Polar Exploration/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
THE POLAR REGIONS
I have defined the Antarctic Regions as lying within the Antarctic Circle, that is, south of 66½° S. latitude, but in 1892, on board the Scottish whaler Balæna, I found that this definition broke down, for we fell in with polar conditions before we reached latitude 60° S., some 500 miles south-eastward of Cape Horn, in the neighbourhood of the South Shetland Islands. My impressions of the circumstances are as vivid to-day as then, and more vivid, perhaps, than many other even more striking incidents during that and subsequent voyages.
Sailing south-eastward from the Falkland Islands across the breezy southern ocean, we came into weather, although it was mid-summer, having temperatures about freezing-point. This cold weather was accompanied by fairly frequent fogs which occasionally were very dense, till one day, when we were about 80 miles north-east of the South Shetland Islands, the fog divided, opening up a vista at the far end of which a gleam of sunshine revealed a huge shadowy iceberg—brilliantly white. Sailing on we came nearer to the berg, which was several miles off when we first sighted it, and found it to be a mass of ice which probably rose fully a hundred feet out of the water and was about half a mile long. The top of it looked as flat as a billiard table, and the sides were vertical white cliffs; some cracks, mostly vertical and lenticular, were strongly defined, because in them was to be seen the most brilliant and intense blue one can imagine. At the water-line the ice cliff was worn by the lashing of the relatively warm waves (32.3° F.), and here and there were caves at sea-level where green intermingled with intense blue. Into these caves the water rushed with a resounding roar, until each cave was a seething cauldron, and in some cases the spray from these caves rose high into the air. The sea was literally swarming with Cape pigeons and blue petrels, while great finner whales played and spouted in the vicinity of the ship. The Cape pigeons were so numerous that, on putting a small piece of fat over the side of the ship, one could catch them quite easily with an angler's landing-net. The silk tow-net showed that the water was swarming with a small shrimplike creature called Euphausia, several species of smaller crustacea, and some diatoms; the diatoms blocked the meshes of the silk and made the tow-net slimy. In the evening we sighted another berg to leeward, and at night two other icebergs on either bow of the ship. The sun set only a little to west of south, and a light band of brilliant sky stretched along the southern horizon much the same as is seen in Scotland in June. During that night we passed several bergs in the fog, which came down and enveloped us again; we also met some nasty irregular ragged bits of hard clear ice, each about the size of a cottage, called "growlers" by Arctic seamen on account of the sound they made when rolling in the waves. These growlers are literally floating rocks which would rip the sides out of an ordinary iron steamer. We were truly in the Antarctic Regions, although more than 300 miles north of the Antarctic Circle. For this and other reasons I prefer to define the Antarctic Regions as being bounded by the average limits of floating ice. This line is almost entirely north of 60° S., except to the south of the Indian Ocean and to the south of New Zealand and Tasmania, where it dips to the southward. It trends farthest north in the South Atlantic Ocean, reaching about 50° S. to the south of Cape Colony, and 55° S. to the south-east of the Falklands. Within this limit we find the conditions very much as I have described them on that first day when, on board the Balæna, we fell in with the ice.
But besides defining the limits of Antarctic ice, this boundary is useful in other respects, for it includes the whole of the continental land mass of the Antarctic Regions, which at several points protrudes beyond the Antarctic Circle, notably at Graham Land and Wilkes Land. It also includes most of the really typical Antarctic islands, such as South Georgia, the Sandwich Group, South Orkney, or Powell Islands, South Shetlands, Bouvet Island, Balleny Islands, etc. It also excludes continental terminations of South America and South Africa as well as Australia. The Antarctic Regions are of exactly opposite character to the Arctic Regions; whereas in the Arctic Regions there exists a polar basin of considerable depth, surrounded by an almost complete ring of continental land, composed of the northern parts of Europe, Asia and America, in the Antarctic Regions we have an extensive continental land mass surrounded by a continuous ocean. So far we know little of this vast continent, which is probably as large as Europe and Australia combined. What coast-line has been discovered was nearly all discovered before any of the more recent expeditions sailed to the south. It is interesting to note that the depth of the North Polar Basin is more or less equal to the height of the Antarctic continent.
Ross, Wilkes, D'Urville, Biscoe, Kemp, Palmer, Johnson and Morell all made important land discoveries previous to 1844. Since that time the most important land discovery was Coats Land, which not only filled up a gap between Enderby Land and New South Greenland, but which placed the edge of the Antarctic continent 500 miles farther north than Murray and others had mapped it. Of the interior of the Antarctic continent we know but little; the pioneer journey of Armitage, at an altitude of 9,000 feet, gave us our first insight into the nature and extent of the continental ice cap of which we have further knowledge from the journeys of Scott, Shackleton and David. (The Heart of the Antarctic, Sir E. H. Shackleton: London, 1910.)
There are two theories regarding the Antarctic continent: one, that it is one continuous land mass; the other, that it is divided by a channel from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. To my mind all the evidence points to one land mass, and for the following reasons, although it should be noted that Prof. Penck and others adhere to a belief in two. Looking at the map we will find that the outline of the south of South America is almost the same as that part of the Antarctic continent known as Graham Land; each terminates in a pointed extremity which is largely broken up into clusters of islands and tends to turn towards the eastward; each has a group of islands lying to the eastward South America the Falkland Islands, and Graham Land the South Orkneys. We notice also that whereas the west coast of South America is rugged and broken up into many islets and channels, the east coast is of simpler outline. These features also hold good for Graham Land. Looking at the general sculpture of these two lands we find that South America has a high rugged mountain range on the west, parallel with the coast, and broad plains of low elevation on the east; the same features hold good in the description of Graham Land, as far as it is known. The most recent explorations of Dr. Jean Charcot still further emphasise these resemblances. Finally, looking at the geology, we find that both the west coast of South America and the west coast of Graham Land are made up of the same class of folded rocks, composed of gneisses, granites, etc., and that along each coast there is a tendency for active volcanoes to appear; but on the east coast of both lands there are sedimentary rocks of more recent origin with plateau formation. In fact, the only marked difference that occurs is in the glaciation, which is accounted for by difference of latitude.
Now give the globe a half turn round its axis and compare Victoria Land and its islands with Australia and its islands. We will find the outline of Victoria Land on its east coast has a remarkable resemblance to the east coast of Australia. Lying off the coast of Australia we have New Zealand and other islands which have their counterpart in the smaller islands off Victoria Land, notably Balleny Isles, Possession, Coulman, and Ross Islands. The east coast of Australia is flanked by a great mountain range parallel to the coast, which slopes away to the westward, and Victoria Land has exactly the same feature. Geologically both Australia and Victoria Land are plateau formations of similar type and age. The volcanic character of New Zealand compares with the volcanic islands of Balleny, Possession, Coulman and Ross; all are on folded mountain ranges.
There is a further striking feature. The whole of the west coast of South and North America has the same character in being skirted by parallel folded mountain systems, bearing a certain number of volcanoes. This general Eastern Pacific character also holds good for the west coast of Graham Land. So, also, the general type of the Western Pacific appears to be carried over into Victoria Land, and it is obvious that both these systems on the east and on the west of the Pacific Ocean are essentially the same except for secondary modifications. In consequence, we have all coasts of the Pacific, as far as they are known, of exactly similar formation in all essential respects. To my mind, therefore, there can be no doubt that this type of coast is continuous along the Pacific coasts of Antarctica, and that the mountain system of Victoria Land and its islands links up with the mountain system of Graham Land, almost certainly excluding the possibility of a break to the east of Victoria Land by a channel across to the Weddell Sea. Neither Penck nor Darwin appears to have given sufficient consideration to the principles and characters of different coastal types in reaching the conclusions they have regarding a channel or deep inlet under the Ross Barrier across the Antarctic continent, slightly to the Pacific side of the South Pole. Evidence obtained from the distribution of ice, deep-sea deposits, and marine fauna all bears out this contention of a continuity of the land.
This great mountain chain forms, in fact, the backbone of Antarctica, and probably more or less follows the sea coast between Victoria Land and Graham Land just as it does in those lands themselves.
Very little is known of the continental coast-line to the south of the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, but there is every reason to believe that the coast-line in these parts will resemble in general character the coast-lines of the rest of the lands bordering on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans: that is to say, that the coasts will not be precipitous except at points where mountain ranges cut them at right angles to the coast, and, meeting the sea, form cliffs and capes. The general formation of these will probably prove to be of the plateau type truncated by the sea.
The little we do know of the coast-line in this region certainly does not refute this opinion. The earliest discovery of continental coast-line in this region was by two American sealers, Captains Johnson and Morell in 1823, who reported a large tract of land to the south of the South Orkneys, which Johnson called New South Greenland. Biscoe in 1831 discovered a large tract of land from about 12° 22′ E. to Enderby Land, in about 52° E. The next important discoveries were those of Wilkes and D'Urville in 1840, to the south of the Indian Ocean—Adelie Land and Côte Clarie. The other land-falls of importance to the south of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans have not been until recent years, when von Drygalski discovered Wilhelm Land, which is evidently a south-western extension of Termination Land, and when Coats Land was discovered by the Scottish expedition. Considerable scepticism is shown, especially in England, regarding the reported land of Morell and Johnson; but not in Scotland, for the investigations of the Scotia undoubtedly tend to suggest the presence of New South Greenland, as do also the observations made on board the Erebus and Terror in 1843. There is little doubt that Graham Land is joined to Coats Land by New South Greenland, and that the Weddell Sea does not extend very far to the south in that region. Again, there appears to be little doubt that Coats Land is continuous with Enderby Land, and that the latter, through Kemp Land and Wilhelm Land, is continuous with Wilkes Land. Wilkes described high land, and so did Biscoe; and these capes may well be the termination of mountain ranges more or less at right angles to the coast; but, generally speaking, the coast of Antarctica does not appear to be lofty on the Atlantic and Indian Ocean sides. Coats Land, for instance, is entirely iceclad and slopes gently towards the sea, mostly terminating in an ice cliff possibly 100 feet high and at several points sloping right down to sea-level. Several of those on board the Scotia confidently affirmed that they could see mountain peaks in the distance, but there is considerable doubt if that was actually the case. (The Voyage of the Scotia, R. C. Mossman, J. H. H. Pirie, and R. N. Rudmose Brown: Edinburgh, 1906, p. 236.) If there were mountains they must have been at a great distance; all that I could see from the ship along the 150 miles of coast-line that we mapped was the iceclad land rising inland in undulating slopes to an unknown height.
There are several other points to be considered, but what I wish to emphasise here is, that there is round about the South Pole a continent of enormous size, filling almost the whole region within the Antarctic Circle, and that it is probably one, and not two land masses. This continent has an area of about five and a half million square miles, an area equal to that of Europe and Australia combined. Outside this great continent, almost entirely iceclad, lies the Great Southern or Antarctic Ocean. In the far south of this there is relatively fine weather broken intermittently with terrific storms—blizzards from Antarctica. In the more northern parts of this ocean there is continual stormy weather from the west, which causes high seas to run, and earns for this part of our globe the name of the "roaring forties" and the "shrieking fifties." That part of the Great Southern Ocean which falls within the average limit of floating ice we will here consider as being within the Antarctic Regions.
It is not proposed to discuss here the history of Antarctic exploration, which has recently been done so ably by Dr. H. R. Mill in The Siege of the South Pole, but I wish to give in more or less detail, as far as limited space will allow, an account of Antarctic seas and lands. This can perhaps best be done by dwelling more especially on those parts that I have seen myself, namely, Graham Land, South Shetlands, South Orkneys, Coats Land, and the Weddell and Biscoe Seas, and by giving a more general account of parts I have read of or heard of by conversation with other Antarctic explorers, including the veteran Sir Joseph Hooker who sailed with Sir James Clark Ross in 1839, and others who have visited the Antarctic Regions since.
The striking incident of meeting ice at sea for the first time in one's life, and especially falling in with those giant Antarctic icebergs—grim sentinels of the Antarctic—produces even in most matter-of-fact individuals a sense of wonder and awe. Their stupendous size, their exquisite architectural composition, more magnificent than the temples and pyramids of Egypt, more overpowering in solemnity than the Sphinx—make the most thoughtless think for a moment of the Power that controls the forces of nature.
During some years there are many more icebergs in the great Southern Ocean than during others, and the summer of 1892–93—that is to say, our northern winter, November till February—was such a year. On December 23rd and 24th, 1892, on board the Balæna, we fell in with a great host of bergs in the vicinity of the Danger Islets; they were all of great size, some being 3 or 4 miles long; at one time I counted as many as sixty from the deck, while more could be seen from the mast head. They were all of similar height, about 100 or 150 feet high. Each one was table-topped. At one time we passed through a regular street, lined on each side with towering bergs, each a temple in itself, now Doric, now Egyptian, each perfectly carved and shaped, each purer and whiter than the other, glittering in the sun, pearl grey in the shade and rich blue in the clefts and caves which pierced their sides. This street or avenue was several miles long, indeed some individual bergs were fully half-a-mile in length; side avenues opened into this main avenue. Sometimes we sailed into an open piazza, sometimes past the end of so narrow and winding a passage that it would have been dangerous even for one of our ship's boats to attempt to navigate it. Presently we came out of this closely packed group of bergs into the open sea, where there were still many bergs scattered from horizon to horizon. Besides bergs we now fell in with pack ice, amongst which were "bergy-bits," that is, small irregular bits that had become detached from the bergs. Here and there a seal lay on the pack, sleeping or gracefully lifting its head to look at our ships with its large dark eyes, little dreaming of the cruel fate that was to befall his companions a few days later. Fussy penguins, with their white breasts and black backs, jumped out of the water on to the pieces of pack ice, and by their rather harsh cry and quaint attitudes appeared to be entering a protest at being disturbed in this unseemly manner. There was almost a perfect calm, and despite a dense canopy of cloud overhead the horizon was clear and bright. At midnight on Christmas Eve, in latitude 64° 13′ S. a little to the east of Mount Haddington, we were stopped from pushing any farther to the south because of solid field ice that stretched across our bow. Afterwards the edge of this ice was examined and was found to stretch for about 250 miles north-eastward without a break through which any of the three Scottish whalers, that were there together at the time, could have passed. It is true that, with united attack, these stout ice-armoured ships could have penetrated some miles through this ice by charging and recharging, by sawing and blasting, and, if there had been a sign of open water at the back of the ice, it might have been worth doing this to see if the whale, reported by Ross in 1843 and described by him as greatly resembling the Bowhead Whale, was seeking safe retreat there. But all the evidence indicated that there was no water at the back and to the south of this ice, but that it continued in a more or less solid field till it came up against land, which was invisible from the ship's deck, except to the W. and S.W., and even from the crow's nest at the ship's mainmast-head.
In technical whalers' language we "fastened on to the floe" that night and lay there during the whole of Christmas Day, the only day of rest we had for the next two months. The scene was of wonderful beauty, and I cannot do better than quote the graceful description by the able artist-chronicler of the voyage.
"Those who have felt," says Burn Murdoch (From Edinburgh to the Antarctic, by W. G. Burn Murdoch), "the peace of a summer night in Norway or Iceland, where the day sleeps with wide-open eyes, can fancy the quiet beauty of such a night among the white floes of the Antarctic. To-day has passed, glistering in silky white, decked with sparkling jewels of blue and green, and we thought surely we had seen the last of Nature's white harmonies; the evening came, pensive and soothing and grey, and all the white world changed into pale violet, pale yellow, and rose.
"A dreamy stillness fills the air. To the south the sun has dipped behind a bank of pale grey cloud, and the sky above is touched with primrose light. Far to the north the dark, smooth sea is bounded by two low bergs, that stretch across the horizon. The nearest is cold violet white, and the sunlight strikes the farthest, making it shine like a wall of gold. The sky above them is of a leaden, peacock blue, with rosy cloudlets hanging against it—such colouring as I have never before seen or heard described. To the westward, across the gulf, we can just distinguish the blue-black crags jutting from the snowy lomonds. Little clouds touched with gold and rose lie nestling in the black corries, and gather round the snowy peaks. To the south, in the centre of the floe, some bergs lie cold and grey in the shadow of the bank of clouds. They look like Greek temples imprisoned for ever in a field of snow. A faint cold air comes stealing to us over the floe: it ripples the yellow sky reflection at the ice-edge for a moment, and falls away. In the distance a seal is barking—a low muffled sound that travels far over the calm water, and occasionally a slight splash breaks the silence, as a piece of snow separates from the field and joins its companion pieces that are floating quietly past our stern to the north—a mysterious, silent procession of soft, white spirits, each perfectly reflected in the lavender sea.
"Nature sleeps—breathlessly—silent; perhaps she dreams of the spirit world, that seems to draw so close to her on such a night.
"By midnight the tired crew were all below and sound asleep in their stuffy bunks. But the doctor and I found it impossible to leave the quiet decks and the mysterious daylight, so we prowled about and brewed coffee in the deserted galley. There we watched the sun pass behind the grey bergs in the south for a few seconds, and appear again, refreshed, with a cool silvery light. A few flakes of snow floated in the clear, cold air, and two snowy petrels, white as the snow itself, floated along the ice-edge.
"A cold, dreamy, white Christmas morning—beautiful beyond expression."
These lines recall to me that wonderful scene, more charming and restful than many another Arctic and Antarctic scene I have seen since. The dignity, the solemn grandeur, the colour, and the marvellous silence all helped to leave a lasting impression upon me, and, in spite of many discomforts, difficulties, and dangers that I have had to face since in the north and the south, it is this wonderful picture and others like it that call me back again.
I have given this picture as an artistic presentation, and now I am going through the rather ruthless process of analysing the subjects in the picture. In the first place, every one will agree that we were, without doubt, in what might be fairly described as the Antarctic Regions, although, when the Balæna lay anchored to impenetrable ice on Christmas Day, we were outside the Antarctic Circle by two and a half degrees, or 150 miles. The first definition therefore defining the Antarctic Regions as lying within the Antarctic Circle breaks down completely, just as it did ten years later when on board the Scotia we met with impenetrable ice not very far south of latitude 59° S. to the east of the South Orkneys, or when, during the winter of 1903, the Scotia was frozen up for eight months in Scotia Bay, which is situated between 60 and 61 degrees south latitude.
Mention has been made of icebergs, of field ice, of floe ice, and of pack ice. Let me explain what these terms mean. It has been shown that there is a great area of land, probably one great continent, round about the South Pole. This continent is surrounded by the Great Southern Ocean, and, over the region occupied by that ocean, within the average limit of floating ice, there are even in summer time wintry conditions; so much so that most of the precipitation that occurs is in the form of snow instead of rain. In midsummer, when cruising in the vicinity of the Antarctic continent, blizzards off the land cause the temperature to fall even below zero Fahrenheit, and in winter on Antarctica itself a temperature has been recorded as low as 68 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, or 100 degrees of frost. The lowest air-temperature has been recorded at Verkhoyansk in Siberia, namely, −90° F., or 122 degrees of frost. From this it will be seen that, as most of the Antarctic land lies well within the Antarctic Circle, practically all precipitation must be in the form of snow, and that little melting takes place except where the sun gets very favourable play. On black rocks the sun's heat may be absorbed, and in sheltered corries, where there may be considerable melting, resulting in the formation of small burns and tarns.
On the rocks a few lichens will grow; on softer, more crumbly, and flatter expanses a few mosses may thrive, and amongst these mosses and in the tarns a few minute forms of animal and vegetable life will flourish, which have sharp alternate spells of activity or passivity according as the temperature is above or below the freezing-point.