Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
146
lated pole. At 11:00 A.M., they reached the still turning, the spot where all the meridians
converge and every direction is north. To record the validity of their location they took
hourly sun sightings for a full twenty-four hours. A small tent, which they called Pol-
heim, was securely erected, items were left inside, the flag was hoisted, heads were bared,
and a photograph recorded the historic occasion.
One can say that Amundsen and his men lingered at their endpoint, enjoying their
rest and their reflection. This was in marked contrast to the British expeditions that
reached toward the poles. David: “a right-about turn, and as quick a march as tired limbs
would allow back.” Shackleton: “We stayed only a few minutes, and then, taking the
Queen's flag and eating our scanty meal as we went, we hurried back.” Scott (one month
hence): “Well, we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition and must face
our 800 miles of solid dragging—and good-bye to most of the day-dreams!”
When the party did finally commence the inward journey, the going was “splendid
and all were in good spirits.” The weather was much clearer, so the crevassed areas were
more easily gotten through, and the dogs pulled as if they knew they were going home.
When the mountains that struck oV to the southeast began to reappear, Amundsen was
curiously unable to recognize the summits that they had measured on the way south. In
addition, he now sighted the termination of the mountains at 88° S where they faded into
the horizon.
The beacons that had been so obsessively constructed on the outward journey were
picked oV systematically on the return. The descent of the Axel Heiberg icefalls was ac-
complished in a day. From the bottom, the party went around the end of the range that
they had taken with a direct assault the previous month, and sledged up to their depot
at 85° S. After they had finished reloading the sledges, Amundsen and one other man
skied up to Mount Betty, where they built a cairn, left seventeen liters of paraYn, some
matches, and a letter recounting what they had accomplished. Amundsen also gathered
some more rock samples, the only scientific specimens collected during the entire expedi-
tion. In all “about twenty” samples were returned, including vein quartz, metamorphic
rock, and several varieties of granite.
On January 7, with a full blizzard blowing but with the wind at their backs, the five
men and their eleven remaining dogs hauled onto the Barrier with Framheim directly
north at the end of their route. Weather was mixed, good days and bad days, but the
teams managed between seventeen and thirty-four miles per day, gathering more food
than they could eat as they went along. January 18, a fine clear day, was one of note. The
party was abreast of a set of high-pressure ridges oV a number of miles to their right
(west), which they had sighted less clearly on the outward journey.
Unexpectedly, land appeared beyond these ragged ripples in the ice. Amundsen
wrote in his diary,
Great was our surprise when, a short time after, we made out high, bare land in the
same direction, and not long after that two lofty, white summits to the south-east,
probably about 82° S. It could be seen by the look of the sky that the land extended
from north-east to south-west. This must be the same land that we saw lose itself
in the horizon in about 84° S., when we stood at a height of about 4,000 feet and
