Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
206
follow “constructive occupation,” including the maintenance of permanent bases and the
carrying out of administrative acts.
By the end of the 1930s the U.S. government moved to further its interests in Ant-
arctica by establishing the United States Antarctic Service Expedition. The service was
a civilian organization administered by four cabinet agencies. Scientists came from the
civilian sector, but the U.S. Navy conducted the expedition, with Admiral Byrd in com-
mand. Although funding was mainly from congressional appropriations, Byrd oVered a
variety of personal equipment from his previous expeditions, and substantial contribu-
tions also came from private donors, such as Charles R. Walgreen of the drugstore chain
and William Horlick of malted milk fame.
The expedition, numbering 125 men, two ships, and four aircraft, was charged by the
Congress and President Roosevelt to “investigate and survey the natural resources of the
land and sea areas of the Antarctic regions.” Two bases were established with the intent
of their being occupied more or less continuously, one at Stonington Island on the west
side of the Antarctic Peninsula (East Base), the other at Little America (West Base). From
these two locations numerous flights and overland traverses filled in much of the un-
known territory of coastal West Antarctica, with the crews and parties leaving claims in
canisters followed by copies duly filed at the State Department.
One flight was planned from West Base to the Transantarctic Mountains with the in-
tent of closing the gap between Beardmore and Liv Glaciers. On February 29, 1940, the
Condor flew southwest across the Ross Ice Shelf bound for the eastern portal of Beard-
more Glacier. On board were Paul Siple, the leader of West Base, and F. Alton Wade, ge-
ologist and chief scientist for the expedition. Siple had been the oYcial Boy Scout who
accompanied Byrd's First Antarctic Expedition and had returned on BAE II as a biologist
and dog driver. By 1939 he had received a Ph.D. in geography studying the eVects of cold
on men in Antarctica. Wade had been a dog driver on BAE II, and subsequently received
his Ph.D. in geology.
When the plane was about 150 miles out, the mountains began to appear at the hori-
zon. Directly to the south, one prominent massif stood out above all others, remaining
in view for the duration of the flight along the mountains. As the plane approached the
mouth of Beardmore Glacier, the men recognized Mount Hope and The Cloudmaker
among others mapped and photographed by Shackleton's and Scott's expeditions (see
Figs. 4.10, 4.12). Climbing to an altitude of ninety-five hundred feet, the plane circled for
a round of photographs, then turned southeast and flew along the mountain front.
The foothills maintained a low, relatively uniform elevation back to an escarpment
that rose abruptly to heights well above the altitude of the plane. As the plane approached
the massif that the men had spotted from afar, an outlet glacier appeared abruptly, cut-
ting a deep swath straight through the mountains. To the east beyond this glacier, the
landmark summit, later named Mount Wade, commanded an array of diverging ridge-
lines that filled the foreground (Fig. 7.1).
The plane circled for another round of photos, then flew into the drainage of Liv Gla-
cier. The gap between Shackleton's and Byrd's sightings had been closed with the discov-
ery of a major outlet glacier, thereafter named the Shackleton. Airborne for eleven hours,
the Condor touched down safely at West Base with fifteen minutes of fuel left in its tanks.
