was very bad and the wind fifty miles per hour. Observations were therefore made inside the tent. Webb, Hurley and the instrument occupied all available space, while I spent three hours digging a shaft eight feet deep in the snow, taking temperatures every foot. It appeared that the mean annual temperature of the snow was approximately -16 degrees F.
The dip was 88 degrees 54'; certainly rather too large a rise from 88 degrees 20' of twenty miles back. The declination had actually changed about 80 degrees in the last ten miles. This one-hundred-mile station was badly disturbed. From the evidence, it is possible that a subsidiary "pole" or area of almost vertical dip may exist close by this spot to the west or south-west.
Going straight up wind into a "blow" which varied from forty to fifty miles per hour, we were able to make eight miles after the previous day's rest. At lunch a hole was dug five feet square and two feet deep. It served three purposes. First, it gave a good shelter for a longitude observation; secondly, with the mast, yard and floor-cloth we converted it into a shelter snug enough to house the primus and to lunch comfortably; and thirdly, a mound was left as a back-mark which was picked up on the return journey.
By experience we found that a warm lunch and a rest enabled one to "peg" along a good deal farther than would otherwise be possible.
The "scenery" in the afternoon became if possible more desolate--very few new sastrugi, the surface appearing generally old and pitted. In some places it was rotten and blown away, disclosing coarse granulated substrata. At the top of one ridge the snow merged into neve split into small crevasses, nine inches wide and four or five yards apart. The camp was pitched, here, at 11 P.M. The latitude was 68 degrees 32' S., and we saw the midnight sun for the first time that summer, about one-quarter of its rim remaining above the horizon.
A full hurricane came up and kept between fifty and sixty miles per hour all day on the 30th. Before moving off, Webb found that the magnetic needle had "waltzed" back 60 degrees since the one-hundred-mile camp, now pointing 80 degrees east of south. Still, to allow the needle to makeup its mind, we steered into the wind at 2 P.M., losing the neve and meeting very rough country. By 6 P.M., with four miles to our credit, we were nearly played out. It was being discussed whether we should go on when the discovery was made that the theodolite legs were missing; probably having slipped out in one of the numerous capsizes of the sledge.
The solemn rites of "shut-eye" determined that Webb was to stay and make camp while Hurley and I retraced our steps. It was no easy matter to follow the trail, for on hard snow the sledge runners leave no mark, and we had to watch for the holes of the crampon-spikes. About two and a half miles back, the legs were found, and there only remained a hard "plug" against the wind to camp and hoosh.
While we were lying half-toggled into the sleeping-bags, writing our diaries, Hurley spent some time alternately imprecating the wind and invoking it for a calm next day. As he said, once behind a break-wind one could safely defy it, but on the march one is much more humble.
Whether it was in honour of Queen Alexandra's birthday, or whether Hurley's pious efforts of the evening before had taken effect, December 1 turned out a good day. By noon, the wind had dropped sufficiently for us to hoist the Jack and Commonwealth Ensign for the occasion.
After four miles of battling, there came into sight a distinct ridge, ten miles to the west and south--quite the most definitely rising ground observed since leaving the coast. In one place was a patch of immense crevasses, easily visible to the naked eye; in another, due south, were black shadows, and towards these the course was pointed.
At a point more than one hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea, a skua gull paid an afternoon call, alighting a few yards from the track. I immediately commenced to stalk it with a fishing-line, this time all ready and baited with pemmican. However, it was quite contemptuous, flying off to the south-south-east as far as we could follow it. Was it taking a short cut to the Ross Sea?
December 2 saw us through "Dead-Beat Gully" to a rise, in sight of the shadows towards which we had been steering. Two miles away they appeared like the edge of the moon seen through a large telescope. The shadows were due to large mounds of snow on the south side of a steep escarpment. Three main prominences were cross-connected with regular lines of hillocks, giving the impression of a subdivided town-site. The low evening sun threw everything up in the most wonderful relief.
On the morning of the 3rd we were in a valley running west-north-west and east-south-east. The southern side rose steeply and from it projected three large mounds, about two hundred feet from the bottom of the valley, into which they fell just like tailings-heaps from a mine. They were christened "The Nodules."
Going due south uphill over neve we found ourselves in a regular network of crevasses. They were about ten feet wide and well bridged. Most noticeable were "hedges" of ice up to six feet in height on either side of the crevasses which ran southward. It was now nearly calm and in every crack and chink in the snow-bridges beautiful fern-like ice-crystals were seen. These must have been just forming, as a very light puff of wind was seen to destroy many of them.
We spent three hours exploring the locality. On nearing the top of the ridge, roped together, we found that the crevasses were becoming much wider, while the "hedges" were disappearing. The centre "nodule" was found to be immediately north or to the leeward of the intersection of two crevasses, each about forty feet wide. The bridge of one crevasse had dropped some thirty feet for a length of eighty yards. Doubtless, an eddy from this hole accounts for the deposit of snow and, by accretions, for the erection of the nodule. Webb went down at the end of the alpine rope and found the bridge below quite solid.
For about half a mile the summit of the slope was practically level, three hundred feet above the bed of the valley. The surface was still of neve, intersected by canals forty, sixty and eighty feet wide, in which the snow-bridge was generally four or five feet from the brink.
On the south-west horizon, perhaps twenty miles away, was a salient crest streaked by three dark vertical bars; evidently another crevassed area.
Returning to the sledge, we toggled-on and worked it up over the top of the ridge, much regretting that time would not allow us to examine the other two large "nodules." Hurley was in the lead, lengthening his line by thirty feet of alpine rope, but even then all three of us and the sledge were often on the lid of a crevasse. Luckily, the lids were fairly sound, and none of us went in beyond the waist. Finally, the trail emerged on to ordinary sastrugi once more, where a halt was made for lunch. We were all glad to have seen the place, but I think none of us has any wish to see another like it.
That night, after following the magnetic needle towards the south-east, we were fairly on the plateau at one hundred and forty miles, with an altitude of four thousand four hundred feet. The dip, however, had steadily decreased, standing now at 88 degrees 30'. There was some consolation in the hope that a big, sudden rise was stored up for us somewhere along the way ahead.
December 4 and 5 were fine days, giving only twenty-two miles, as we met with a rough surface; a large quantity of very hard, razor-backed sastrugi, generally about two feet high, like groined vaulting inverted, on a small scale. Sledge and sledge-meter both had a very rough passage. The sledge, for instance, balances itself on the top of a sastruga for a moment, with an ominous bend in the runners, crashes down the slope and jams its bow into the next one, from which it has to be lifted clear.
During this run the needle again misbehaved itself, changing its direction some 85 degrees in ten miles, but by the night of the 5th we were getting past the disturbed locality and the dip had increased considerably.
For the first time on the trip the wind veered round to the south-east. Snow had fallen overnight (December 5) and had drifted in long ramps diagonally across the sastrugi. In two and a half hours we covered two and a quarter miles, blindly blundering in an uncertain light among crests and troughs and through piles of soft, new snow. Then we stopped; Webb filling in the afternoon with a full set of dip observations.
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End of part 18 of 38
Continue readingChapter 14: The Quest of the South Magnetic Pole (Part 2)
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