FARTHEST SOUTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12544, 11 April 1904, Page 6

FARTHEST SOUTH.

THE SLEDGE JOURNEY TOWARDS THE POLE. A CHEERFUL CHRISTMAS DAY. i , PICTURESQUE SCENERY. THIS FARTHEST CAMP. ' [Copyright.] \ The following is a continuation of Captain Scott's interesting account of the great sledge journey towards the South Pole, the first portion of the narrative having appeared in last Friday's Hkhaui : — A STRANGE CHRISTMAS. "As the weather gradually cleared on our journey south, a very sharp conical peal; showed up a. little to our right, and, in the uncertain light, appeared a high mountain at a great distance. By Christmas Day we «ere abreast of it, and found it to be a sharp eminence about 7000 feet in height, arising out of the Ice-cap of the foot-hills. Its solitary position made it a most conspicuous landmark, unci in honour of the any we named in Christmas Mountain. " Our Christmas Day was gloriousjy fire ; the sun shone bright and clear throughout. and had a most cheering effect, which, no doubt, was much assisted by the' fact that wo looked forward to a special ration to celebrate the occasion. At lunch we had the exception of a hot meal, and in the evening, after a special wash-up and brush-up, wo cooked three 'N.A.O.' rations and devoured a plum pudding about half the size of a cricket ball, and the remains of a tin of jam specially reserved for this day. During the day the sledges had run extraordinarily easy, so that, though the dogs did little, we were able to cover 10 miles, an unusually long march, and when we turned in we felt the satisfaction of having done a good day's work as well as the still more practical comfort of a comparatively full stomach. j

SNOW-BLINDNESS. - On the following day, Dr. Wilson had an exceedingly bod attack of snow-blindness. It is difficult to imagine an apter place for this painful ailment than the great, boundless plain of the Barrier, with :ts evervarying conditions of light. The general impression seems to be that the greatest danger of an attack is on a slightly dull day, when things are not clearly visible, arid the eyes are strained to witch a difference of shade: but, curiously enough, we all seemed to find that there was a greater risk on the very bright, glaring days, when the sun was reflected in every crystal of the smooth snowcarpet. By- this time we had grown exceedingly cautious, nevei travelling without goggles unit using medicaments at the first sign of strain. But, in spite of this care, attacks came to all of us. and this attack, by far the most severe, came to the one who, probably, took the greatest care. " Snow-blindness is a serious matter to a small party on a Barrier journey. Not only is it intense'.v painful, as most of us have found by experience, but, as happened later ill our case, there are times when a good pair of eyes and constant observation may be absolutely necessary for keeping the* course, and it* ail pairs are affected at such a moment it is necessary to camp until they have recovered. Our experience shows thai some require to be more careful than others in this matter, and -also that there may be a considerable difference of opinion in re »jrd to the various forms of goggles. The "leather or wood goggles, with a narrow aperture, seemed to be the safest, but there are times when so little can be seen through them that they must from time to time be removed. The glass goggles found much favour with the others, but, for my own part, they seemed too liable to become frosted over.

BEAUTIFUL ANTARCTIC SCENERY.

" The proportion of bright days was -at no time great, and grew less as the season advanced. On the dull, gray days one's vigilance in keeping the course was severely taxed, and our disappointments appeared in their worst colours; but when the sun shone forth they were more or less forgotten in. the beauty and cheerfulness of the scene. Even an inartistic eye could admire the grandeur of tho towering, snow-clad land and derive some exhilaration from the thought that its lofty peaks and mighty masses of uevee were now seen tor the first time. Our Antarctic scenes have a delight which is nil their own. There is rarely any intensity of colour: one never sees that depth of blue familiar in sea and sky of tropical regions, and even the sunset colours are not as brilliant as those of more temperate climes; their beauty seems to rest on the purify and delicacy of colouring, and on the softness and distinctness of distant outline. The delicate blue of the shadows, the pure, tones of pink and violet seen aud doubtless admired by all about the ship, were often visible t<> us in our new land. There were brigbl days with an absolutely cloudless sky; others in which wisps of -trains or cirrus cloud hung about the peaks or travelled rapidly overhead : and some in which heavy rolling cumulous clouds, like tangles of cotton wool, partly covered the high land. Often towards the evening of a clear day a thin sheet, of white mist would arise along the coast like the evening mist of the waters at Home, but probably here due to the removal of the sun's rays from the rocky and steep icy surfaces of the coast line." Our dull days were due to a more or less thin stratus which covered the sky above us; when thick enough to obscure the sun's outline and not lower than a few hundred feet (it was rarely higher) the horizon line was indistinguishable, and tie' whole outlook from underfoot to the zenith one gray monotone unutterably wearisome to the eye. But dark objects such as the sledges and tent could at such times be seen for a long distance. Sometimes the rams descended and enveloped us, making everything damp and unpleasant.

"About the ship the beautiful tonus of snow-crystals are generally lost from their being broken into minute irregular particles by the wind. On the Barrier, however, ice crystals would often fall and rest like thistledown on the crusted surface. Their form was quite easily seen, and uniformly consisted of a six-pointed star, whose radients were connected by innumerable feathery branches, the whole forming a hexagonal disc, varying in size, but sometimes nearly half an inch in diameter. One has often read of the picturesque likening to gems of dewdrops, frost or wood and flowers, but the simile could nowhere be so correctly applied as to the effect of sunlight on these icecrystals. On their polished surfaces the white light was broken into its constituent colours, and each crystal, according to its relative position, reflected to the eye some pure prismatic colour till the appearance of walking over a glistening gem-clad carpet was perfected.

" With the first strong breeze these, crystals were broken, and swept into heaps of powdery particles resembling the finest sand. At such time the surface was in its very worst condition for travelling, the" friction on the runners being enormous; but when the sun's rays again fell on it, and, possibly, with the assistance of the light packing wind a thin surface crust was formed, rarely sufficiently strong to support the runners, but tending to reduce the friction. Often these crusts were so hard and brittle that they would crack ahead and around the sledges wit li a sharp report, like a pistol shot, followed by a sighing sound as the broken crust sunk on the soft snow beneath. The dogs were at first very terrified by these reports, but soon grew accustomed to thorn, and Mr, ShacWeton digging down one night, fully explained their cause by finding successive crusts, about nine inches apart, separated by soft snow, and with an air spaee of about two inches under each one. la the space of ibis article it is impossible to dwell on this and many other interesting phenomena, but I cannot refrain from noting some very beautiful atmospheric effects which were witnessed. They appear to be unique, since we can find nothing comparable in the observations of northern travellers. The condition seems to be a very thin but deep and low stratus of ice-crystals, with the result that at certain critical points the sun's rays are reflected or refracted to the eye. On two 01 three such occasions the effect we observed was very beautiful; the whole arch of the heaven? was traced with circles and lilies of brilliant prismatic 01 white light;

bright double halos about the sun were touched or intersected by rainbow-kued zenith circles iof 'different altitudes, while brilliant, mock suns appeared at the points of intersection, THE FARTHEST SOUTH. " Christinas Day was succeeded by several fine days, but on December 28 the weather again became misty and unsettled, and this was the more annoying as we knew we were nearing the end of our tether, and during the past few days new aspects of the land had developed. Christmas Day bad found us moderately dose to the foot-hills on our right, whose high cliffs and snow slopes consequently shut out the land beyond. From Christmas Mountain nothing very remarkable appeared until the eye rested* on a high mountain evidently close to the coastline, and bearing almost south. On the 23th, however, a sudden and unexpected break in the coast-lino revealed another huge strait, and gradually we opened out from behind its nearest, cape a magiiiiicent new range of mountains, in the centre of which a sharp double peak rose to a greater height than anything wo had yet seen on our journey. From the high, partially bare peaks the slopes of the range descended in gradual undulations of nevee to the level of the strait. Unfortunately, the positions from which I was able to observe, the altitudes of the peaks were toe close to give reliable data, for calculating then- height; yet, though the absence of foot-hills which •increase their dignity may also have added to their apparent, height, we were so struck by their loftiness in comparison with other calculated heights that I have little doubt that the highest peaks nearly approached, if they did not exceed, 15,000 feet. On the evening of this day (28th) we got our best southerly view. Across the. open strait, but to the southward of it, lay the mountains I have already mentioned.; to their left ran out more extensive snow-clad foot-hills, their

northern edge fringed with mighty cliffs, sometimes of a black and sometimes of a deep red colour, which formed the southern limit of the strait. The coast-line continuing south wound around snowy headlands till it struck the flanking ridge of the spurs of our southern mountains, to the right, but behind the well-marked summit of which could be seen

two other lots of peaks. When the southern mirage was greatest, beyond the cape to which we could trace the coast-line, but very close to it, two tiny white patches indicated land at a much greater distance, and showed that the coast-line continued in the same general direction for many a mile. The capo ou our right still obscured the channel of the strait, which appeared to turn towards the nonb, and we decided to push ou with ski on the. following day to get a better view of it. "But the 29th brought wind and drift, and we were obliged to remain in camp, and on the 30th it was so foggy we dared not leave the sledges, but continued in a south-west direction with them. The surface soou changed entirely, and we found ourselves travelling over well-marked undulations of increasing height, the crests of the waves becoming harder. " and at length traversed by cracks and crevasses. Tho light grew worse, and at lunch-time we were forced to camp for the night, deciding, moreover, that, as we hoped to pay a visit to the land on otiv return, this must be our farthest '"THE GREAT ICE BARRIER. THE GREAT ICE BARRIER,

After a brief account of the attempts to reach the const-line njong which the? party had been travelling, the writer goes on to discuss the problem of the great Ice Barrier, "It will be remembered," he says, "that the instructions laid the greatest stress on the question: What is that extraordinary ice formation, the Barrier? Can we now give a definite answer to the question? I fear that it must bo considered we cannot: but, on the other hand, we have. accumulated such strong presumptive evidence as to its nature and movement that there can remain little doubt with regard to it. Fifty years ago. Ross, examining its seaward face, concluded that it was ail oat at its edge ; since then that face lias broken away, in places as much as 20 or 30 miles. We have sounded far beyond the icy cliff which was visible in his day. and hare obtained such depths as to prove that the part which was broken away wits wholly afloat. If. as was evident, the edge of lie Great Barrier was water-borne, how far did it continue in that condition? Nothing but a journey on the Barrier could throw light on this question, and even such a journey could not obtain positive proof unless, which was, of course, impossible, the actual stago of some southerly portion could be examined. We should willingly enough have abandoned many a. mile to the southward for one, glimpse of a section a quarter of a mile beneath our feet. As we advanced to the south we soon became convinced that we were not rising in level. Far from the land all was one unbroken horizontal snow plain. Closer to it we found occasional undulations, and closer still these undulations increased and bore evident signs of a connection with the disturbed ice in and about the straits in the coast-line. The edge of the plain a:as never indistinct, but always bounded by a sharp, horizontal line, where. cliff or snow-slope rose abruptly 1 to the lands beyond, and the continued and uniform loftiness of the high peaks showed that we could not have increased our elevation to any extent. Throughout the journey careful aneroid readings were taken and corrected by hypsometric measurements. With a rising level tin- atmospheric pressure decreases, hut there is no sign of a decreased pressure when our mean barometric readings are compared with those taken simultaneously in the ship. Everything seems to point to the fact that. the Barrier was as freely water-borne at our most southerly point as it is at its edge, and, if this fact be assumed, all the other phenomena which we witnessed can be easily explained, in a. manner which does not uppear possible under any other assumption. Thanks to the western journey, we now know that Victoria Land is not a narrow ridge of mountains, but that these mountains only confine an immense ice-cap. covering an apparently extensive continental land, and the western party has seen thai the overflow from this vast ice-field finds its way down in the great glaciers of the. Boss Sea. There can be lit lie or no doubt that the straits that we discovered to the south i are glaciers of the same origin, huge rivers i of ice draining the lands of the interior. I i have employed this word 'strait' only because no land could be seen directly behind them, and they did not appeal to rise in level. In countless years they have dug their channel deep and wide, and are now flanked by high, bold, and precipitous cliffs. As the confluent of the river swirls and eddies at its junction, so are these ice rivers twisted and torn on meeting the water-borne Barrier, and as the swirls and eddies die away in the main stream, so are the ic>> disturbances smoothed as they creep towards': the sea. Twice we attempted to reach the land, once immediately south and once immediately north of the strait. On both occasions we were confronted by a vast chasm of broken ice. This would seem a natural lesult of the great moving mass of Barrier ice grinding past the ice foot of the coast, but everywhere being thrust from, rather than towards it. The ice font itself steadily spreads outwards from the. lauds above, breaks at its edge into huge blocks, the date of whose origin i? relatively fixed by the accumulation of snow in their ' cliffs and interstices, an accumulation, gradually increasing towards the Barrier. Thus we again see the cause which tend* to level all inequalities, as the Barrier is pushed .to the open sea. and to produce that level surface over which we have travelled far from the land. Some evidences of the Barrier movements are known —the cracks and pressure ridges about the Bluff and the White Island, and the pressure on the sea ice at Pram Point; but in addition to this, and to the many other similar signs we saw, we heard, when in camp near the chasm, continual muffled reports caused by the ice movements. But it is equally evident that this movement is extremely slow. To say that our depot bearings did not- altar between our visits to those spots is but a rough indication. More conclusive seems to be the manner in which the broader cracks arc filled or bridged with snow, and the evidently small extent of their seasonal increase and tlie limited number of yards that the ice has been pushed up at Pram Point. Under these citcumstances, it must take very many years, even centuries, for the ice from our southern straits to reach the open sea. and it is curious to reflect that the original ice probably never does reach the sea T for, since the snow is constantly accumulating above and the ice presumably melting below, the sea face must be formed, as it/looks to be formed. <it layers of novee representing the seasonal snowfalls on the open Barrier surface. Long since, all included boulders or earth mint have dropped out of this mass. "The extent of this great Harriet must rest principally on surmise. We know that there is hind' to the eastward, and, what i

is of equal importance, that there are shallow banks which account for the disturbed appearance of that region. The rest must be speculation. Possibly Victoria Land turns sharply to the eastward to meet the eastern land, but lot my own part I am inclined to think that it does not, but that the lofty tectonic line, a-s has been suggested, curves more gradually till it joins to Graham Land; and that the Barrier is confined on the east, and possibly the south, by detached masses of land and shoals such as we have found." INCIDENTS AND CONCLUSIONS. Captain Scott then returns to the narrative of the journey, and gives further details of the difficulties with the dogs. The weather, too, is described, and blizzards get the same cheery matter-of-fact mention that is given to important discoveries. About the end of this month (January) Mr. Shackleton suffered severely with his chest complaint, aud his illness, resulting from another blizzard, caused his companions much alarm. The weather cleared again in a few days, and there was a consequent improvement in Mr. Shackleton's health. On the second day of February the party rounded the corner of White Island, to see once more familiar points in the waste. "I have tried to be explicit in setting forth difficulties and obstacles which we met during our three months' absence (he continues) but a word may be added in reflecting on what might have been done to secure a better result.

"There can be no doubt th?.t the failure of the dog team was mainly due to the stockfish ; some, which we left at Depot B, was found on our return to be covered with greeu fungus clearly showing a taint, and the symptoms of the wretched - animals, the gradual sickening, and utter weakness, under which they collapsed, signified, without doubt, that they we."> being slowly poisoned. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine how this could have been foreseen, though it provides a warning for future travellers. But I think that we made a grave error in undertaking that unspeakably tedious month of relay work. Wo should, I think, at the beginning, have dropped the greater part of the dog food and everything that was beyond the capacity of the team to pull in one load. But it is easy to be wise after the event; at the time wc had less evidence to go on, aud never liked to give up hope that the sickness was but temporary. As it was, this month absorbed the greater part of the energy of the dogs, with little enough to show for it. After leaving Depot B we might just as well have despatched the whole team, us, indeed, would have been the kindest act to them, and certainly a great relief to us. Judging again by events, it would appear we should have done better to make the whole, journey on the wood-runners. When we started we had wood under-runners; when our difficulties commenced, we took these off on trial, and certainly, at the time, there appeared to be an improvement. It remained to us to return to wood again by stripping the metal, but, as I have pointed out, this was a serious step, and our experiences on ski seemed to indicate that we should derive little benefit from the. plain wood. "But apart from matters in which we might have taken action, there remains one factor, the surface of the Barrier, over which we could have no influence. It may sound an easy thing to advance over a level snow plain, bin: the details of the surface of that plain must largely influence an attempt to do so. Ido lint think it occurred to me to consider that Die surface might greatly char.se from that: which wo had traversed on our journey to the Bluff. Hud it remained the same, we .should, 1 think, have had a different tale to tell. Not until we returned towards the Bluff and once more planted our feet on firm crust, did I realise how great a change there had been. The softness of' the southern surfaces, where a very light pressure would sink an ice axe to the head, might have been expected, and could not have been avoided : it was undoubtedly due to the comparative absence, of wind. The surface near the land was probably, almost certainly, the worst of all, not because the wind s ; here are lighter, but because the snowfall is heavier.

"As I have once more spread the details of our journey on paper, I cannot but sum up by saying that, despite our troubles end despite our hunger, wc enjoyed it. No lurking sense of disappointment can take from our memory the pleasure of having trodden new paths, found new lands, and looked upon new scenes. Something has been added to our knowledge, and something to the settlement of those problems which we were commissioned to solve. .Men of the future will come and tread in our footsteps, and, 1 hone, pass far beyond, but it will be by the teiteiit of our experience, with the knowledge gained from our pioneer labours, hardships and troubles."