South (7 page)

The noon position on January 8 was lat. 70° 0’ S., long. 19° 09’ W. We had made 66 miles in a northeasterly direction during the preceding twenty-four hours. The course during the afternoon was east-southeast through loose pack and open water, with deep hummocky floes to the south. Several leads to the south came in view, but we held on the easterly course. The floes were becoming looser, and there were indications of open water ahead. The ship passed not fewer than five hundred bergs that day, some of them very large. A dark water-sky extended from east to south-southeast on the following morning, and the
Endurance,
working through loose pack at half speed, reached open water just before noon. A rampart berg 150 ft. high and a quarter of a mile long lay at the edge of the loose pack, and we sailed over a projecting foot of this berg into rolling ocean, stretching to the horizon. The sea extended from a little to the west of south, round by east to north-northeast, and its welcome promise was supported by a deep water-sky to the south. I laid a course south by east in an endeavor to get south and east of Ross’s farthest south (lat. 71° 30’ S.).

We kept the open water for a hundred miles, passing many bergs but encountering no pack. Two very large whales, probably blue whales, came up close to the ship, and we saw spouts in all directions. Open water inside the pack in that latitude might have the appeal of sanctuary to the whales, which are harried by man farther north. The run southward in blue water, with a path clear ahead and the miles falling away behind us, was a joyful experience after the long struggle through the ice lanes. But, like other good things, our spell of free movement had to end. The
Endurance
encountered the ice again at 1 A.M. on the 10th. Loose pack stretched to east and south, with open water to the west and a good water-sky. It consisted partly of heavy hummocky ice showing evidence of great pressure, but contained also many thick, flat floes evidently formed in some sheltered bay and never subjected to pressure or to much motion. The swirl of the ship’s wash brought diatomaceous scum from the sides of this ice. The water became thick with
diatoms
at 9 A.M., and I ordered a cast to be made. No bottom was found at 210 fathoms. The
Endurance
continued to advance southward through loose pack that morning. We saw the spouts of numerous whales and noticed some hundreds of crab eaters lying on the floes. White-rumped terns, Antarctic petrels and snow petrels were numerous, and there was a colony of adelies on a low berg. A few killer whales, with their characteristic high dorsal fin, also came in view. The noon position was lat. 72° 02’ S., long. 16° 07’ W., and the run for the twenty-four hours had been 136 miles S. 6° E.

We were now in the vicinity of the land discovered by Dr. W. S. Bruce, leader of the
Scotia
Expedition, in 1904, and named by him Coats’ Land. Dr. Bruce encountered an ice barrier in lat. 72° 18’ S., long. 10° W., stretching from northeast to southwest. He followed the barrier edge to the southwest for 150 miles and reached lat. 74° 1’ S., long. 22° W. He saw no naked rock, but his description of rising slopes of snow and ice, with shoaling water off the barrier wall, indicated clearly the presence of land. It was up those slopes, at a point as far south as possible, that I planned to begin the march across the Antarctic continent. All hands were watching now for the coast described by Dr. Bruce, and at 5 P.M. the lookout reported an appearance of land to the south-southeast. We could see a gentle snow slope rising to a height of about one thousand feet. It seemed to be an island or a peninsula with a sound on its south side, and the position of its most northerly point was about 72° 34’ S., 16° 40’ W. The
Endurance
was passing through heavy loose pack, and shortly before midnight she broke into a lead of open sea along a barrier edge. A sounding within one cable’s length of the barrier edge gave no bottom with 210 fathoms of line. The barrier was 70 ft. high, with cliffs of about 40 ft. The
Scotia
must have passed this point when pushing to Bruce’s farthest south on March 6, 1904, and I knew from the narrative of that voyage, as well as from our own observation, that the coast trended away to the southwest. The lead of open water continued along the barrier edge, and we pushed forward without delay.

An easterly breeze brought cloud and falls of snow during the morning of January 11. The barrier trended southwest by south, and we skirted it for fifty miles until 11 A.M. The cliffs in the morning were 20 ft. high, and by noon they had increased to 110 and 115 ft. The brow apparently rose 20 to 30 ft. higher. We were forced away from the barrier once for three hours by a line of very heavy pack ice. Otherwise there was open water along the edge, with high loose pack to the west and northwest. We noticed a seal bobbing up and down in an apparent effort to swallow a long silvery fish that projected at least eighteen inches from its mouth. The noon position was lat. 73° 13’ S., long. 20° 43’ W., and a sounding then gave 155 fathoms at a distance of a mile from the barrier. The bottom consisted of large igneous pebbles. The weather then became thick, and I held away to the westward, where the sky had given indications of open water, until 7 P.M., when we laid the ship alongside a floe in loose pack. Heavy snow was falling, and I was anxious lest the westerly wind should bring the pack hard against the coast and jam the ship. The
Nimrod
had a narrow escape from a misadventure of this kind in the Ross Sea early in 1908.

We made a start again at 5 A.M. the next morning (January 12) in overcast weather with mist and snow showers, and four hours later broke through loose pack ice into open water. The view was obscured, but we proceeded to the southeast and had gained 24 miles by noon, when three soundings in lat. 74° 4’ S., long. 22° 48’ W. gave 95, 128, and 103 fathoms, with a bottom of sand, pebbles, and mud. Clark got a good haul of biological specimens in the dredge. The
Endurance
was now close to what appeared to be the barrier, with a heavy pack-ice foot containing numerous bergs frozen in and possibly aground. The solid ice turned away towards the northwest, and we followed the edge for 48 miles N. 60° W. to clear it.

Now we were beyond the point reached by the
Scotia,
and the land underlying the ice sheet we were skirting was new. The northerly trend was unexpected, and I began to suspect that we were really rounding a huge ice tongue attached to the true barrier edge and extending northward. Events confirmed this suspicion. We skirted the pack all night, steering northwest; then went west by north till 4 A.M. and round to southwest. The course at 8 A.M. on the 13th was south-southwest. The barrier at midnight was low and distant, and at 8 A.M. there was merely a narrow ice foot about two hundred yards across separating it from the open water. By noon there was only an occasional shelf of ice foot. The barrier in one place came with an easy sweep to the sea. We could have landed stores there without difficulty. We made a sounding 400 ft. off the barrier but got no bottom at 676 fathoms. At 4 P.M., still following the barrier to the southwest, we reached a corner and found it receding abruptly to the southeast. Our way was blocked by very heavy pack, and after spending two hours in a vain search for an opening, we moored the
Endurance
to a floe and banked fires. During that day we passed two schools of seals, swimming fast to the northwest and north-northeast. The animals swam in close order, rising and blowing like porpoises, and we wondered if there was any significance in their journey northward at that time of the year. Several young emperor penguins had been captured and brought aboard on the previous day. Two of them were still alive when the
Endurance
was brought alongside the floe. They promptly hopped on to the ice, turned round, bowed gracefully three times, and retired to the far side of the floe. There is something curiously human about the manners and movements of these birds. I was concerned about the dogs. They were losing condition and some of them appeared to be ailing. One dog had to be shot on the 12th.

We did not move the ship on the 14th. A breeze came from the east in the evening, and under its influence the pack began to work off shore. Before midnight the close ice that had barred our way had opened and left a lane along the foot of the barrier. I decided to wait for the morning, not wishing to risk getting caught between the barrier and the pack in the event of the wind changing. A sounding gave 1357 fathoms, with a bottom of glacial mud. The noon observation showed the position to be lat. 74° 09’ S., long. 27° 16’ W. We cast off at 6 A.M. on the 15th in hazy weather with a northeasterly breeze, and proceeded along the barrier in open water. The course was southeast for sixteen miles, then south-southeast. We now had solid pack to windward, and at 3 P.M. we passed a bight probably ten miles deep and running to the northeast. A similar bight appeared at 6 P.M. These deep cuts strengthened the impression we had already formed that for several days we had been rounding a great mass of ice, at least fifty miles across, stretching out from the coast and possibly destined to float away at some time in the future. The soundings—roughly, 200 fathoms at the landward side and 1300 fathoms at the seaward side—suggested that this mighty projection was afloat. Seals were plentiful. We saw large numbers on the pack and several on low parts of the barrier, where the slope was easy. The ship passed through large schools of seals swimming from the barrier to the pack off shore. The animals were splashing and blowing around the
Endurance,
and Hurley made a record of this unusual sight with the motion-picture camera.

The barrier now stretched to the southwest again. Sail was set to a fresh easterly breeze, but at 7 P.M. it had to be furled, the
Endurance
being held up by pack-ice against the barrier for an hour. We took advantage of the pause to sound and got 268 fathoms with glacial mud and pebbles. Then a small lane appeared ahead. We pushed through at full speed, and by 8:30 P.M. the
Endurance
was moving southward with sails set in a fine expanse of open water. We continued to skirt the barrier in clear weather. I was watching for possible landing places, though as a matter of fact I had no intention of landing north of Vahsel Bay, in Luitpold Land, except under pressure of necessity. Every mile gained towards the south meant a mile less sledging when the time came for the overland journey.

Shortly before midnight on the 15th we came abreast of the northern edge of a great glacier or overflow from the inland ice, projecting beyond the barrier into the sea. It was 400 or 500 ft. high, and at its edge was a large mass of thick bay ice. The bay formed by the northern edge of this glacier would have made an excellent landing place. A flat ice foot nearly three feet above sea level looked like a natural quay. From this ice foot a snow slope rose to the top of the barrier. The bay was protected from the southeasterly wind and was open only to the northerly wind, which is rare in those latitudes. A sounding gave 80 fathoms, indicating that the glacier was aground. I named the place Glacier Bay, and had reason later to remember it with regret.

The
Endurance
steamed along the front of this ice flow for about seventeen miles. The glacier showed huge crevasses and high pressure ridges, and appeared to run back to ice-covered slopes or hills 1000 or 2000 ft. high. Some bays in its front were filled with smooth ice, dotted with seals and penguins. At 4 A.M. on the 16th we reached the edge of another huge glacial overflow from the ice sheet. The ice appeared to be coming over low hills and was heavily broken. The cliff face was 250 to 350 ft. high, and the ice surface two miles inland was probably 2000 ft. high. The cliff front showed a tide mark of about 6 ft., proving that it was not afloat. We steamed along the front of this tremendous glacier for 40 miles and then, at 8:30 A.M., we were held up by solid pack-ice, which appeared to be held by stranded bergs. The depth, two cables off the barrier cliff, was 134 fathoms. No further advance was possible that day, but the noon observation, which gave the position as lat. 76° 27’ S., long. 28° 51’ W., showed that we had gained 124 miles to the southwest during the preceding twenty-four hours. The afternoon was not without incident. The bergs in the neighborhood were very large, several being over 200 ft. high, and some of them were firmly aground, showing tide marks. A barrier berg bearing northwest appeared to be about 25 miles long. We pushed the ship against a small banded berg, from which Wordie secured several large lumps of biotite granite. While the
Endurance
was being held slow ahead against the berg a loud crack was heard, and the geologist had to scramble aboard at once. The bands on this berg were particularly well defined; they were due to morainic action in the parent glacier. Later in the day the easterly wind increased to a gale. Fragments of floe drifted past at about two knots, and the pack to leeward began to break up fast. A low berg of shallow draught drove down into the grinding pack and, smashing against two larger stranded bergs, pushed them off the bank. The three went away together pell-mell. We took shelter under the lee of a large stranded berg.

A blizzard from the east-northeast prevented us leaving the shelter of the berg on the following day (Sunday, January 17). The weather was clear, but the gale drove dense clouds of snow off the land and obscured the coastline most of the time. “The land, seen when the air is clear, appears higher than we thought it yesterday; probably it rises to 3000 ft. above the head of the glacier. Caird Coast, as I have named it, connects Coats’ Land, discovered by Bruce in 1904, with Luitpold Land, discovered by Filchner in 1912. The northern part is similar in character to Coats’ Land. It is fronted by an undulating barrier, the van of a mighty ice sheet that is being forced outward from the high interior of the Antarctic Continent and apparently is sweeping over low hills, plains, and shallow seas as the great Arctic ice sheet once pressed over Northern Europe. The barrier surface, seen from the sea, is of a faint golden brown color. It terminates usually in cliffs ranging from 10 to 300 ft. in height, but in a very few places sweeps down level with the sea. The cliffs are of dazzling whiteness, with wonderful blue shadows. Far inland higher slopes can be seen, appearing like dim blue or faint golden fleecy clouds. These distant slopes have increased in nearness and clearness as we have come to the southwest, while the barrier cliffs here are higher and apparently firmer. We are now close to the junction with Luitpold Land. At this southern end of the Caird Coast the ice sheet, undulating over the hidden and imprisoned land, is bursting down a steep slope in tremendous glaciers, bristling with ridges and spikes of ice and seamed by thousands of crevasses. Along the whole length of the coast we have seen no bare land or rock. Not as much as a solitary nunatak has appeared to relieve the surface of ice and snow. But the upward sweep of the ice slopes towards the horizon and the ridges, terraces, and crevasses that appear as the ice approaches the sea tell of the hills and valleys that lie below.”