OSGOOD ART COLORTYPE CO., CHI. & N. Y.
Midnight At Midsummer Over The Antarctic Mainland
At four o’clock in the afternoon we had made a rough outline of the new land before us. It proved to be a group of islands (Alexander Islands) about twenty-five miles long and from ten to fifteen miles wide. There is one large central island, about eighteen miles long, with a high ridge of mountains running approximately from east to west. In this ridge there are three peaks not less than four thousand, five hundred feet in altitude. These are quite pyramidal in form and are covered with snow to their summits, with only an occasional bare, perpendicular rock. This ridge of mountains tapers gradually towards the west and terminates abruptly in the east. Running parallel to this central ridge, about four miles southward, there is a lesser chain of mountains about two thousand feet high, whose sides sink almost perpendicularly into the sea. There is also a similar ridge to the southward. The two valleys between these three ridges of mountains are filled with great sheets of glacial ice. We had a splendid view of these glaciers as we passed about twenty miles off the western end of the island. The northern valley was rough, much crevassed, and generally irregular, extending its tongue out over the sea for several miles. The valley south of the central ridge appeared like a great plain with easy slopes toward the sea, where the frozen mass seemed to project over the waters for a short distance. Around this one large island were a number of small islands, angular rocky masses, mostly covered with caps of glacial ice. These, from a greater distance, appeared to be a part of the main central land mass. The vast number of icebergs to the eastward of the land gave it, also, from a greater distance, the appearance of being connected with some larger land eastward; but from our various positions we were able to make out distinctly that the islands are a separate group with no other land eastward within sight. Our positions northward in the morning and southward during the night, proved this. We saw some signs of land to the south during the afternoon, but these vanished later. It was evidently a mirage.
We lost sight of the Alexander Islands at about ten o’clock last night, when it became too dark to see more than a few miles. During the night we steamed slowly over a south-westerly course close to the edge of the pack. At 6 a.m. (February 17) the fires were covered and the sails braced to a fair wind, sending us along, south-westerly, at the rate of about four knots. There was some rain and snow during the night, which lined the decks, covered the ropes, and sheeted the sails with ice. So thoroughly were the sails incased that we were unable to set the patent topsails. We hammered and pounded the sails and then we pulled and lugged at the ropes, but our efforts were in vain. The steam-winch was brought to our aid, but it, too, failed to bring down the icy sails. At eight o’clock, when I came on deck, there was no land or ice in sight. (We saw no more land for thirteen months.)
An hour later we passed along the outer fringe of small fragments of drift ice. The weather changed every few minutes. Alternately we had rain, and sleet, and fog, and snow. Our speed was increasing and the wind came in strong puffs. We had seen very few bergs in the forenoon, but the horizon was constantly hazed by thick weather, so we must have passed many without being able to see them. Just before noon, while trying to walk over the slippery decks, my attention was suddenly directed to a dark spot in the fog over our port bow. I watched this for a second or two, for the spot grew curiously lighter as we went on. Everything was stiff, and dark, and dull. The lookout on the capstan threw his arm easily, but anxiously, on the anchor and leaned over to fix his eye on the same object, but he gave no signal, and I said nothing, for there didn’t seem to be anything tangible to report. The Captain now walked from the chart table to the port-side of the bridge; just as he caught sight of the curious object it brightened with a blink and a fraction of a second later a great wall of ice, towering far above the masts, stood before us. “Hard-a starboard,” shouted the Captain, with such abruptness and such force that a quiver went deep into the heart of everyone on deck; a few moments later we grazed the marble-like cliff of a huge iceberg, gliding by so closely that we nearly scraped its knife-like edges.
The Belgica pressing Southward through the Drift-ice.
Iceberg off Cape Tuxen.
During the afternoon we sailed westerly, keeping the streams of drift-ice within sight. There were fewer icebergs as we advanced, but it continued foggy, with alternate squalls of rain and snow, which prevented our seeing to any long distance. The ice which we have passed within the past few days, and the pack to the southward, are not, at any place, formidable except in the choked channels, Bismarck Inlet, and the inlet north of Alexanderland. If we had awaited an easterly wind, which is the prevailing wind of summer, no doubt we might have forced a way southward along the coast of Grahamland. The season for antarctic navigation, however, is already past, and if we are to make a point far south this year, which the Commandant desires, we must push on with all force.