386 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
conclude that Filchner saw the north side of either a huge tabular 
iceberg or an ice tongue that has broken off 60 miles since 1912, to its 
present position. Filchner reported that he built a camp on the shelf 
ice, which he was forced to abandon less than a month later because it 
had calved and was drifting northward. I named the extent of the 
shelf ice that we had seen in honor of my pilot Captain James W. 
Lassiter. 
After some difficulty, because of the large patches of overcast 
beneath us, we located and landed at Gruening Glacier, where we 
pumped the 138 gallons of gasoline into the Beechcraft’s fuel tanks. 
Meanwhile, Adams in the Norseman had gone directly to Cape Keeler 
and had landed, refueled, and taken all the personnel there back to the 
main base. We ourselves landed at the main base at 6:05 that same 
evening. We had been in the air 12% hours, and in that time we had 
covered 1,700 miles of terrain. 
THE SLEDGE PARTIES 
On December 13 the Ronne Weddell Coast party reached the top of 
Bowman Peninsula, forming the north side of Gardner Bay. Here 
they verified my observations on the location of the bay and Mount 
Austin and made a general survey of the area. Upon their return to 
Mount Tricorn, this party again formed the joint British-American 
Weddell Coast sledge party. By utilizing the caches laid by the 
Norseman plane, they had no difficulty in making a good distance 
daily on their way back to Stonington Island. ‘They reached the 
base on January 22, 1948, having covered 1,180 statute miles in 105 
days on the trail. 
The geological party, consisting of Nichols and Dodson with their 
13-dog team, sledged southward over the sea ice of Marguerite Bay to 
the head of George VI Sound. Cape Nicholas on Alexander I Island 
was visited, and sedimentary rocks were found and studied there. On 
the return journey geological studies were made on Mushroom Island, 
Terra Firma Island, and the coast line northward to Neny Island. 
The men reached the main base on December 26. They had been in 
the field for 90 days and had covered 450 miles. After a few days in 
camp, Nichols, accompanied by Dodson and Latady, made a detailed 
geological study of Red Rock Ridge and the Neny Fiord area. 
MAPPING FLIGHTS ON THE WEST SIDE OF PALMER PENINSULA 
Trimetrogen flights were made on November 27 and December 3, 21, 
and 22, over the west and east sides of Palmer Peninsula both north 
and south of the main base. On the December 3 flight, over George 
VI Sound, cloudy weather prevented us from photographing south of 
the Batterbee Mountains. I still considered it would be well worth 
while to tie in Alexander I Island with the area south of the Batterbee 
