316 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



After 3 hours the mountains beneath us gave place to a vast polar 

 ice plateau from which emerged a few nunataks, the last relics of the 

 mountain chain just passed. We were flying at 10,000 feet, which 

 was the average altitude of our flight. During the first hours of the 

 fUght we had constant two-way radio communication between the 

 ship and the plane. But at 16.15 I logged: "Transmitter out of 

 action. Only thing is to go on." We had traversed 1,000 miles and 

 were yet 1,300 miles from the Bay of Whales. We sighted several 

 isolated mountain peaks, but these soon faded out on our right about 

 10.20. Forty-five minutes later other peaks showed on the same 

 skyline, and in another 25 minutes more mountains 120 to 140 miles 

 away appeared on our left horizon, and also a few peaks to the right. 



Sun sights taken at 16.53 and 18.54 gave a fix which appeared to 

 show that we were more than 200 miles west off our course; as will be 

 explained later the bubble sextant had got badly out of adjustment. 

 At 17.00, when by estimation we had passed out of the Falkland 

 Islands sector, I logged: "Long. 80° dropped American flag and 

 named the land up to 120° west James W. Ellsworth Land. What 

 a thrill!" One hour and forty-five minutes later we came abreast of 

 a solitary little range about 25 miles away on our left, s^^nnnetrically 

 formed, with a central pyramid rising to 13,000 feet. I named it 

 Senthiel Range, and its central peak Mount Mary Louise Ulmer, 

 after my >nfc. 



Fifteen minutes later, and 100 miles distant on the southern horizon 

 appeared a long, black, flat-topped range which extended visibly 

 through at least 1° of latitude. This looked like the last of the moun- 

 tains we were to sec, for ahead lay only a vast plateau to the horizon. 

 At 20.30 I noted: "No landmarks visible. Only a limitless expanse 

 of white." At 20.45 Hollick-Kcnyon passed me the following mes- 

 sage: "I really have no idea where we are — but our courses carefully 

 steered should put us close in," and it proved in the end that we had 

 remained surprisingly close to our scheduled course, within 45 miles, 

 though our speed had been much lower than expected. We had 

 been in the air nearly 14 hours; visibility began to get poor, and we 

 determined to land and take sights of the sun for our position, for we 

 had no fuel to spare. We had no knowledge of what the surface 

 might be like, and it was misty on the ground, but we landed safely 

 at 21.55 on November 23, though we crumpled the fuselage in landing. 



This was the first of oiu" four landings during the crossing, and 12 

 of the 19 hours here were spent in taking observations to check the 

 position of this oiu" first camp, wbich we will call Camp I. After 

 getting one position line, it was necessary to wait 2 or 3 hours to get 

 another line crossing the first at an angle sufficient to give a reasonable 

 intersection. I went out once to get exercise between the observa- 

 tions, but the monotony of the terrible expanse of endless white got 



