320 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



On December 9, we packed our hand sledge with 10 days' ration 

 and started off, leaving our tent with the plane, and expecting to 

 find shelter in the huts. We traveled 9 miles of heavy hauling in 

 the soft snow, and as we neai'ed the tower we saw that it was only an 

 ice pinnacle. Being mthout tent or sextant to fix where we were 

 we had to leave the sledge and return to the plane for both; rested 

 an hour, and got back to the sledge at 03.00 on December 10. We 

 made Camp VI here, and after 7 hours' sleep took sights and fixed 

 its position in 78°38' S., 163°20' W. about 12 miles south of the head 

 of the Bay of Whales. The weather for 2 days had been perfect, 

 with no wind, the sun shuiing out of a cloudless sky and the tempera- 

 ture above freezing. 



On December 11, we traveled 10 or 11 miles, sledging by low sun, 

 and had one bad pull over a crevasse. It was weary work, and it 

 seemed as though we must be going m the wrong direction, for the 

 never-ending expanse stretched on forever. The low night sun cast 

 a dull glow over the ice fields without warmth, although the sky was 

 cloudless. Suddenly I told Kenyon I could see a Ime of blue water 

 on the horizon. It was the Bay of ^^^lales, and we had been traveling 

 much too far west. 



On December 12, however, although we marched 12 miles, we were 

 unable to find the water wliich we had seen the day before. On Decem- 

 ber 13, traveling entirely by compass as before, in misty weather with 

 snow flurries, we made another 10 miles. We approached a ridge 

 and hoped to get an extended view. Topping it, we looked straight 

 do^^^l into salt water. We had heard the lapping of the waves and 

 thought it was the ^\ind but it really was the sea at last. 



On December 14, we reconnoitered and in the evening took a sight, 

 to find we had traveled about 10 miles too far north, and must go back 

 south. We judged that we were at the mouth of the Bay of "\Miales. 

 On December 15, we traveled 15 miles and came, at "Ver-sur-mer", 

 Byrd's unloading place, upon two tractors half-buried in snow. This 

 gave us our position, so we dragged on up the east side of the bay, 

 topped a rise, and looked down upon the most desolate remains of past 

 habitation that I have ever witnessed: only a lot of masts and the 

 stove pipes of buildings sticking out of the snow. We broke though 

 a glass skyUght, and were able to let ourselves down into what proved 

 to be the radio shack. 



On December IG we dug a tunnel and made steps down to the door 

 of our shack. We found coal, gasoHne, and some welcome stores. We 

 cleaned up everytliing, and settled down to a routine to await the 

 arrival of the Wyatt Earp. Every day I walked 6 miles do^vn to the 

 tractors where we had put up our tent, with two yellow streamers and 

 a note that we were at Little America, so that the Wyatt Earp could 

 know where we were. 



