Through the first Antarctic night, 1898-1899

by Frederick Albert Cook

Early in the afternoon our hopes were shattered. We again reached a zone, as we so often had, farther east, where it was impossible to pass between the sheets of heavy ice. Here we rested for the balance of the afternoon and the night. We continued to search the horizon for further signs of the promised land, but most of the indications disappeared during our stay. The engine fires were burnt down. Everything about the Belgica is non-restful. There is little wind; the temperature remains low -7.5° C. (-18.5° F.) An easy swell keeps the ice in a constant groan, and penguins send out their social calls. We are now accustomed to all this noise. Indeed, when tired and weary, as we are at present from long-continued anxiety, the groans of the ice and the cries of the penguins serve only to impress us with the awful solitude and the uninterrupted pearly monotony of the antarctic.

A beautiful sunset to-night has served to reawaken our interest in this world of white sameness. Throughout the day the sky has been a cheerless gray from the zenith to a few degrees from the horizon. Low down there have been changes, now an ice-blink, now a water-sky, and again a series of seeming land clouds. The little play and change in colour, which has been evident for brief periods, is limited to a narrow strip under and over the cloud-hidden sun in the west and south. The comparative rarity of brilliant sunbursts and sunsets, in the smoky skies at the edge of the pack, has made the phenomenon to-night a real joy. At seven o’clock the long stratus clouds in the south-south-west, which were slaty in colour, became fringed with a touch of luminous gold. This increased gradually until the entire body of the clouds was gilded; then the sun, a great yellow ball of dull orange, sank under the creamy sheets of waving snows. The great fiery ball was only fifty seconds in passing from view, but in this time its face changed into at least ten distortions. There is a weird sadness in these faces: an expression which is singularly appropriate, because we know the good old luminary is quickly leaving us to brighten the top of the globe. She seems to feel it, for her face is like that of a dying mother sorry to leave her children alone in a world of hazard. The final parting, however, was more prolonged and more glorious than the actual presence. Soon the upper stratus of low clouds were showered with a scarlet light, which remained without apparent change for thirty minutes. Below and above this were narrow belts of bright and glistening silvery blue, while the ice was all aglow under a veil of pale magenta. Then followed a long purple twilight, which, in itself, is full of delightful charm. It is all an unimaginable dream.

February 23.—We are still firmly fixed by the compact sea of ice about us. New ice formed on every open space last night. Winter is coming over us quickly, and the season for navigating these unknown seas is now past. The rapidity with which the new ice forms, the increasing cold, and the fading light of the sun all prove this, but the Commandant is hoping against hope to push still farther into the mystic gloom of the south. Throughout the night the sky was a clear, pale purple blue, while stars of the first and second magnitude were struggling to display their icy glitter. The Captain obtained an observation and was able to find our position by fixing a planet and a star. Latitude 69° 46′ 30″, longitude 81° 59′. It is curious how a little thing like the definite knowledge of our position raises the hopes and anticipations of everybody on board. Though such a knowledge is a mere play of figures, it assures us that we are at least on a fixed point upon the unknown under surface of the globe. We make calculations accordingly; some plan work and pleasure for the return to the world of living, and others lay down a system of effort for exploration of the new regions to which we expect to penetrate, and surely all are elated at the prospect of some other view except the inhospitable whiteness, at present on every side of our position.

At noon we made a deep sea sounding, with a long series of temperatures at various depths. We lowered five hundred and sixty metres of wire, and brought up a cup of blue clay. The temperature at the surface was at the freezing point, and at the bottom slightly warmer. We have made various excursions to obtain photos of the ice and the life, and to study the physical laws which govern the construction and destruction of the sea-ice. The pans are closely packed, but in some places there are soft buffers of pulverised ice and snow, and these are dangerous to the traveler. Gerlache stepped on such a place and promptly sank into the icy water beneath. Fortunately I saw him before he sank too far, and jerked him out by the coat collar. I tore his collar, and disturbed his buttons, but I had the satisfaction of keeping him from a complete bath at a temperature six degrees below zero.

The sunset is again superbly beautiful to-night. All day we have remained firmly held by the ice. The sky has been of a pale, wintry blue with alto-stratus and fracto-stratus clouds of a leaden and steel-gray colour. In the north-west and the north-east there is a water-sky, but the hopeless ice-blink is in every other direction. A dazzling whiteness has made the pack glitter to such an extent that it has become painful to walk about without smoked glasses, but to-night there is a restful lilac over the white glitter, which is a charming relief from the intense brilliancy of the day. As the sun descended into the invisible mist of ice-crystals, which always hangs over the pack, it poured out a wealth of golden light over the clouds and onto the pack. For a very brief period the clouds had the appearance of streams of hot metal, and the projecting snows were aglow like mounds of fire. As the sun sank from view a great bunch of cumulus clouds, in the south, suddenly lit up with a brilliant rose light. The yellow then vanished and the rose was thrown on the snows. The rose later faded into the purple of twilight, which for several hours gave a steady glow of lilac to the pack.

The Sailor’s Recreation.

Bow of the Belgica After a Collision with an Iceberg.

We did not retire until late to-night. There is something about our present position which suggests many premonitions. For forty-five hours we have not consciously moved, and the ice holds us with a grip which promises us no relief for forty-five weeks. There is a cheer and a new joy in the curious colour effect of the coming night, and this is about the only encouragement in our present prospects. We have persistently tried, to-day and to-night, to steam northward and southward, and eastward and westward, but the Belgica refuses to mind the helm, while the ice disputes our right of way. The fact is forced more and more upon us that we are fixed for the winter, and destined to pass through the first long antarctic night. Gerlache has all along manifested an inclination for wintering in the pack, but every officer has been so much opposed to this that the Commandant did not openly betray his disposition. To-night Gerlache is sounding the sentiments of all hands, upon their willingness to winter in the ice. Everybody is opposed to it, but if it must be, they are inclined to submit gracefully to the unquestionable fate.