i9l MOUNT SUESS 169 



We got a magnificent view of Granite Harbour and its 

 hinterland. 



Far to the east Erebus was wholly visible, while to the west 

 we could see the great ice plateau. Right out to sea was Beau- 

 fort Island, and there was no open water near the harbour. 

 Closer was the cluster of fifteen bergs near Cape Roberts and 

 the small tongue of ice where we had camped during the blizzard. 

 But a most amazing discovery was that the whole inner part of 

 the harbour was occupied by a great glacier tongue some five 

 miles long and a mile wide. This projected out to sea from 

 the Mackay icefalls and ended in three splay ' fingers.' It was 

 a hundred feet above the sea ice and crevassed beyond descrip- 

 tion for the greater part of its length. 



Across the harbour was a low plateau about 1000 feet above 

 the sea, formed of black dolerite. Small glaciers hung over the 

 steep cliffs, one being the ' Spillover ' mentioned previously. 

 Then looking west came the crevasses of the Mackay icefalls, 

 as impassable and impossible as Dr. Wilson had described them. 

 But in the south-west corner was the smaller New Glacier, and 

 I felt sure we could get up that way somehow. 



About twelve miles up the glacier was a huge nunatak with 

 a cap of black dolerite rising into three peaks. This cap re- 



( minded me of a Chinese junk, but Debenham objected to Junk 

 Mountain and suggested Gondola Mt. It was sad to find 

 out later that Professor David on his journey to the Magnetic 

 Pole had seen and fixed this peak and called it Mount Suess ! 



As will be seen we investigated this most interesting rock 

 island in the upper Mackay Glacier fairly thoroughly. 



On the 5th, about 4 P.M., we started off with a week's pro- 

 visions to map the northern coast of the harbour. We had only 

 one sledge and got along in fine style the first easy sledging 

 we had met and as it turned out practically the last! We 

 camped at 6.30 at the end of the Mackay Tongue, for we should 

 lose sight of all our survey stations if we went farther. 



The sky looked very ugly the sun dimly glaring through 

 gloomy clouds, while a low thick band of dark stratus covered the 

 eastern horizon. The barometer fell nearly half an inch in 

 twelve hours, and we were quite expectant of a blizzard, for 

 similar conditions on a smaller scale preceded the blizzard at 

 the piedmont tongue. Our meteorology was quite sound. The 



