March 28, 1901] 



NA TURE 



517 



reach, but in the south-west a large strait opened into 

 Hughes Bay, and this it was necessary to explore. 

 The quantity of snow on the land was found to be 

 formidable. The westerly and northerly winds coming 

 from the ocean doubtless brought great falls of snow, and 

 this was always accumulating, mountains of ice were reared 

 on the top of the mountains of rock. So far as could be 

 judged from the ship, the ice was nowhere uncovered, but 

 thick snow seemed to lie on the glaciers down to the very 

 edge of the sea. 



About midnight a landing was made in a little bay 

 (III. on map, Fig. i), where a ground moraine, or some- 

 thing closely resembling one, was found. There was 

 water behind it and then a clifTof ice, the end of a great 

 glacier which covered the whole slope of the mountain. 

 Although it was growing very dark and the specimens 

 were collected hurriedly, more than ten different 

 varieties of rocks were obtained, none, however, of sedi- 

 mentary formation. 



. The next landing was for three hours, on the 

 25th, in lat. 64'' 6' 24" S., long. 61° 59' 30" W., on the 

 promontory of an island (IV. on map, Fig. i), and it was 

 not without difficulty that all the delicate instruments 

 were got ashore on the steep rocks. " Cook and I," says 

 M. Ar^towski, " made use of Canadian snow-shoes to 

 visit the higher part of the island, and found them a 

 great aid in crossing the snowy slopes, which were 

 usually gentle, though there were dangerous crevasses 

 in places. A thick mantle of snow stretched to the 

 crest of the promontory and stopped abruptly, the 

 further side being perpendicular. ... It was a region 

 quite alpine in its character, but completely buried, in 

 glaciers. The snow-fields rose towards the interior form- 

 ing a veritable ice-cap, terminating in a perfectly con- 

 tinuous sky-line. . . . Lower down the relief of the land 

 could be divined beneath its robe of snow, and here and 

 there a bare peak pierced the covering. Nothing like an 

 exposed chain of mountains was to be detected, although 

 near the sea a coast range could be made out, its sides 

 cut by valleys through which glaciers of various sizes 

 made their way. Along the shore some of the promon- 

 tories were bare, but on the lower ground the ends of the 

 glaciers were covered by a field of snow, and were for the 

 most part confluent, forming a plateau of ice which gave 

 origin to icebergs. That valleys exist, though they do not 

 show on the surface, is clear from the differences in the 

 size and appearance of the glaciers. The largest are of 

 gentle slope, the smaller steep and broken by numerous 

 crevasses. Some of the glaciers suspended from the 

 cliffs were of extraordinary dimensions. Thus by the 

 appearance of the surface of the ice, without any other 

 evidence, one could see that the configuration of the 

 buried land was complicated, and underneath each 

 glacier there must be a great excavated valley, along the 

 bed of which the ice glides downward. The existence 

 of valleys is very interesting, for it points to a time when 

 there was no ice, but dry land being eroded by the run- 

 ning water of rivers. On the other hand, the thought of 

 these buried valleys brought to my mind the channels of 

 Tierra del Fuego as they must have appeared in the 

 glacial period, when the end of the Andean chain lay 

 under just such an ice-sheet." 



In the afternoon of Wednesday, January 26, Cook, 

 Amundsen and Ar^towski landed on Two Hummocks 

 Island (VI. on map. Fig. i), which was narrow and en- 

 tirely covered with a thick mantle of snow, giving it a 

 convex appearance. Two pyramidal mountains projected 

 like nunataks, contrasting with the general smooth out- 

 line. The party landed on the north coast in the hope 

 of being able to climb one of the mountains, and found 

 that the shore was formed by a cliff of ice, with only a 

 few promontories of bare rock. The ice was not found 

 to be actually immersed in the water at any point ; a 

 very narrow strip of bare rock always separated it from 



NO. 1639, VOL. 63] 



the sea. A little snow rested even on the roches mouton- 

 tides, which bordered the shore, either awash or rarely 

 rising so much as a yard or two above the surface, and 

 the sea-leopards were sleeping upon them very tran- 

 quilly. The rock of the island was a grey granite, with 

 thick and very regular veins of a dark and compact 

 green rock, and also smaller red veins. There were 

 some erratics, which might have been carried by 

 floating ice. 



At 2 p.m. on the 28th an island was visited which 

 showed an appearance of stratification (VIII. on map, 

 Fig. I ), but the whole surface was found to be a smoothly 

 glaciated rock of eruptive origin, traversed by grey com- 

 pact veins twenty feet thick. 



On Saturday, January 29, the weather was calm ; the 

 fog had cleared away and revealed a marvellous scene. 

 On every side the thick white covering descended to the 

 sea, and only the most abrupt slopes were free from snow; 

 perpendicular cliffs and steep hillsides were character- 

 istic of all these coasts. A cliff which bordered a sub- 

 merged valley where an immense glacier debouched 

 showed an appearance of vertical stratification, but 

 the ninth landing sufficed to prove that this appearance 

 was due merely to cracks in the rock, as in all previous 

 cases. This may possibly be an effect of extreme cold, 

 for the roches moutonnees, which are preserved from 

 rapid changes of temperature by a covering of snow 

 during most of the year, do not exhibit such cracks, or 

 only to a slight extent. 



The only attempt at a land journey must be described 

 in the author's own words. It commenced on Sunday, 

 January 30. " The commandant decided to accompany 

 the land-party, . . . but the preparations which had 

 to be made were too elaborate, and the projected 

 excursion was doomed to failure before it set out. In 

 order to succeed, it would have been necessary to carry 

 all the absolute necessaries on our backs and make a 

 great and sustained effort, being prepared, if the route 

 was bad, to return and choose a better way. . . . We 

 took with us two sledges of Nansen's pattern, sleeping 

 bags, a silk shelter tent, a little aluminium stove, such as 

 was used by Jackson, Norwegian ski, Canadian snow- 

 shoes, ice-axes, a 40-foot rope of raw silk, provisions for 

 a fortnight, even changes of underclothing, and all the in- 

 struments after that. Certainly far too much baggage. . . ; 

 We landed on a little promontory at the head of a fine 

 bay, where a large glacier entered the sea and the snow 

 lay down to the water's edge (X. on map, Fig. 2^). There 

 was no difficulty in getting ashore, but the sledges were 

 horribly heavy. ... At a height between 400 and 600 feet 

 we had to cross several crevasses, which were narrow 

 and spanned by snow-bridges solid enough to allow our 

 loads to pass without difficulty. Higher up a great snow- 

 field stretched before us, whence we could look down upon 

 the glacier which cascaded towards the bay. ... At 2.30 

 p.m. during lunch I placed the black-bulb thermometers 

 on the snow, and, although the sun was slightly veiled, 

 they showed readings of io2"^"6 and 86" Fahr., while 

 the temperature of the air, measured by a sling thermo- 

 meter, was only 34°'2. The strength of the solar radia- 

 tion made us all feel very warm. We enjoyed an ex- 

 tensive view towards the south, and saw the high 

 mountains on the opposite side of the strait diminishing 

 gradually in height towards the east; the direction of 

 the chain seemed to be north-east and south-west. . . . 

 .A.t 7 p.m. we were still mounting upwards, the weather 

 being remarkably good, and the view of Graham Land 

 grew finer and finer. The relief of that land, although 

 excessively varied, is singularly softened by the glaciers 

 and the accumulated snow, so that it can only be because 

 the valleys, hollowed by the running water of some 

 former epoch, are so deep that a few crests and very 

 abrupt slopes remain bare. At the height of 1600 feet 



1 Fig. I. in this article. 



