A Tonite Explosion Used in Efforts to Free the Belgica.
November 27.—Our winter temperature was very slow in falling, and the minimum was not reached until after sunrise. Our lowest observation was recorded on September 8, -43.1° C. In less than ten days after this it had risen to a fraction above zero, and we were drenched with rain and melting snow; since then it has occasionally fallen to -20°, but it has slowly and persistently risen until now the normal temperature is one or two degrees below zero, falling with a southerly wind to -10° and rising above zero with a strong northerly wind.
The zoölogist has seen what he persists in calling a new bird. It resembles the giant petrel in size and colour, but its motion is entirely different. Anatomical details have not been observed, and, “The bird,” says the naturalist, “is either shot-proof or it is able to dodge the lead.” But since Mr. Racovitza had considerable fun from our mistaken reports of true sea-leopards, we have taken advantage of this story to restore our fallen reputation. We persist in saying that unless he produces the bird, or gives us an exact technical description, anatomical and physiological, we maintain the privilege of ascribing the sight to a kind of sunny intoxication which at present, under the influence of the midnight sun, is not uncommon.
CHAPTER XXVIII
SUMMER (CONTINUED).
December 2.—Our drift lately has been almost imperceptible. The winds, always feeble and never continuing long in one direction, have simply kept up a little agitation in the pack while the tides have driven the bergs to and fro a little, and thus the pack has become more and more divided. For most of the time the wind has followed the sun around the horizon, and nothing could be more ineffectual in making ice navigable than light, shifting winds. Since it takes the pack a long time to gain momentum, a wind which does not last for several days is of no use unless it is a tempest. Our latitude to-day is 70° 18′, longitude 83° 25′. Our drift throughout the season has been considerable. If it had been in one direction it could have taken us across the south pole or to the magnetic pole.
During the winter, and a part of the advancing summer, we have made various guesses as to when the bark would be liberated from the grasp of the pack. The captain has set the day of departure at October 25; I at November 15; Amundsen, February 1. Both the captain and I are already overruled, and there is even some fear of a possible second winter. Yesterday a lead made its appearance 100 metres to the east, running north, and for the past few weeks we have watched with considerable interest the slow but persistent diminution of our pan. From its original nearly circular form, five miles across and three metres thick, it has dwindled to less than one-half its original size, and even the thickness of the ice is rapidly decreasing. The temperature has gradually ascended, with very many irregular curves, from an average in September of -18° to -3° C. now. But the change has been so irregular that the effect has hardly been felt.
During the entire winter and throughout the year, though snow fell almost every day, even on the brightest and the clearest days, the total snowfall seemed small at all times. There are two reasons for this. First, the actual snow-showers, as seen in temperate regions, periods when much snow falls within a short time, were quite unknown. Second, the topography of the pack is such that every wind carries before it huge drifts of snow which it deposits in open leads, where it is either melted or converted into ice at once. During the blackness of the night, and during the endless gray snow-days since, we have constantly longed for a fair old-time snow-storm: a storm bringing sufficient snow to blanket the ship and keep us warm inside: a gentle, quiet fall of large, soft flakes to soften the hard outlines of the pack, and without the ever accompanying thunder of winds and whizzing, cutting, maddening ice-crystals. But such a pleasure has not been mixed with our assigned experiences. I think it is Nansen who says “the snowless ice-plain is like a life without love,” and in this there is a truth which can only be realised by men who, like us, are imprisoned in the polar pack. The constant war of the winds, which here strive for a place, brings about a restless agitation of the ice. Now it is driven east, then north, then south, and so on, tearing the floes, crushing pans, crowding huge pieces over each other, making hummocks, cliffs, ridges, crevasses, and what not; a veritable chaos of icy destruction, a surface impassable for a journey, and unpleasant to the eye.
The sharp, rough angles of the hard ice project like the ribs of a famished animal, making a picture quite as melancholy in the feeble light of winter and early summer. Snow, deep, soft snow, has upon this coarse framework an effect like that of fat on the animal. It covers the ugly open rifts, pads the sharp corners, and it gives a smooth, pleasant, rounded surface to the pack in general. It buries the unpleasant ruggedness and the gloomy blackness under a velvety covering of white, which is always pleasing to the eye. It gives to the pack a face at once suggestive of warmth and fertility. It is only within the past few days that we have had sufficient snow at one time to give to our moving sea of ice this much-to-be-desired aspect. Snow has fallen in great quantities; not softly and without wind, but noisily and with the never-ceasing gale which is so characteristic of this region. The quantities, however, have been sufficient to bury the Belgica in a huge drift, and the bare ridges, hummocks and irregularities, are softened by the most beautiful crystal drift in which the sunbeams play like kittens.
December 16.—There appears to be a promise in the air and in the quick rising of the barometer which bespeaks a tempest, and how we long for it! Almost the entire year has been one long monotonous series of tempests, but now that we need one to break asunder the floe which retains us as prisoners, and open navigable leads of water, it is tardy in making its appearance. For nearly two months the barometer has been steady, and only spasmodic jerks or varying breezes have driven us about. If we had had but one of the many tempests which, during the winter, made life so miserable, we might have been freed. The temperature is rapidly rising; now generally about -2° C., at midday slightly above zero, and at midnight from -6° C. to -10° C. We thus have our greatest diurnal range. The snow on the pack is melting with a surprising rapidity, and about the ship there is a zone of water in which she sits in her natural environment. The pack everywhere is breaking into small pans, but our old floe holds together with a surprising tenacity; it is about seven miles in circumference, and is lessening very slowly along its fringe, but apparently the snow which the masts have swept and condensed out of the winds holds it with unnatural firmness, for it is certainly the largest floe in our neighbourhood. We watch every new piece which is torn off its edge with a pleasure and an assumed confidence of an early liberation, but if the Belgica were now in free water she could do nothing but wait. The ice is so closely packed that progress would be absolutely impossible.
These unsystematic winds and steady weather have kept us in a locality over which we have sounded and fished, hence there is a sort of stagnation of work—no sounding and no fishing. To obtain birds for the collection, meat for our food, and blubber to melt snow is, however, a matter of no little labour. The men have had the second week of half-days to mend their personal effects, and since these are next to nothing they use the time in hunting, reading and discussion. A new system of penguin hunting has been discovered. At meal-time a cornet is used to call the men together, and the penguins, it seems, also like this music; for when they hear it they make directly for the ship, and remain as long as the music lasts, but leave at once when it ceases. In this manner we have only to wait and seize our visitors to obtain penguin steaks, which are, just at present, the prize of the menu. But not so with the seals,—they like music, and will come up out of the water onto the ice to enjoy it, but they will not deposit their carcasses, penguin fashion, on board. On the other hand, when we approach them they are more easily obtained. A shot from a revolver straightens them out, but then, we have to transport 150 pounds of blubber and 50 pounds of meat over rough, hummocky ice to the ship. This is an occupation which easily drives sport out of one. Our good sailors, however, do it voluntarily, and at times when free from regular work.