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
On the morning of February 8th we had completed a rough survey of
the mainland eastward, and a running survey of the eastern banks of
the Liege and Brabant Islands. We did not follow the channels leading
northward and westward, nor did we prolong our examination of the
lands in that direction beyond the banks of Belgica Strait. We steamed
around Cape Anna, and then headed for a remarkable cliff, at the base
of which we made our fourteenth debarkment. The day was a delight. The
sun showered its full wealth of rays on the sloping snows with such
force that the reflected beams made the air and the water perfectly
dazzling. It was a photographic day. As the ship steamed rapidly along,
spreading out one panorama after another of a new world, the noise of
the camera was as regular and successive as the tap of a stock ticker.
Not less than three hundred photographs were taken on this day. Surely,
in the hundred miles of land which we discovered on this memorable day
there were no landmarks which were not on our plates. Everybody was
on deck with pencil and paper, some making nautical and geographical
notes, others geological and topographical notes, and all recording the
strange other-world scenic effects. Even the sailors, the cabin-boy,
and the cooks were out with paper and note-books, taking long looks and
then bending over their paper.
The landscape was not materially different from what it had been along
the scores of miles which we had discovered during the days previous,
but the clearness of the atmosphere made it possible to see to the
limit of every point of the horizon. There were on this day many
notable sights, but I shall mention only two. Early in the afternoon we
saw on the northern side of the channel a great red cliff of granite.
Its bare face was only about one thousand feet high, but, with its
snow-covered base and its icy crest, it stood up boldly to an altitude
of three thousand feet against the clouds, which now came from the
south-west. A little farther south the channel was divided into two
arms by an island, with a bold round rock as a headland (Cape Eivind
Astrup). We took the western arm. This passage was not more than from
two to five miles in width, and its length was about forty miles. We
entered it at four o’clock, and steamed for six hours in a silvery
fjord, whose walls of ice and rock rose over us to a height of from
three to four thousand feet. At ten o’clock we saw the black sky of the
Pacific and the terminating banks of the newly discovered Strait.
Here, within sight of the Pacific, was a large bay (Borgen Bay)
surrounded by mountains (Osterrieth Mountains) fully three thousand
feet high and covered with snow to their summits. In this bay we rested
for the night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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