RECENT EXPEDITIONS TO THE ANTARCTIC 



At 8:20 A.M. on December 20th they were headed 

 for the south and at 9 150 were crossing the flat plateau 

 of Graham Land between Bransfield Strait and Dry- 

 galski Bay. Several great fiords were discovered en- 

 tering this bay which were named the Hektoria Fiords. 

 Soon below them were the giant crevasses of the 

 Nordenskjold Shelf "broad bottomless yawning blue 

 abysses . . . into which our machine could have fallen 

 and left no trace." Exactly on the Antarctic Circle 

 lies Crane Channel, a circuitous strait which apparently 

 divides Graham Land into two parts and opens on the 

 west into Matha Bay. (The writer suggests Wilkins 

 Land as a more suitable name than South Graham 

 Land for this southern island.) To the south of this 

 channel the rocks appeared to contain seams of coal 

 near latitude ()J^ S. A mighty mass of mountains 

 was named after the Lockheed Company, and at lati- 

 tude 69° 30' S. they reached a broad channel some 

 seventy-five miles across, which was nearly filled by 

 the large Scripps Island in the north and the group 

 of small Finley Isles in the south. ''A smooth slope, 

 wide and unbroken, reached southward. We called the 

 strait Stefansson Strait and the land beyond it Hearst 

 Land. The edge of Hearst Land, which we believe 

 to be part of the great Antarctic continent, was dis- 

 tinguishable to the eye by a comparatively low ice 

 cliff, which failed to show in the photograph. To the 

 east . . . the edge was marked with a few small low 

 nunataks . . . far beyond in the dim distance I could 

 see huge tabular icebergs, and concluded that they must 

 have been at one time afloat." Their furthest point was 



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