Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
110
have seen the distant mountains on its journey south, so there was no purpose in his
exploring farther in that direction. He now set his course to the broad gap that had ap-
peared that day, in hopes of traveling up the divide to see whether its ice surface contin-
ued level or rose as a glacier toward the interior.
The party was hardly under way when another blizzard came down, pinning it in
camp. This was followed by fog with no visibility or surface definition. Out of frustra-
tion on January 12, the party pulled in the fog following the compass bearing, but several
times one of the men fell in a crevasse, so they halted again. The bad weather held them
until January 15, the day their rations dictated that they turn back. As they returned along
their old tracks, the question of archipelago or continent remained unanswered.
To be sure, Armitage's western party had found that Ferrar Glacier drained from an
ice plateau, but their traverse onto it had been less than twenty miles. If the major gaps
seen by Scott's and Barne's parties were in fact straits that passed through to a frozen sea
on the far side, the ice cap discovered by Armitage's party might drop oV to the west and
to the south to a shoreline bounded by the same floating ice sheet. With Discovery frozen
tight in Winter Quarters Bay for a second season, Scott's expedition was given another
opportunity to answer the question.
For the austral summer of 1903-1904 (see Chapter 2), Scott chose to lead the western
party onto the plateau following Ferrar Glacier. Armitage led a party exploring the upper
reaches of the Blue and Koettlitz Glaciers in an attempt to find another route through
the mountains, but he did not. And Barne was again sent to the southwest in an attempt
to determine the nature of the gap between the Britannia Range on the north and Cape
Selborne on the south.
The southwest party consisted of twelve men, six of whom were in support and would
turn back one week south of the BluV depot. They pulled out of Winter Quarters Bay on
October 6, arriving at the depot two weeks later. In locating the depot, the party made an
unexpected discovery of considerable importance: the depot was no longer on the align-
ment between the summit of Mount Discovery and the cone at the end of Minna BluV
but rather had moved 450 paces toward the north since its placement the previous year.
The ice shelf was actually moving toward the open sea. On the return leg a careful survey
by Mulock of the depot and Mount Discovery showed that the ice shelf had moved a total
of 608 yards in 13½ months, or at a rate of approximately five feet per day. This was the
mechanism that replenished the Barrier when great icebergs rifted from its margin. What
could the origin of such a massive movement be? Where was the head for such a flow?
After a good start with sails on October 21, the party had much tougher pulling
south of the depot on the following two days. On the evening of the 23rd a fierce bliz-
zard struck, holding the men in their tents until the 28th, the day that the support party
needed to return. Prevented from carrying supplies farther along for the southwest party,
and thereby compromising perhaps a week of exploration, the men of the support party
headed north with the gale at their backs. When the storm had not abated by afternoon,
Barne gave the order to head into the teeth of the wind, six men hauling three sledges in
train, steering by compass as they moved forward. The following day oVered the only
fine weather in the next two weeks. With only occasional moments of clearing, snow
storms and fog plagued the party most of the time as they crept their way to the south-
