Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
99
Wilson wrote in his diary of this time, “Dreams as a rule of splendid food, ball suppers,
sirloins of beef, caldrons full of steaming vegetables. But one spends all one's time shout-
ing at waiters who won't bring one a plate of anything, or else one finds the beef is only
ashes when one gets to it, or a pot of honey has been poured out on a sawdusty floor.”
The only joy during these grueling days was the increasing detail that came to light
in the mountains. A major range with an east-west strike took shape to the west. The
highest summits, which Scott estimated to be more than ten thousand feet, descended to
the east through a system of ridges to a snow-covered plateau sprinkled with low peaks.
To the front of these was a low, rolling snow slope that merged with the Barrier. On its
southern flank, the Britannia Range, as it was called, rose in high, bare-rock cliVs on the
northern side of what appeared to be a major strait through the mountains. This breach
was fifteen or twenty miles wide, but its far end was not visible beyond the mountains on
the south side of the passage (Fig. 4.2).
These mountains to the south appeared to be high, to run north-south, and to be
snow covered, but their distance obscured details. In contrast, the cape on the south side
of the strait rose clearly as a broad snow dome and appeared to be connected in the dis-
tance to the mountains. On December 14 a distant peak and a rocky patch on the prom-
ontory (Cape Selborne) were chosen to be the alignment for placing Depot B. As soon
as the men had secured the camp, they headed toward the rocky patch to see what sort of
rock it was.
Having hiked less than a mile in cloudy, low-definition conditions, the men were
stopped by a huge chasm in the ice. Wilson recorded, “It was a wonderful sight, a chaos
of ice masses jumbled up in crevasses of 40, 50, 60 feet deep, the valleys some hundreds
of feet across full of tumbled blocks and frozen pools of water.” Clearly there was no way
to cross this divide, so the men returned to camp. The following day with good light,
Shackleton took some photos of the chasm, but the men found no routes across, so with
a lightened load the party started its trek south along the mountains.
Two sledges carried four and a half weeks of food, with three weeks' worth left at
Depot B to see the party back to the depot at the BluV. Without the need to relay, morale
was high, but the dogs were spent, and the previous month had taken a severe toll on the
physiques of the men. With no fixed goal other than to reach south to the limit of their
endurance, the party pushed forward (Fig. 4.3). Each day brought new sights of lofty
peaks beyond rolling, snowy foothills (Fig. 4.4). In general, the foothills were several
thousand feet high, so they obscured their connections to the more distant mountains
that peeked out from behind. New summits that appeared faintly on the horizon during
clear spells lured them on. Scott wrote, “Ever before us was the line which we were now
drawing on the white space of the Antarctic chart. Day by day, too, though somewhat
slowly, there passed on that magnificent panorama of the western land. Rarely the march
passed without the disclosure of some new feature, something on which the eye of man
had never yet rested; we should have been poor souls indeed had we not been elated at the
privilege of being the first to gaze on these splendid scenes.”
By December 22 the party had reached a portion of the coast where a breach in the
foothills allowed a view up into the face of the main range. Beaumont Bay, as the opening
was named, was fed by a glacier that arose high on the side of the mountain, which Scott
