Continuing the ascent on the 16th out of a valley we had crossed on the previous day, we halted on the top of a ridge within view of German "territory"—a small, dark object bearing due west, evidently bare rock and presumably Gaussberg. The course was altered accordingly towards this object and everything went smoothly for ten miles. Then followed an area where the ice fell steeply in waves to the sea, crossed by crevasses which averaged fifty feet in width. The snow-bridges were deeply concave, and the lower side of each chasm was raised into a ridge five to ten feet high. Making fast the alpine rope on to the sledges, one of us went ahead to test the bridge, and then the sledges, one at a time, were rushed down into the trough and up on the other side. After crossing ten or more crevasses in this fashion, we were forced to camp by the approach of a rapidly moving fog driven before a strong westerly wind. While camp was being prepared, it was discovered that a tin of kerosene on the front sledge had been punctured causing the loss of a gallon of fuel. Fortunately, we were well within our allowance, so the accident was not serious. Soon after tea our attention was drawn to a pattering on the tent like rain, caused by a fall of sago snow.
In the morning the weather was clearer, and we saw that it was impossible to reach Gaussberg by a direct route. The ice ahead was cleft and split in all directions, and, in places, vertical faces stood up to a height of one hundred feet. The floe was littered with hundreds of bergs, and in several localities there were black spots which resembled small rocks, but it was impossible to approach close enough to be certain. Retracing the way out of the broken ice, we steered in a south-westerly direction, just above the line of serac and crevassed ice. The coast here trended to the south-west, forming the eastern side of Drygalski's Posadowsky Bay. The going was heavy, the surface being covered by a layer of frost-crystals deposited during the night. A fog came up again early in the afternoon and had quite surrounded us at camping time. During the day there were fine clouds of ice-crystals in the air, and at 8 P.M. a fog-bow was seen in the east.
Turning out in the morning we saw Gaussberg peeping over a ridge to the west, but were still prevented from steering directly towards it by the broken surface. When we had advanced ten miles, a heavy fog brought us to a halt at 5 P.M.
On Friday the 20th, in spite of a sticky surface, thirteen miles was covered on a west-south-west course. The ice-cap continued to be undulating but free of crevasses. The altitude was between two thousand five hundred and three thousand feet.
In the morning, after travelling two miles, we came in sight of Gaussberg again and steered directly towards it. The surface was good with a downward grade. At five and a quarter miles a depot was made of the small sledge and most of the food, in expectation of a clear run to the mountain. Not far ahead, however, were two broken-backed ridges intersecting the course, and a detour had to be made to the south to cross them higher up.
Midsummer's day, December 22, was spent in the tent, a move being impossible on account of the high wind. In the afternoon we walked ahead a short distance and reconnoitred six or seven crumpled ridges. Though the barometer had been falling ominously for twenty-four hours, the bad weather did not continue.
Gaussberg was reached in the afternoon, after our track had passed through seventeen miles of dangerous country. For the first few miles the surface consisted of a series of steep, buckled ice-ridges; later, it was snow-covered, but at times literally cut into a network of crevasses.
The only approach to Gaussberg from the plateau is from the south. To the east and west there are magnificent ice-falls, the debris from which litters the floe for miles around.
December 24 and Christmas Day were devoted to examining the mountain. Dovers made a long series of observations for longitude, latitude and magnetic variation, while Hoadley examined the rocks and took photographs.
On the southern side, the ice-cap abuts against this extinct volcano at an elevation of about four hundred feet above sea-level; the summit of the mountain rises another eight hundred feet. On the north, the rock descends to the floe. Gaussberg is pyramidal in shape, falling steeply, from a ridge at the summit. The sides are covered with a loose rubble of volcanic fragments, square yards of which commence to slide at the slightest disturbance. This renders climbing difficult and accounts for the large numbers of isolated blocks fringing the base.