There was an unusually heavy snowfall during 1913. When the air was heavily charged with moisture, as in midsummer, the falls would consist of small (sago) or larger (tapioca) rounded pellets. Occasionally one would see beautiful complicated patterns in the form of hexagonal flakes. When low temperatures were the rule, small, plain, hexagonal stars or spicules fell. Often throughout a single snowfall many types would be precipitated. Thus, in September, in one instance, the fall commenced with fluffy balls and then passed to tapioca snow, sago snow, six-rayed stars and spicules.
Wireless communication was still maintained, though September was found to be such a "disturbed" month—possibly owing to the brilliant aurorae—that not a great many messages were exchanged. Jeffryes was not in the best of health, so that Bickerton took over the operating work. Though at first signals could only be received slowly, Bickerton gradually improved with practice and was able to "keep up his end" until November 20, when daylight became continuous. One great advantage, which by itself justified the existence of the wireless plant, was the fact that time-signals were successfully received from Melbourne Observatory by way of Macquarie Island, and Bage was thus able to improve on his earlier determinations and to establish a fundamental longitude.
During this same happy month of September, whose first day marked the event of "One hundred days to the coming of the Ship" there was a great revival in biological work. Hodgeman made several varieties of bag-traps which were lowered over the edge of the harbour-ice, and many large "worms" and crustaceans were caught and preserved.
On September 14 Bickerton started to construct a hand-dredge, which was ready for use by the next evening. It was a lovely, cloudless day on the 16th and the sea-ice, after more than two weeks, still spread to the north in a firm, unbroken sheet. We went out on skis to reconnoitre, and found that the nearest "lead" was too far away to make dredging a safe proposition. So we were contented to kill a seal and bring it home before lunch, continuing to sink the ice-shaft above the moraine for the rest of the day.
The wind rose to the "seventies" on September 17, and the sea-ice was scattered to the north. On the 19th—a fine day—there were many detached pieces of floe which drifted in with a northerly breeze, and on one of these, floating in an ice-girt cove to the west, a sea-leopard was observed sunning himself. He was a big, vicious-looking brute, and we determined to secure him if possible. The first thing was to dispatch him before he escaped from the floe. This Madigan did in three shots from a Winchester rifle. A long steel-shod sledge was then dragged from the Hut and used to bridge the interval between the ice-foot and the floe. After the specimen had been flayed, the skin and a good supply of dogs' meat were hauled across and sledged home. On the 30th another sea-leopard came swimming in near the harbour's entrance, apparently on the look-out for seals or penguins. Including the one seen during 1912, only three of these animals were observed during our two years' sojourn in Adelie Land.
Dredgings in depths up to five fathoms were done inside the boat harbour and just off its entrance on five separate occasions between September 22 and the end of the month. Many "worms," crustaceans, pteropods, asteroids, gastropods and hydroids were obtained, and McLean and I had many interesting hours classifying the specimens. The former preserved and labelled them, establishing a small laboratory in the loft above the "dining-room." The only disadvantage of this arrangement was that various "foreign bodies" would occasionally come tumbling through the interspaces between the flooring boards of the loft while a meal was in progress.
Some Antarctic petrels were shot and examined for external and internal parasites. Fish were caught in two traps made by Hodgeman and myself in October, but unfortunately the larger of the two was lost during a blizzard. However, on October 11 a haul of fifty-two fish was made with hand-lines off the boat harbour, and we had a pleasant change in the menu for dinner. They were of the type known as Notothenia, to which reference has already been made.
By October 13, when a stray silver-grey petrel appeared, every one was on the qui vive for the coming of the penguins. In 1912 they had arrived on October 12, and as there was much floating ice on the northern horizon, we wondered if their migration to land had been impeded.
The winds were very high for the ensuing two days, and on the 17th the horizon was clearer and more "water sky" was visible. Before lunch on that day there was not a living thing along the steep, overhanging ice-foot, but by the late afternoon thirteen birds had effected a landing, and those who were not resting after their long swim were hopping about making a survey of the nearest rookeries. One always has a "soft spot" for these game little creatures—there is something irresistibly human about them—and, situated as we were, the wind seemed of little account now that the foreshores were to be populated by the penguins—our harbingers of summer and the good times to be. Three days later, at the call of the season, a skua gull came flapping over the Hut.
It was rather a singular circumstance that on the evening of the 17th, coincident with the disappearance of the ice on the horizon, wireless signals suddenly came through very strongly in the twilight at 9.30 P.M., and for many succeeding nights continued at the same intensity. On the other hand, during September, when the sea was either firmly frozen or strewn thickly with floe-ice, communication was very fitful and uncertain. The fact is therefore suggested that wireless waves are for some reason more readily transmitted across a surface of water than across ice.