MAP CONSTRUCTION 629 



Reconnaissance of Rubini Rock and Vicinity 



The traverse party crossed the ice-cap of Hooker Island the morning of June 21, 1904, and 

 coasted down the glacier slopes in a zigzag course to Rubini Rock. The surroundings pre- 

 sented a far greater diversity of character as well as more vegetable and animal life than we 

 had ever seen before in these Islands. 



A good sized bay some three miles across from north to south was found here to indent 

 the island from the British Channel. At the bottom of this bay a headland projected from the 

 ice-cap, continuing as a low spit of land and terminating in a towering rock found later to rise 

 almost sheer from the surface of the bay to a height of 587 feet. Jackson mistook this rock 

 for an island which error could easily be made in the spring when he visited it. This tongue 

 of land, on which Rubini Rock is located, divides the bay into two smaller ones of nearly equal 

 size and into which descend two glaciers from the ice-cap. The more northerly glacier showed 

 almost no crevassing and had absolutely no face, its surface running imperceptibly into that 

 of the bay ice. 



The other glacier, however, immediately south of our camp, was the highly crevassed 

 glacier (No. II on map) and showed signs of more activity than is usually met with among 

 these Islands. Along its landward margin a lateral moraine had been formed in recent times; 

 the detritus was fresh; the rocks angular and sharp and embedded in sand and clay. There 

 were no signs of lichens. Between the moraine and the talus back of it flowed a good sized 

 stream which expanded into two ponds some hundred feet wide before debouching into the 

 bay. 



The winter's ice was still in the two bays, its edge on June 20 being as indicated on the 

 map. Outside of this line, and almost surrounding Keltic Island, lay open water between 

 the headlands of the bay in which the broken floes moved back and forth with the tide. 

 There were no bergs floating in the bay though we were constantly expecting them to be 

 discharged from the larger glacier. An old beach raised 28 feet above the sea level was found 

 on the spit of land uniting Rubini Rock with the island. On this beach a base line 600 feet 

 long was measured twice, signals erected on the prominent headlands, and the triangulation 

 extended with the theodolite. With several points thus well determined the plane table was 

 used to complete the map. 



The inner side only of Rubini Rock retained a talus. After some search one spot was 

 discovered where access could be had to the top. The table top of the rock towered a full 

 hundred feet by measurement above the brows of the surrounding headlands. It was composed 

 of sharp, angular blocks of basalt covered with a dense growth of spongy, black lichens re- 

 sembling very coarse horsehair. This growth, of which there certainly was enough to 

 last an expedition several years as fuel, was found to burn freely. Imbedded in these lichens 

 was found part of a shed antler of an Arctic reindeer; he must have reached this plateau by 

 some way other than the one we used. 



The table top dipped toward the southwest like an amphitheater and then dropped verti- 

 cally into the water. Under the southeastern cliffs the columnar structure of the basalt was 

 very marked. And here thousands of little auks, loons, and sea gulls made their home. 

 The slope of the talus under this rookery was covered with a luxuriant growth of grass 

 whose roots were imbedded in ice and frozen earth. 



Where the headlands and nunataks protruded from the ice-sheet several acres of exposed 

 table land were to be seen entirely free of ice and snow. They differ in elevation from 370 to 

 720 feet, but all are remarkably level; the basalt is weathered and crumbled to a very coarse 

 sand or gravel. The writer examined the rock exposures of this vicinity for glacial mark- 

 ings and striae, but found none. 



