TABLE 81. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES ON A JOUKNEY TO CAPE BARROW. 



This short journey has presented many interesting and unexpected features to us, and, 

 although our original hope was to find the sea ice snow-swept and to make a dash up along the 

 coast to some distance past Cape North, we were not wholly disappointed with the change of 

 circumstances and the falsifying of our theories. Scientifically, the journey has been very 

 interesting, and I will give a comparison later between the weather conditions on the E. and 

 the W. side of Robertson Bay which will be of exceptional interest. 



It will be seen from my diary that the surface was the real reason that prevented us from making 

 our dash up the coast, for we found that we were only just able to pull along our sledge with a 

 week's provisions on it. On the other hand, however, we have every reason to suppose that the 

 sea ice will remain in until later in the year than we had expected, and we intend to return with 

 more provisions at the beginning of October ,when the temperature is rising, and to pick up three 

 weeks' provisions at Cape Woodbar ; and having laid depots at various places along this coast 

 up to there to secure our retreat, in the event of our having to return in the kayaks, we intend to 

 make a clash with a 9-feet sledge and a light equipment, and, if necessary, to finish up on ski 

 with our sleeping bags on our backs. 



I think that under normal circumstances this ice should be safe travelling until towards the 

 end of November, and, if we can manage to do a few miles a day, while we are on the march we 

 should be able to do enough geographical work to make our journey worth while. 



Campbell has done practically no surveying during the present trip, and the geological work 

 has also been left almost unscratched, but we now know that as far as Cape Wood the rock is 

 unchanged and is still of the green stratified type of which Duke of York Island is formed, and 

 which, I believe, has been described by Prior from specimens brought back by Borchgrevink. 

 At Three Islands Point I noticed in a cursory glance I had at the rocks there that one at least 

 of the layers contained nodules of a coarser grit-like rock, of which I must collect some specimens 

 and send back by Levick and Browning, who are to accompany us across the bay to do the local 

 photography. It is impossible to spare much time for geology as early as at present, for when the 

 day's march is over, even under the exceptionally easy routine that we have been using, it is too 

 dark after dinner for me to distinguish one rock from another, and I cannot stop the caravan 

 much during the march, or at least though to do Campbell justice he has given me every 

 opportunity I will not, for I consider that the geology is secondary in the present case to the 

 geography and general science we might be doing. 



The most interesting feature of our work has been the establishment of the fact of the 

 presence of a lee all along the W. coast from Point Penelope to Cape Barrow, and most probably 

 much farther, which is completely sheltered from the prevailing southerlies. We have before 

 had a hint of such a state of affairs when the Terra Nova ran out of the gale in the late summer 

 when she got within a few miles of the coast, and again ran into what we have all along believed 

 to be the same gale off Duke of York Island, just about the place where she would run out of the 

 shelter of the cliffs according to the evidence afforded by the weather and ice conditions during 

 our present journey. 



We have never before, however, realised the extent and universality of the lee, for we have 

 all thought at any rate I have, and I believe the rest of us have from the conversations we have 

 had on the subject during the winter that at least the majority of our gales reach right over to the 

 opposite shore. Our first hint we received when we got into Relay Bay and found a deep surface 

 of soft snow resting directly on the surface of thick sea ice which, from its absence of extruded 

 brine, must probably have been amongst the first products of the autumn temperatures and must 

 have remained more or less undisturbed after the main ice of the bay was removed by the gales 

 of May and later of June. 



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