Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
80
Figure S.6. Silence per-
vades pressure ridges in
ice at the margin of Ross
Island. Mount Discov-
ery stands mute across
McMurdo Sound.
icefall. Then it happened again. The ice was popping, strained to its limit and
fracturing, incrementally working its way down the gradient at less than a mil-
limeter per pop. The icefall defied the silence. The dead air sucked up its sound.
At last I was really out there, out there in a state of extreme isolation, even
grace, with raw Nature everywhere on display. It was time to see what secrets
the rocks would tell, and we went clomping up the outcrop, challenging the
silence at every step.
Because they would be traveling on half rations to the point of turning inland, it
would be necessary to supplement their diet with seal and penguin. Conserving paraYn
for their primus stove was also an issue. The inventive Mackay devised a stove out of a
cookie tin for burning rendered seal blubber. The bottom of the tin held lumps of blubber
that were heated from below by the primus. He devised a wick holder from the lid of the
tin by punching a series of holes for the wicks and bending down legs from the corners to
make a little table that was set in the bottom. As the water from the fat sputtered oV and
pure oil ran down, wetting the bottoms of the wicks, the stove burned warmly without
further help from the primus.
As the weeks had passed and the sea ice had increasingly broken up, the men knew
that their escape route was disintegrating behind them. Coupled with the doubtful pros-
pect of man-hauling back over a mountain route, they were now committing their sur-
vival to Nimrod and her ability to find them along this desolate coastline. Mackay built a
prominent cairn on the top of the island with a pole firmly planted in its core and a black
flag topmost. He cached geological specimens by the cairn, and wired a dried milk tin
