Through the first Antarctic night, 1898-1899 : $b a narrative of the voyage of the "Belgica" among newly discovered lands and over an unknown sea about the south poleCook, Frederick Albert
History
Through the first Antarctic night, 1898-1899 : $b a narrative of the voyage of the "Belgica" among newly discovered lands and over an unknown sea about the south pole
Cook, Frederick Albert
Antarctica; Antarctica -- Discovery and exploration -- Belgian; Belgica (Ship); Voyages and travels
There is a somewhat surprising movement in the individual masses of
the pack, as is seen by the changing position of the various icebergs.
In this movement there is regular order in the direction. It is not a
motion like the entire drift of the main pack, to and fro in response
to the wind. The _Belgica_, firmly held in the body of a floe
whose general diameter has been about four miles, has turned her prow
steadily with but very little interruption from south in May, to west
in August, to north in October, and she is now 22° on her way to
the east. From this we can draw only one conclusion--that there is
a feeble under-current which, acting on the bergs, is the cause of
local disturbance in every pack. Our observations thus far verify this
curious suggestion. The floe in which we are fixed has no icebergs in
its grasp, like many of the floes around us. If such a current existed
it would not be propelled with the same force as the berg-charged
floes, but with a tendency to lag behind an active mass to the one side
would, by friction against its side, cause it to revolve. Such has been
our experience. A group of floes, in which there have been several huge
tabular bergs entangled, has slowly but persistently passed around our
starboard, while we have turned in response to it; and as a final proof
of this movement we have constantly observed the appearance of new
bergs south, and the disappearance of old friends to the north.
The winter effects on the ship have been extremely injurious. Her hull
has been subjected to very little pressure, but she has been unevenly
covered with snow; the stern, buried and forced below her natural
water-line, has made her leak; the bow has been exposed to the many
alternate freezings and thawings; the rigging, for much of the time,
has been loaded with a ponderous weight of accumulated hoar-frost
which, with its continued movement in the never-ceasing storms, has
weakened every fibre of rope, and now the burning sun splits the masts
like sticks of green wood near a fire. The interior has also suffered
great injury. The constant drying effects of the internal heat has
split or cracked nearly every important beam, while the seams are
everywhere wide open. There are two things we seldom have here which
will certainly seem strange to my readers. They are sunshine and
snow-showers. In a region where the sun does not set for a period of
more than two months, one certainly has a right to expect fair and
sunny days, and likewise in an area where the whole face of the earth,
both land and water, is buried under a perennial sheet of snow one
naturally expects to see frequent falls of heavy snow; but in reality,
both sunshine and actual snow-showers are very rare, so much so that
their appearance affords a special delight and a great surprise. To-day
we have had the phenomenal pleasure of having both in one day. Real
sunbeams in the morning, large and slowly falling flakes of snow in
the afternoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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