Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
103
was a flat-topped massif with a horizontal layer of dark rock exposed at the summit. This
feature was named Mount Albert Markham, for the brother of Clements Markham, and
the man who had first introduced Scott to Sir Clements. Some miles to the south a coni-
cal peak, standing prominently out from the main range, served as a landmark for the
next several days.
Up until this time, although the men were ravenous and losing weight, they contin-
ued to be fit for pulling; however, at this camp in his regular examination of the men's
gums and legs, Wilson noted a deterioration of Shackleton's gums, the first sign of pos-
sible scurvy. Wilson confided this worrisome news to Scott, but the two kept it from
Shackleton for some days to come.
For weeks the men had planned to celebrate Christmas Day with a full ration of food,
and as the day approached they “discussed and rediscussed” just what that would be.
Breakfast, cooked for an extra fifteen minutes on the primus so that it was steaming hot,
included a full pot of “biscuit and seal liver, fried in bacon and pemmican fat,” followed
by a large spoonful of jam. Their spirits lifted by the added calories, the men received
the Christmas gift of a harder snow surface as they started their morning march under
a cloudless, windless sky. At lunch they savored a cup “of hot cocoa and plasmon with a
whole biscuit and another spoonful of jam.”
When the men pitched camp for the evening, they had logged eleven miles, the lon-
gest daily distance traveled in many weeks. The hoosh that night had “a double 'whack' of
everything” and was so thick that a spoon could stand up in it. Boiling cocoa followed,
and then Shackleton produced a lump of plum pudding about the size of a cricket ball and
an artificial sprig of holly that he had ferreted in the toe of a sock until this moment. The
incessant conversations about food gave way that night to thoughts of family and friends
and what the English Christmas might be like that year.
South of Beaumont Bay the rolling foothills had again risen from the ice shelf to ele-
vations of several thousand feet, obscuring the high mountains farther west. At places the
ice fell over the steep edges of the foothills in frozen waterfalls up to one thousand feet
high. Elsewhere rocky promontories jutted out from the snowy rise. As the party pro-
gressed south, a high peak began to materialize near the coast at a great distance. Calcula-
tions suggested that it was beyond 83° S. This southernmost sighting was named Mount
LongstaV after the man whose early, generous contribution of £25,000 had floated the
expedition (see Fig. 4.3).
Even though he wore sun goggles, for a number of days Wilson had suVered excru-
ciating sun blindness, owing to his faithful sketching of the mountains with unprotected
eyes. On December 27 the condition was so bad that he covered his eyes completely and
marched blind. This was a day of exciting discovery, which Scott described to Wilson
as they moved along. The snowy hills to the west terminated in a prominent, snow-
capped, rocky cape. Beyond the cape the ice surface withdrew into a broad reentrant,
which appeared first as a bay and then, as the day progressed, a strait that cut deep into
the mountains, similar to the feature to the south of the Britannia Range. New moun-
tains appeared on the south side of the strait as the party continued to work abreast of
the cape. Starting as low foothills to the east, they rose higher and higher to the apex of a
massif far grander than any seen on the entire journey. With an intricate system of ridge-
Figure 4.5. (opposite bot-
tom) On December 22, as
Scott's party drew abreast
of Beaumont Bay, the men
were able to see past the
foothills and up into the
main range. Pyramid Peak
stood at the head of the
embayment. In this view
taken from south of Beau-
mont Bay, looking to the
northwest, Pyramid Peak
centers the image while
the black-topped massif to
the left (south) is Mount
Albert Markham.
