The lands of silence

Borchgrevink

It was in 1894 that Mr Svend Foyn, the great Norwegian shipowner, sent a vessel southwards to determine whether the despatch of whaling ships to Antarctic seas would be remunerative. She was commanded by Captain Christensen, and he reached Cape Adare and Robertson Bay of Sir James Ross. The voyage was not repeated, but there was a volunteer on board named Carstens Borchgrevink who, in 1898, induced Sir George Newnes to supply the funds for an expedition under his command. Borchgrevink bought a Norwegian sealer named the Pollux, of 521 tons, built in Arendal, Captain Jensen being master. Re-named the Southern Cross she left Hobart 19th December, 1898, and arrived at Cape Adare 17th February, 1899, and the landing party was put on shore in Robertson Bay, with a house taken out in pieces. Here the party wintered, it being arranged that the ship should return for them next summer. Nothing of any importance was possible in the way of sledge travelling from Robertson Bay. But there was a very able staff—Mr Colbeck, R.N.R., the magnetic observer and surveyor, Mr Bernacchi the physicist, Hanson (who died during the winter and was buried at Cape Adare) and Hugh Evans the biologists. All the staff did their work admirably, and the results were published by the authorities of the British Museum in 1902. When the ship returned she followed the track of Sir James Ross’s ships. Borchgrevink landed on the barrier and then returned to New Zealand.

De Gerlache

The Belgian Expedition was well supported by patriotic subscribers. Captain de Gerlache was chosen to command it, and in February, 1896, there were sufficient funds to enable him to buy a suitable ship in Norway—the Patria of 241 tons, built at Svelvig near Drammen in 1884. She was very thoroughly refitted and strengthened at Sandefjord, and on June 19th I spent the day there and was very favourably impressed by the efficiency and ability of the Belgian Commander and above all by his modesty. Lieutenant Lecointe was his second in command, Arçtowski went as geologist, Racovitza as naturalist, Danco as magnetic observer, and Dr Cook, who had been with Peary in Whale Sound, as surgeon. Roald Amundsen was 2nd Lieutenant. The Patria was renamed the Belgica.

The expedition of de Gerlache approached the South Shetlands at the western end of the group by Smith and Low Islands to the Gulf of Hughes, which is an expansion of the Orleans Channel discovered by Dumont d’Urville. The Belgica then proceeded down a channel with the north-west coast of Graham Land on one side, and four large islands on the other which de Gerlache named Liège, Brabant, Gand, and Anvers. The channel, which was named after de Gerlache, led into the Pacific Ocean. The scenery on both sides was magnificent.

Captain de Gerlache gave as many opportunities of landing as possible, and M. Arçtowski, the geologist, was specially eager to examine the rocks and the glaciation. At his first landing he found eruptive rocks of great density, of a deep green colour. He next landed on Trinity or Palmer Island. The rocks were erratic, from a moraine, and consisted of granite, and also of numerous ancient eruptive rocks. The latitude was 63° 57′ S. The landings of Arçtowski and his messmates were, in fact, very numerous as the Belgica steamed down Gerlache Channel, with interesting glacial and geological results; the officers meanwhile making surveys of the coast. Arçtowski thought that the channel and the islands were once covered with a vast glacier. He found some evidence that the glaciers were now receding.

On leaving the channel the Belgica ran south along the western coast of Graham Land, passing many flat-topped icebergs. The Circle was crossed and the Antarctic regions entered on the 14th February, 1898. De Gerlache tried to approach the Alexander Island of Bellingshausen, but was stopped by the pack. It was, however, sighted. The coast beyond seemed to turn to the east. The Alexander Island glaciers were found not to reach the sea, coalescing in a gigantic ice-foot or terrace.

De Gerlache then left the coast of Graham Land and the Belgica was steered westward into the Pacific on February 24th, being in 69° 30′ S. Working through the closely-packed ice the ship had reached a latitude of 71° 31′ S. on the 20th March, in longitude 85° 16′ W. The young ice was forming fast, and it became evident that they would have to winter in the pack. During that dreary winter the ship drifted from 85° to 90° W., the Peter Island of Bellingshausen being in 92°. As summer approached it was necessary to cut a canal to the open water, but at length the Belgica was clear of the ice on March 14th, 1899.

Over the area that the vessel drifted during the winter the depth averaged about 270 fathoms. This was a continental shelf, showing that the land was at no great distance to the south. At the edge of the shelf to the north there was an abrupt descent to 800 fathoms.

This discovery of the edge of the continental shelf in the Pacific Ocean is important, combined with the discoveries of Bellingshausen. But all the work done by this expedition was well done and has increased our knowledge of the geology and glaciation of Graham Land. Captain de Gerlache conducted the expedition with ability and success. He has since done very useful Arctic work in the same ship, with the Duc d’Orléans. M. Arçtowski’s excellent paper on the exploration of Antarctic lands during the voyage of the Belgica was included in the Royal Geographical Society’s Antarctic Manual199.

Nordenskiöld

The Swedish expedition, which was equipped at Gothenburg in 1901, was intended to investigate the geology of the south-west part of the South Shetlands, where fossils were first made known by Captain Larsen, and to complete and rectify the topography. The command was given to Dr Otto Nordenskiöld, an eminent Swedish geologist with Arctic experience, and a nephew of Baron Nordenskiöld. With him was associated another distinguished geologist, Gunnar Andersson, who was to join after the first year. The ship, named the Antarctic, was commanded by Anton Larsen, who as already stated had done splendid work on the east coast of Graham Land. With him was Lieutenant Duse of the Norwegian army as cartographer, and Lieutenant Sobral of the Argentine Navy joined at Buenos Aires as magnetic and meteorological observer.

Leaving Gothenburg in October, 1901, the Antarctic, after putting into Falmouth, reached the Falkland Islands on the 1st January, 1902. Proceeding to the South Shetland Islands it was decided that Nordenskiöld should winter as near the fossil-bearing island of Sir George Seymour as possible. A sheltered position was selected on the neighbouring Snow Hill Island, where the house was set up and provisions, instruments, and other necessaries landed. The party consisted of Nordenskiöld, Ekelof the surgeon, the Argentine Lieutenant Sobral, a very useful person named Bodman, and two seamen. May and June were months of storm, but the rest of the winter was safely passed, and in October Nordenskiöld, who had obtained some dogs at the Falkland Islands, started on an expedition to the south. He was just a month away, but did not get as far south as the Antarctic Circle. Later in November he made two journeys to Seymour Island to collect fossils, with very important results.

The Antarctic returned to the Falkland Islands, whither Dr Gunnar Andersson had arrived. Taking him on board, Captain Larsen spent some time in exploring South Georgia, and then proceeded to Tierra del Fuego, entering the Beagle Channel. The needs of the Antarctic were supplied at the Argentine settlement of Ushuaia while Andersson explored the interior. The course was then south, passing Deception and Trinity Islands, and surveying the Orleans Channel. The ultimate destination was Nordenskiöld’s winter quarters, to take all on board and return. But Dr Andersson wanted to undertake some exploring, and was landed at Hope Bay, at the extreme north-west end of Graham Land, in order to reach Nordenskiöld by land. His companions were Lieutenant Duse and a seaman. Insuperable obstacles intervened to prevent the completion of their journey, and they returned to Hope Bay, where they built a stone hut. The abundance of penguins and seals prevented any danger from starvation or scurvy, and Dr Andersson found that the locality was rich in fossils.

The Antarctic had left in order to embark the party with Nordenskiöld, but she was beset off Joinville Island, drifted away, and underwent great pressure in the pack. This continued, her ribs were broken and she began to sink, but there was fortunately time to get all the boats out and fill them with provisions and stores before the ship foundered off Paulet Island. The shipwrecked crew pulled to the shore and Captain Larsen established winter quarters and built a stone house. In the spring Dr Andersson and his party succeeded in reaching Nordenskiöld’s winter quarters, and a little later Captain Larsen manned a boat and went to Hope Bay only to find Andersson and his comrades gone. He then went on to Nordenskiöld’s winter quarters, where he found both parties all well.

When the Nordenskiöld expedition did not return after the first winter, grave anxiety was felt. The Argentine Government ordered their naval attaché in London, a young officer named Julio Irizar, to obtain all the necessary equipment, and then to proceed to Buenos Aires and take command of a relief ship. He came to me for advice, and the able Antarctic Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, Mr Cyril Longhurst, gave him all possible assistance with regard to equipment. After visiting Norway for furs and other gear, he sailed for Buenos Aires and took command of the Uruguay relief ship. On the 8th November, 1903, he arrived off Snow Hill Island, and took all the Swedes on board with their valuable collections. Thence proceeding to Paulet Island he ultimately found the shipwrecked crew, and all were taken safely home. Captain Irizar conducted his relief expedition with remarkable skill and ability from start to finish.

The geographical results of the Nordenskiöld expedition were the surveys which completed our knowledge of the intricate topography of the south-western part of the South Shetlands, correcting former work of Ross and d’Urville, and discovering much that was new. The geological results were of great importance, for they point to the connection of Graham Land with South America at a recent geological period. Graham Land and most of the islands belong to the region of folding and of Andine eruptives. The rocks are plutonic and, according to Nordenskiöld, belong or are closely related to a peculiar type of eruptives characteristic of the American cordilleras throughout their length. Ross Island and Vega Island are volcanic, composed of basalt and lava flows. Paulet Island also contains cones of eruption.

In the fossils of Hope Bay, Dr Andersson discovered a very rich Jurassic flora, consisting of conifers, mare’s tails, and ferns in profusion. In abundance of species Hope Bay far surpasses all Jurassic floras hitherto known in South America. They are fresh-water deposits. The Seymour and Snow Hill formations are Cretaceous. There are many ammonites, cephalopods, bivalves, and trunks of fossil wood in the sandstone; there are also birds, and a mammal belonging to the Tertiary period. On Cockburn Island there was a curious conglomerate of pecten shells, formed on basaltic tuff in Pliocene times.

In Jurassic times the land must have been covered with rich vegetation in a mild and uniform climate. At Hope Bay the fresh-water lake flora has close affinity with the contemporaneous floras of India and Europe. After the Cretaceous surface was lifted above the sea level, mountain ranges were formed. The South Shetland Islands were once a clearly-marked mountain range parallel to that of Graham Land, and the Gerlache channel was a longitudinal valley.

During the Miocene period there were violent eruptions causing a great accumulation of volcanic tuff. The fauna of this period was closely allied to the Miocene fauna of Patagonia. On Seymour Island five new genera of fossil penguins and the large cetacean, Zeuglodon, were found in the Tertiary beds; also the impressions of large and very distinct leaves of an Araucaria, a beech tree, and ferns.

Patagonia was connected by land with Graham Land, and spread out to a great width. At that time the warm coast current from Brazil would have flowed down to the coasts of Antarctica, causing that region to be much warmer than it is now. These geological facts give rise to alluring and not altogether impossible conjectures.

The results of the Nordenskiöld expedition were of great value, serving to connect, as they do, the Andes with the Antarctic mountain range of Graham Land, and perhaps with a continuous range further south. The expedition was without comparison the most important of all the private enterprises which have undertaken discoveries in the far south in recent years, except of course the great expeditions of Captain Scott200.

Bruce

The expedition under Mr Bruce was for a very short time south of the Antarctic circle, most of its two years and a half duration being devoted to scientific investigations in two islands of the South Orkneys.

Mr Bruce was a natural history student. In that capacity, in 1893, he made a voyage to the south in one of the whalers, the Balaena, Captain Robertson. From 1894–96 he was at the meteorological station on the summit of Ben Nevis, and in 1896–97 he served under Jackson during his last winter in Franz Josef Land. Having received a promise of support from Mr James and Major Andrew Coats, wealthy manufacturers at Paisley, he went to Norway and bought an old vessel of 400 tons called the Hecla, which required much repair. Captain Robertson was master of the ship, which was renamed the Scotia, and there was a scientific staff. The main object appears to have been deep sea sounding. The Scotia sailed on the 2nd November 1902, and in the first year she crossed the Antarctic Circle, went south as far as 70° 25′, and then returned to winter at the South Orkneys.

The two islands of the South Orkneys, called Laurie and Coronation, were discovered by a sealing captain named Powell in the Dove in 1821. They had been visited by Weddell, who named them, by Dumont d’Urville in 1838, and by Larsen in 1893. Bruce and his staff took meteorological, magnetic, and tidal observations, and made biological and geological researches and collections. Silurian fossils were found, and some evidence was obtained to show that the Patagonian coast once extended to these islands and beyond them.

In the second season the Scotia crossed the Antarctic Circle in 32° W. on February 27th, 1904, finding a depth of 2630 fathoms. The ship was now in King George’s Sea of Weddell. Icebergs of immense size were met with, far too large to have come off the mountain slopes. They pointed to a vast glacial formation analogous to Ross’s ice barrier. On the 3rd March, when in 72° 18′ S. and 17° 59′ W. with a depth of 1131 fathoms, a line of ice cliffs 100 to 180 feet high was sighted, but could not be approached nearer than two miles. These cliffs were probably resting on land which is a continuation of the coast of Antarctica from Enderby Land. The line of cliffs was traced for 150 miles, and a sounding on the continental shelf gave 159 fathoms. Mr Bruce named the ice cliffs Coats Land. On the 9th March, the Scotia was in 74° 1′ S. and 22° W. and on the 14th she was headed north. The soundings obtained were from 2000 to 2600 fathoms. On the 27th the Antarctic Circle was again crossed, the Scotia having been 28 days south of it. After a second winter at the South Orkneys the expedition returned.

Drygalski

German scientific students had long taken a great interest in Antarctic research, and Dr Neumeyer, a native of Frankenthal near Worms, did more than anyone else out of England to arouse an interest in the subject. He had been in charge of the observatory at Melbourne from 1858 to 1862, and afterwards became chief of the Seewarte at Hamburg. When the German Antarctic expedition was decided upon and funds were raised, it was wisely resolved to build a vessel specially for the service, to be named the Gauss after the great magnetician of Göttingen. She was built at Kiel of the best dry oak and pitch pine. Her gross tonnage was 650, her length 165 ft., breadth 37 ft., depth 22 ft., speed when laden 5 knots. She could carry 600 tons of coal, and was well adapted for Antarctic work.

Professor Neumeyer was of opinion that, to secure adequate results, the command should be given to a naval officer. But eventually Dr Erik von Drygalski was selected, a physicist who had studied glacial action in Greenland and was the author of a work on the subject201. An accomplished scientific staff accompanied him, and Captain Hans Ruser was Captain of the ship and navigator.

The Gauss left Kerguelen Island on the 31st January, 1902, entering the ice in February, and working for the Termination Land of Wilkes, which was not found. Land was sighted, but the Gauss wintered in the pack outside the Antarctic Circle in 66° 13′ S. All the scientific staff were diligently at work, and valuable series of meteorological and magnetic observations were taken by Dr Friedrich Bidlingmaier of Potsdam. The other members of the scientific staff were Dr Ernst Van Hoffen, Dr Hans Gazert, and Dr Emil Philippi. In the summer a travelling party reached the land, distant about 50 miles. A conical mountain consisting of volcanic rock was discovered and named Gaussberg, and collections were made. A line of ice cliffs was seen, extending from 89° to 94° E., which was named König Wilhelm II Land. The place where the Gauss wintered was over a comparatively shallow bank, within the continental shelf. The ship was freed on February 8th, 1903, and reached Cape Town on June 9th.

It is to be regretted that Dr Drygalski did not go south on a meridian nearer to Kempe Land, when it is probable that he would have been more successful from a geographical point of view. Antarctic work was given up by the Germans, and the Gauss was sold to the Canadian Government202.

Charcot

Dr Charcot, son of the celebrated physician, an energetic and gifted Frenchman, endowed with a peculiar charm of manner, undertook to continue the work on the coast of Graham Land. He sailed for the south in a little vessel called the Français in 1903 and passed a winter at Wandel Island, afterwards cruising for some distance along the coast of Graham Land. Returning to France he resolved to construct and equip a small steamer specially for Antarctic work. She was built at St Malo in 1908 and named the Pourquoi Pas (450 h.-p., length 131 ft., beam 30 ft.), and Charcot sailed in her from Havre August 15th, 1908. From Punta Arenas he sailed south, and examined the coasts of Adelaide Island of Biscoe, landing on one of a group of small islets on the 15th January, 1909. The winter was passed at Petermann Island. In the summer of 1909–1910 he followed the edge of the pack as far as 125° W., sighting Bellingshausen’s Peter Island on January 16th, 1910. He had previously sighted the Alexander I Land of Bellingshausen on board the Français at a distance of 60 miles, on January 11th-13th, 1905. After again sighting it, he shaped a course into the South Pacific, when south of 70°, calling a distant appearance of land Charcot Land after his father. He returned to Rouen June 5th, 1910.

These two voyages comprise a useful piece of polar work. Dr Charcot has won the admiration of all who know him, and all true Britons feel a regard for the gallant Frenchman when they remember his camaraderie and affection for Captain Scott.

Filchner

In 1911 Filchner, an officer in the Prussian army, came forward to raise funds for an Antarctic expedition, announcing that there was much talk of theories, but that he was going to cut the Gordian knot by going to see. Having raised the necessary funds, Filchner’s plan was to explore the Weddell Quadrant to its apex. He bought a Norwegian whaler built at Arendal and named the Njord, and took with him a scientific staff, Dr Koenig of Vienna being the naturalist, and Dr Heinrich Seelheim the geographer. The master of the ship was Captain Jorgensen. The expedition left Hamburg in May, 1911, with all the equipment for long inland journeys, including three motors.

Filchner went the right way to work. There was no impenetrable pack for him. He put the ship’s stem straight at it, somewhere near Weddell’s furthest, and forced her through. After battling with the pack over 120 miles the ship came out into open water, and land was sighted in 76° 35′ extending to 79°. There was an ice barrier to the westward. Unfortunately the ship was carried away to the north before she could be properly secured, and she drifted about in the ice-cumbered sea during the winter. The new land was named after the late venerable Regent of Bavaria. Captain Jorgensen died before the ship returned to Buenos Aires.