Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
65
pulled back to Discovery, arriving on Christmas Eve. Only four men were there to greet
the weary party. Again this season the sea ice had held fast, and all the rest of the men
were out at the ice edge twenty miles to the north, where round-the-clock work groups
were attempting to saw through the six- to seven-foot-thick ice to make a path for Dis-
covery's escape. After managing only 150 yards in twelve days, Scott called oV the futile
exercise.
On January 5, 1904, two ships, Morning and Terra Nova, sailed into view, bringing
orders from England that if Discovery did not break free she should be abandoned rather
than having the party winter over for another year. This was quite a blow to the men,
who for two years had enjoyed the warmth and cheer of Discovery's wooden walls. Con-
sequently, a spirit of gloom rather than joy hung over the operation of transferring cargo
to the relief ships.
By mid-January the ice had begun to break out a little, but by January 24 the front
was still thirteen or fourteen miles away. On January 28 a long swell began to buckle the
ice clear in to Hut Point. During the next two weeks, the front slowly broke up, and then
on February 14 the whole of McMurdo Sound began to go. On February 16 Discovery fi-
nally broke free with the help of a blast of guncotton. Everyone was jubilant as the ship
steamed out of Winter Quarters Bay. But a final blow awaited, for as the ship rounded
Hut Point she struck rough seas and gale-force winds, which drove her aground. The
next fifteen hours were nerve-wracking while the ship was pounded by waves and scraped
against the rocks. At last the storm weakened and Discovery slipped into the water, free at
last to return the expeditioners to their homeland and a hero's welcome.
The Discovery Expedition had added significantly to the map of Victoria Land (see
Fig. 1.16). Scott and his men had charted the coastline south of Mount Melbourne in
more detail and recognized the Drygalski Ice Tongue for what it was. They sighted the
polar plateau through the cleft of Reeves Glacier and made a landing at Granite Harbour.
The most important geographical discoveries occurred during the crossings of the Trans-
antarctic Mountains via Ferrar Glacier. The expedition recognized that the mountains
form a discrete range, that is, one with a backside, and that beyond the mountains the
ice rises as a sheet across a vast plateau. They also mapped details of the mountains from
the southern end of the Royal Society Range across Ferrar Glacier to Taylor Dry Valley,
where Taylor Glacier had retreated, leaving an ice-free chasm the like of which had never
before been seen.
