IN THE FROZEN SOUTH.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11248, 11 April 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

IN THE FROZEN SOUTH.

FIRST GLIMPgEh! OF v\NT'AIICTICA.

From Professor David's interesting at. tides m the S3 r dney Daily Telegraph on the Nimrod expedition, we make the following extracts: — WONDKRtfur, lOK BARRIER. By this time wo ooltld see the k-o blink— that remarkable silver grey htre.ik oil tho horizon which we were How all learning to recognise — whi-Jii prj.hiimed that there was a great mass it ice there rellccliiiij* light on to tile clouds above. A few minutes the mirage. thrMw tip the long grey line of the barrier itself, and soon the .solid barrier itself rose before us, higher and higher. The sky was dull, grey,_and overcast, the sea of dull greenish grey, wan almost glassy. We were all intensely -eager as the .Nimrod steamed closer and closer to the great ice wall. On hurrying up to the ci'ow's nest to get a better view, I found that, although the crow's nest was 105 ft above sea level, one could not, when perched aloft, see over the top of the barrier anywhere m that area, and angular measurements, which wo took of it there, showed that the cliff face was about 120 ft high. It is hard again to convey m words what this wonderful ic© barrier, which may fairly rank as an, eighth wonder of the world, is really like. , Imagine a cliff from 100 to 200 ft, m some cases 280 ft high, stretching without a break from Sydney to Bourke, dull white like plaster of Paris or unglazed porcelain when seen under a- dull sky, flashing back the purest white light from myriads of crystal facets, and gleaming with tints' of liquid sapphire m its crevasses, and passing rapidly into translucent emerald beneath, the waves, and you have some idea of this majestic wall at th<T world's end. A CLOSE CALL. \ Having made the discovery tliat Balloon Bightj where the Discovery wintered on the previous expedition, had disappeared, we pushed- on a little further cast to try ynid force our way tf> the bare rocks of King Edward Vil. Land, ?;bout 70 miles distant, but witliin a few miles we were completely blocked by immense masses of continuous heavy pack hard up against the face :, of the barrier, and .stretching m a continuous mass further eastward, as far as the eye of our officer m the "crow's nest" could reach. By this time the great ice pack to the, north and north-west of us begun to close down amiinst the face of the barrier, threatening- to cut off our retreat. If we had got pinched between the pack and the barrier' we should have been crushe-d at once like a. nut between two crackers, and the sheer face of the .•;>• riei', mostly about 150 ft high, ■' precluded the possibility of « climbing on cop of f'-e barrier. Accordingly the Nimrod was put about at once, and was made to nm. ior all she was worth" down' the Jong buti ever-narrowing .'.sea. lane between the cliff of the barrier und the edge, of i-hc Tuck. This, as has already been said, was formed of very hiird masses of Screw pack and still 'heavier --hind ice, which made it specially formidable. It was exciting work dashing along at the foot of the .cliffj dodging large pieces of loose floe berg, and now and again, where the passago betweeVi them was very narrow, bumping a bit otf.a iloe. Captaii| Eng-: land personally directed every movement of the ship, and the helmsmen were kept 'oxtremelj-j busy for the next few hours. By about 4 p.m., after an exciting race with the pack of about five hours' duration, \yq had cleared it, and entered an area where there was more sea room for us. . Few of us at the time realised that the ship had been m any danger, but after it was all over we learned from Captain England and Lieutenant Slmckleton that had a slightly northerly wind sprung up while we were m our easternmost position, we should very likely have been nipped. SCENE OF EXQUISITE' BEAUTY. At midnight of January 28 the sun was still .shining brightly at the back pf Mount Terror, dnd the scene was one of exquisite beauty. Our artist was up the .greater part of the night working away lit a sketch m: oil paints, m whidili he has' very feelingly; reproduced tho scene! . l iv the foreground the Nimrod was ftoadily forging ahead alone m a wide smooth sea. The "shjps that pa«s m- the night" were of ice, blue and, emerald green, purest white,' so that "no fuller on earth could white them." Their passengers were penguins who hailed us with deep squarks, and flapping of their flappers ; m the middle distance across a stri^ of purplish, gi^y sea were the ice 'clitts of the heavily crevassed gla'ciera • creeping seawards down the slopes of Mount Terrdr, with, here and there immense masses of -black lava breaking the even line of white. To- the left the slopes c-f Terror -showed the most delicate tints of bluish purple an-dl pale blue violet, while to the west, where the sunlight, at the back of Mount Terror, was reflected down by a dense cumulus cloud, the snow slopes glowed with a poft golden raidiance, like one could imagine those clouds of glory which the poet says youth trails with him from that heaven which lies about him m his infancy. lii the far distance was the skyey peak of Erebus with its great steam cloud flushed with pink below and all dark' grey kbove. One understood then m some measure What must have been , the feelings of Ross when he discovered his wonderful land. It was hard to believe that the scene wits real, and olio thought that any moment it might vanish like a mirage oy fata morgana,. But that it was real enough was proved eveiy now and then by a succession of bumps, shudders, and scrunches, as ; the Nimrod threw off from 1 her strong bows. !«|niall pieces of floe ico with which she came m contact. \ THE ANTARCTIC SEAL. Cotton and I went south on ski to see how far the cracks m the ice extended m that direction. We came lipon numbers of Weddell seals basking on the surfaco of the tlo-^-ice. They looked m the distance like a row of large brown sacks. When you, see a nunibciyof seals m a line with one another you may 'at once condu-cte .'that they are aligned parallel to and near to an ice crack. You have to be careful, not to 4 tumble into the holes which they make m the ice. These holes may be a. little over 2ft m length by about lft- m breadth, and the ice is much undermined at their edges. The disused holes become- frozen over with a tnin crust of ice, and then further concealed by the drifting over them during blizzards of a thin layer of snow. Thus , does the innocent Antarctic seal beset with 'pitfall and with gin", the way the Polar explorer is to wander m. We approached cautiously one of these furry hide' bags, dark, glossy.' brown on top, and 'spotted with grey boneath. We poked it gently with our ski poles, partly to see what would happen, and. partly to see which was its head and its tail. After a few ineffectual efforts -to arouse it Cotton succeeded, with an extra dexterous dig, m waking it up. One end of the bag elongated itself :an<!l displayed a pair of flippers and a\ short tail, while the other end lengthened out into a neck and head. The head turned itself slowly over its shoulder, 'and gazed at us with a mild surprise ■ with a pair of large, pathetic, dreamy eye?, like the eyes of a fawn. It wore "You have waked me too soon, 1 must 'slumber again" sort of expression, and it would probably have returned to a little more sleep and a-' little- -more slumber had (it nbt .suddenly made the disco very that we » smelt bad. It sniffed and snorted m our direction wJth every expression "of disgust. , It must be admitted that we hadn't had a bath for a month, and this, to an animal which tubs every day may have been taken as a cause of offence. However that may be, it is ' certain that the animal commenced to make off; His movements were • very interesting to watch ; they were somewhat between those of, a leech and a caterpillar. He used his front pair of flippers chiefly to stead himself tram' rolling 'to port' or starboard, while he. carried himself forward by undulating the fore part*, .of his body m a vertical plane, after the manner of the above-mentioned grubs. We wanted to measure his length, but the animal wouldn't stop for us to do it. It was like trying to measure a snake when he is travelling. Cotton --then hit on the simple expedient of us both at a given signal- making a mark on the snow simultaneously when one was at his head and the other at his tail. We did this, and afterwards measured the distance between the 'marks on; the snow, and found that the seal was about seven and a half feet long.