FIRST MOTOR-CAR IN ANTARCTIC 



to send Adams, Joyce and Wild, giving Adams instruc- 

 tions to get into the hut, and then return the next day 

 to the ship. We were then about sixteen miles from 

 Hut Point, and the party started off the next morning 

 with plenty of provisions in case of being delayed, and 

 a couple of spades with which to dig out the hut. It was 

 Adams' first experience of sledging, and a fifteen- 

 or sixteen-mile march with a fairly heavy load was 

 a stiff proposition for men who had been cooped up in 

 the ship for over a month. They started 'at a good 

 swinging pace. The Professor and Cotton met the party 

 some two or three miles away from the ship, and accom- 

 panied them for another mile. On their return they 

 reported that the sledge-party had got on to old ice 

 that had not broken out the previous year. The ice 

 across which the party had started was about four feet 

 thick, and much more solid than that which stopped the 

 ship on our first arrival. It was one-year ice, but I think 

 it quite possible that it had broken out earlier and frozen 

 in again. 



During the previous night we had moved somewhat 

 further west and tied up to the floe, after another ineffec- 

 tual attempt to break through to the south. Shortly after 

 the sledge-party started we hoisted the motor-car over 

 the side and landed it safely on the sea-ice. Day immedi- 

 ately got in, started the engine, and off the car went with 

 the throbbing sound which has become so familiar in the 

 civilized world, and was now heard for the first time in 

 the Antarctic. The run was but a short one, for within 

 a hundred yards the wheels clogged in the soft snow. 

 With all hands pushing and pulling we managed to get 

 the car across a crack in the ice, which we momentarily 

 expected would open out, and allow the floe to drift away 

 to the north. Once over the crack the engine was started 

 again, and for a short distance the car went ahead under 



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