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On the 7th of November, we passed Franklin Island;[129] and the next day the cones of Mts. Erebus and Terror[130] on Ross Island appeared, with the long line of the Parry Mountains[131] beyond. There was a white line of the great ice barrier, rising perpendicularly to a height of two hundred feet like the rocky cliffs of Quebec, and marking the end of southward navigation. In the afternoon we entered McMurdo Sound and stood off the coast[132] near Mt. Erebus. Beyond it rose the white, ghostlike height of Mt. Terror, ten thousand, nine hundred feet in altitude.
One of the graduate assistants – a brilliant young fellow named Danforth[133] – noticed lava on the snowy slope. On the barren shore, and on the lofty ice barrier in the background, myriads of grotesque penguins walked.
Using small boats, we landed on Ross Island shortly after midnight on the morning of the 9th, preparing to unload supplies. Our camp on the frozen shore below the volcano’s slope was only a provisional one, headquarters were situated aboard the Arkham. We landed all our drilling apparatus, dogs, sledges, tents, provisions, gasoline tanks, experimental ice-melting outfit,[134] cameras, both ordinary and aerial, aeroplane parts, and other accessories, including three small portable wireless devices – besides those in the planes – capable of communicating with the Arkham’s large device from any part of the Antarctic continent that we would be likely to visit. The ship’s radio, communicating with the outside world, was able to convey press reports to the Arkham Advertiser’s powerful wireless station on Kingsport Head, Massachusetts.[135] We hoped to complete our work during an Antarctic summer; but if this became impossible, we would winter on the Arkham, sending the Miskatonic north for another summer’s supplies.
I need not repeat what the newspapers have already published about our early work. The health of our party – twenty men and fifty-five Alaskan sledge dogs – was remarkable, though of course we had not encountered really destructive temperatures or windstorms.
We had reached Beardmore Glacier,[136] the largest valley glacier in the world, and the frozen sea changed to a mountainous coast line. We were some eight thousand, five hundred feet above sea-level, and when experimental drillings revealed solid ground only twelve feet down through the snow and ice at certain points, we made considerable use of the small melting apparatus.
In certain of the sandstones we found some highly interesting fossil fragments; notably ferns, seaweeds, and mollusks – all this helps to study the region’s primordial history. There was also a queer triangular, striated marking, about a foot in greatest diameter. Lake, as a biologist, found these curious marking unusually puzzling and provocative, though to my geological eye it looked not unlike some of the ripple effects common in the sedimentary rocks. Since slate is no more than a metamorphic formation, I saw no reason for extreme wonder.
On January 6th, 1931, Lake, Pabodie, Danforth, the other six students, and myself flew directly over the South Pole in two planes, but there was a high wind. This was, as the papers have stated, one of several observation flights. Distant mountains floated in the sky as enchanted cities, and often the whole white world would dissolve into a gold, silver, and scarlet land of dreams under the magic of the low midnight sun.
We resolved to carry out our original plan: to fly five hundred miles eastward and establish a new base. Our health had remained excellent. It was now midsummer, and with haste and care we might be able to conclude work by March and avoid a tedious wintering through the long Antarctic night. No doubt, we had our good luck.
Lake insisted on a westward – or rather, northwestward – trip before our shift to the new base. He was very interested in that triangular marking in the slate. He was strangely convinced that the marking was the print of some bulky, unknown, and unclassifiable organism of advanced evolution. But these fragments, with their odd marking, were five hundred million – a thousand million years old.
II
Boring journey of January 11th to 18th with Pabodie and five others had brought up more and more of the Archaean slate; and even I was interested in evident fossil markings in that unbelievably ancient stratum. These markings were of very primitive life forms. However I decided not to accompany the northwestward party despite Lake’s plea for my geological advice. While they were gone, I would remain at the base with Pabodie and five men and work out final plans for the eastward shift.
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129
Franklin Island – остров Франклина (скалистый остров в проливе Кеннеди в составе пролива Нэрса, практически в центральной части Арктики)
130
Mts. Erebus and Terror – вулканы Эребус и Террор
131
Parry Mountains – горы Перри
132
stood off the coast – встали на якорь
133
Danforth – Данфорт
134
experimental ice-melting outfit – экспериментальное оборудование для растапливания льда
135
Kingsport Head, Massachusetts – Кингспорт-Хед, Массачусетс
136
Beardmore Glacier – ледник Бирдмора (один из крупнейших долинных ледников в мире длиной более 160 километров)