Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
81
Figure 3.9. In this image encompassing a stretch of coastline followed by David's party to the Mag-
netic South Pole, open water and very loose pack extend back to fast seasonal ice connected to
piedmont glaciers that rim low tabular mountains behind. The skirt of seasonal ice was what David's
party followed for most of their traverse. Nordenskjold Ice Tongue issues from the range a little left
of center. In David's time the ice tongue was estimated at twenty miles in length, much longer than
the calved stub of today. The extended length was what made the party choose to sledge across it.
The portals of the Nordenskjold Ice Tongue are Mount Murray to the north (right) and Mount Gauss
to the south (left).
to the flagstaV as a postbox. Among the letters left was one with specific instructions to
the Nimrod to look for a similar cairn along the “low sloping shore” to the north of the
Drygalski Ice Tongue, where the party intended to turn inland for the magnetic pole and
hoped to rendezvous at the end of their trek. Letters to loved ones were also included in
case the explorers did not make it back alive.
On the morning of November 2, after placing the last of their letters in the postbox,
the men started north, soon encountering the hardest pulling of the trip. The sun was
thawing the brackish snow surface, which stuck like glue to the sledge runners, so they
decided to change to hauling at night, in hopes that the colder temperatures would keep
the snow frozen. This adjustment helped in part, but fresh snow squalls continued to
slow the party.
By November 11 the party had traversed thirty miles from Depot Island to the south-
ern edge of the Nordenskjold Ice Tongue (Fig. 3.9). Charting of this feature by the Dis-
covery Expedition indicated that it extended into the Ross Sea for a distance of twenty
miles. To avoid taking a long detour to the east, David hoped to be able to haul the
sledges directly across it. The ascent from the sea ice to the ice tongue was fairly easy, and
the surface of the ice tongue itself provided some of the easiest pulling of the journey.
On an exceptionally clear day from a camp in the middle of the ice tongue, Mawson was
able to triangulate on Mount Erebus and Mount Melbourne. The mountains to the west
were quite subdued compared with the high peaks that rose along the coastline north
of Mount Melbourne, or compared with the mighty ramparts along the central Ferrar
Glacier. The confines on either side of the glacier feeding Nordenskjold Ice Tongue (later
named Mawson Glacier) were only about three thousand feet in elevation, with Mount
