236 AXXUAL EEPOET SMIIHSOXIAX IXSTITUTIOX, 19 32 



the late afternoon enabled us to make our first ascent of the 

 mountains. 



For the next three days and nights we were occupied in a strenuous 

 struggle with the wind. On the mornmg of the 13th calm though not 

 clear weather permitted a return to surveying. TVe climbed the peaks 

 near by, completed our triangulation, and collected a fairly repre- 

 sentative number of rock specimens. On the 14th the wind came on 

 stronger than ever. All precautions and efforts to save the plane were 

 futile. In the late evening a sudden gust tore the plane loose from its 

 moorings, lifted it bodily into the air and literally flew it tail fore- 

 most for more than half a mile and dropped in onto the ice a total 

 wreck. On the ISth Commander Byrd with Dean Smith and l>±al- 

 colm Hanson arrived to bring us back to Little America. June and 

 Balchen returned to Little America with Smith, while Commander 

 Byrd; Hanson, and I remained at the moimtains to be picked up on a 

 second flight on the '226.. 



To anyone expecting a great mountain range the Eockefellers are 

 rather disappointing. They are a group of low-lying scattered peaks 

 and ridges almost completely smothered with snow. Many of the 

 smaller masses are completely covered and appear only as bulges in 

 the otherwise almost level surface, and even the largest mountains 

 show but scant exposures of bare rock. The peaks and ridges range 

 in height from about 500 to slightly over 2.000 feet above sea level. 

 They begin roughly in latitude 78" 14' S.. longitude 155° 15' "\V.. and 

 extend northeastward as a crescentic-shaped gi'oup with the crescent 

 opening toward the west. Their most northern limits are in latitude 

 77° 35'^S., longitude 153° 5' W. 



From the air the bare rock surfaces looked so pink and of such a 

 solid imiform color that I at first thought the mountains were com- 

 posed either of trap rock or sandstone. Such was not the case : the 

 main body of rock is a coarse-grained pink granite. A few pegmatite 

 dikes and veins have intruded the older granite. In places it is also 

 shot through with dikes of gray granite and pink granite differing 

 from the raain mass primarily in structure only. There are a few 

 narrow quartz veins ; and these, like the pegmatites, are barren of any 

 interesting or important mineralization. 



In sheltered places bits of gray lichens and a greenish mosslike 

 ofrowth were foimd. Unfortunately our specimens of the latter were 

 lost when the plane was blown away, and we were not able to find 

 any more on further search. 



There is apparently a great deal of melting about these mountains 

 durinor the warmer months. In many places their upper slopes are 

 encased in a thin rind of blue ice. while great fields of ice formed 

 from the freezing of slushy snow extend in places from 7 to 10 miles 



