ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH 



too close-set for boats and too open for sledges. On 

 April 8th they saw Clarence Island and Elephant 

 Island (latitude 63"^ S.) and next day they took to the 

 three boats for their hazardous trip to Elephant Island. 

 At nights they camped on a floe, which broke right 

 under them on one occasion, Holness being rescued 

 from drowning while in his sleeping bag. The tem- 

 perature was close to freezing point, and the men lay 

 in each other's arms for warmth. To add to their 

 troubles they had no fresh water, having had no time 

 to get fresh ice from a berg when launching the boats. 

 As they approached Elephant Island they found it 

 flanked by icy cliffs, fragments of which alleviated 

 their thirst. On the fifteenth of April they landed on 

 the Island, but transferred their camp to a gravel spit 

 some seven miles to the west. 



On April 23rd Shackleton with a crew of five made 

 an adventurous boat journey of eight hundred miles 

 in the stormy seas of the "Furious Fifties" to South 

 Georgia. His journey of sixteen days was one of 

 ''supreme strife amid heaving waters." The boat was 

 nearly sunk by a gigantic wave on May 5th. After 

 they had sighted land, they met with one of the worst 

 hurricanes ever experienced by any of the sailors. "The 

 wind simply shrieked as it tore the tops off the waves." 

 On May loth they landed on the barren west coast of 

 South Georgia. A most dangerous journey of thirty- 

 six hours across this mountainous island, which was 

 covered with glaciers, crevasses, and rocky aretes, 

 brought Shackleton and two of his companions to the 

 whaling stations on the east side of South Georgia. 



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