Photo: Dr. Macklin
THE QUEST PUSHING NORTH THROUGH RAPIDLY FREEZING ICE
Photo: Wilkins
“WATERING” SHIP WITH FLOE ICE
On one occasion at my base in Queen Mary’s Land during the Mawson Expedition I was standing on an ice foot with Mr. Harrison, my biologist, when I saw a killer actually attack a seal which, however, escaped and effected a landing on the ice foot. It was bleeding profusely and was in a very exhausted condition. On close examination we found six large wounds, all of which had penetrated the blubber to the flesh, none of them less than three inches deep. At first I was inclined to put the animal out of its misery, but my biologist asked me to let it remain so that we might see whether or not it would recover. It lost an amazing amount of blood, which melted its way into the ice beneath, but on the fourth day it had recovered sufficiently to enter the sea again. Nearly all seals bear the scars of old wounds in vertical strokes down their sides. Wilkins collected a number of skins in which these scars were more extensive than usual, and prepared them for sending back as specimens to the British Museum.
The water in the hold had increased so much by now that it required four hours of hard pumping to reduce. It was hard, monotonous work.
In the afternoon we encountered the first Adelie penguin which we had seen on this expedition. It was standing alone on a flat piece of floe, and at sight of us evinced the most marked surprise, looking at us first with one eye and then the other, and finally started towards us at a run. Its waddling gait resembled that of a fat old white-waistcoated gentleman in a desperate hurry. Many times it fell forward, but, picking itself up, hurried on till, reaching the edge of the floe, it tumbled rather than dived into the water. In a few seconds it shot out, to alight upright upon another floe where it continued the chase, but by this time we were drawing away and he gave it up, uttering a last “Cl-a-a-k,” as much as to say, “Well, I’m jiggered!” Later we saw many more who showed the same interest, some of them taking to the water and coming about the ship or following in our wake.
We entered a broad belt of large flat pieces of one-year-old floe interspersed with thinner new ice which the Quest was able to crack, although it usually required several blows to split it widely enough to let her through.