Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
29
contact and hopping across spaces of open water. At the narrow ice margin, fast to the
foot of the bluV, a sea swell lifting the pack gave the men a final tricky step before they
were on solid ground. Littering the base of the cliV were angular blocks of granite that
had fallen from the outcrops above. This was the first granite found in outcrop in the
Transantarctic Mountains, and Scott named the embayment Granite Harbour. The men
scrambled along the foot of the steep cliV, found a route to climb to the top, and then
hiked to the west along the crest. As they walked, they found orange lichens and clumps
of green moss. The latter contained a primitive, wingless insect, Collembola, akin to the
springtails that had first been discovered at Cape Adare by Borchgrevink's party. As they
reached the corner of the bluV, the men were able to see into the southwestern recesses
of the harbor and to look across to the ice tongue that separated them from the bluVs on
the opposite shore (Fig. 1.15). The day was cloudless, water trickled down in rivulets from
melting patches of snow, and the men lingered in the warmth of the sun there at their first
landfall on the mainland. After collecting samples of rocks and the biota, they returned
to Discovery, confident that they had found a safe winter harbor, if no alternatives could
be found farther south.
From Granite Harbour, Discovery steamed south toward McMurdo Bay (Fig. 1.16).
Although at first it appeared to be an open passage between Mount Erebus and the
mountains to the west, closer in low lands became visible that seemed to connect across
the expanse. Since no further penetration to the south seemed possible, Scott pointed
his ship eastward out of the pack. Stopping at Cape Crozier, while others erected a mes-
sage post in the prearranged center of the rookery, Scott, Wilson, and Royds climbed
the loose scree of a 1,300-foot volcanic cinder cone behind the rookery. From the sum-
mit they were able to gaze across the Barrier, which presented an image of utter flatness,
marked only by some low-amplitude undulations backlit by the sun. Both from there and
along the Barrier, where low portions allowed a vantage from the crow's nest, Scott con-
cluded that Ross had erred in his sighting of the Parry Mountains. Not meaning to im-
pugn Ross's careful charting, Scott noted how deceptive appearances can be in this land,
to the extent that “one cannot always aVord to trust the evidence of one's own eyes.”
About noon on January 29 the expedition sailed past Ross's easternmost point, keen
to sight what he cautiously had noted as the “appearance of land.” The air was clear, but
they could see no land. The next day, however, as the ship sailed east, the ice gradually
rose, and rock was sighted through a break in the fog that had settled in the night before.
This new ground Scott named King Edward VII Land.
Returning along the Barrier, Discovery moored in an inlet at 165° 45′ W, 78° 30′ S, and
several parties disembarked to sledge on the ice. The expedition carried a balloon named
Eva to be used for aerial observation, which the crew hauled out on the ice shelf, tethered
with a five hundred-foot rope, and inflated with hydrogen gas. Scott had “the honour
of being the first aëronaut to make an ascent in the Antarctic regions.” He observed the
same broad undulations running parallel to the ice front that he had seen at Cape Crozier,
but otherwise the view to the south was featureless. Shackleton, who got the second ride,
went aloft with a camera, but a wind sprang up and prevented any other rides for the dis-
appointed chaps in the queue. The spot where this activity took place was named Balloon
Inlet, but it was later incorporated into the larger Bay of Whales.
