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The South Pole, Volume 1

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Suddenly a bright spring day cuts through the bank of fog. There
is a new message. People stop again and look up. High above them
shines a deed, a man. A wave of joy runs through the souls of men;
their eyes are bright as the flags that wave about them.

Why? On account of the great geographical discoveries, the
important scientific results? Oh no; that will come later, for the
few specialists. This is something all can understand. A victory of
human mind and human strength over the dominion and powers of Nature;
a deed that lifts us above the grey monotony of daily life; a view
over shining plains, with lofty mountains against the cold blue sky,
and lands covered by ice-sheets of inconceivable extent; a vision
of long-vanished glacial times; the triumph of the living over the
stiffened realm of death. There is a ring of steeled, purposeful
human will -- through icy frosts, snowstorms, and death.

For the victory is not due to the great inventions of the present
day and the many new appliances of every kind. The means used are
of immense antiquity, the same as were known to the nomad thousands
of years ago, when he pushed forward across the snow-covered plains
of Siberia and Northern Europe. But everything, great and small, was
thoroughly thought out, and the plan was splendidly executed. It is
the man that matters, here as everywhere.

Like everything great, it all looks so plain and simple. Of course,
that is just as it had to be, we think.

Apart from the discoveries and experiences of earlier explorers --
which, of course, were a necessary condition of success -- both
the plan and its execution are the ripe fruit of Norwegian life
and experience in ancient and modern times. The Norwegians' daily
winter life in snow and frost, our peasants' constant use of ski and
ski-sledge in forest and mountain, our sailors' yearly whaling and
sealing life in the Polar Sea, our explorers' journeys in the Arctic
regions -- it was all this, with the dog as a draught animal borrowed
from the primitive races, that formed the foundation of the plan and
rendered its execution possible -- when the man appeared.

Therefore, when the man is there, it carries him through all
difficulties as if they did not exist; every one of them has been
foreseen and encountered in advance. Let no one come and prate
about luck and chance. Amundsen's luck is that of the strong man who
looks ahead.

How like him and the whole expedition is his telegram home -- as
simple and straightforward as if it concerned a holiday tour in the
mountains. It speaks of what is achieved, not of their hardships. Every
word a manly one. That is the mark of the right man, quiet and strong.


It is still too early to measure the extent of the new discoveries,
but the cablegram has already dispersed the mists so far that the
outlines are beginning to shape themselves. That fairyland of ice, so
different from all other lands, is gradually rising out of the clouds.

In this wonderful world of ice Amundsen has found his own way. From
first to last he and his companions have traversed entirely unknown
regions on their ski, and there are not many expeditions in history
that have brought under the foot of man so long a range of country
hitherto unseen by human eye. People thought it a matter of course that
he would make for Beardmore Glacier, which Shackleton had discovered,
and by that route come out on to the high snow plateau near the Pole,
since there he would be sure of getting forward. We who knew Amundsen
thought it would be more like him to avoid a place for the very reason
that it had been trodden by others. Happily we were right. Not at
any point does his route touch that of the Englishmen -- except by
the Pole itself.

This is a great gain to research. When in a year's time we have Captain
Scott back safe and sound with all his discoveries and observations on
the other route, Amundsen's results will greatly increase in value,
since the conditions will then be illuminated from two sides. The
simultaneous advance towards the Pole from two separate points was
precisely the most fortunate thing that could happen for science. The
region investigated becomes so much greater, the discoveries so many
more, and the importance of the observations is more than doubled,
often multiplied many times. Take, for instance, the meteorological
conditions: a single series of observations from one spot no doubt has
its value, but if we get a simultaneous series from another spot in
the same region, the value of both becomes very much greater, because
we then have an opportunity of understanding the movements of the
atmosphere. And so with other investigations. Scott's expedition will
certainly bring back rich and important results in many departments,
but the value of his observations will also be enhanced when placed
side by side with Amundsen's.

An important addition to Amundsen's expedition to the Pole is the
sledge journey of Lieutenant Prestrud and his two companions eastward
to the unknown King Edward VII. Land, which Scott discovered in
1902. It looks rather as if this land was connected with the masses
of land and immense mountain-chains that Amundsen found near the
Pole. We see new problems looming up.

But it was not only these journeys over ice-sheets and mountain-ranges
that were carried out in masterly fashion. Our gratitude is also due
to Captain Nilsen and his men. They brought the Fram backwards and
forwards, twice each way, through those ice-filled southern waters
that many experts even held to be so dangerous that the Fram would
not be able to come through them, and on both trips this was done
with the speed and punctuality of a ship on her regular route. The
Fram's builder, the excellent Colin Archer, has reason to be proud
of the way in which his "child" has performed her latest task --
this vessel that has been farthest north and farthest south on our
globe. But Captain Nilsen and the crew of the Fram have done more than
this; they have carried out a work of research which in scientific
value may be compared with what their comrades have accomplished
in the unknown world of ice, although most people will not be able
to recognize this. While Amundsen and his companions were passing
the winter in the South, Captain Nilsen, in the Fram, investigated
the ocean between South America and Africa. At no fewer than sixty
stations they took a number of temperatures, samples of water, and
specimens of the plankton in this little-known region, to a depth of
2,000 fathoms and more. They thus made the first two sections that
have ever been taken of the South Atlantic, and added new regions of
the unknown ocean depths to human knowledge. The Fram's sections are
the longest and most complete that are known in any part of the ocean.


Would it be unreasonable if those who have endured and achieved so much
had now come home to rest? But Amundsen points onward. So much for
that; now for the real object. Next year his course will be through
Behring Strait into the ice and frost and darkness of the North, to
drift right across the North Polar Sea -- five years, at least. It
seems almost superhuman; but he is the man for that, too. Fram is
his ship, "forward" is his motto, and he will come through.[1] He
will carry out his main expedition, the one that is now before him,
as surely and steadily as that he has just come from.

But while we are waiting, let us rejoice over what has already been
achieved. Let us follow the narrow sledge-tracks that the little black
dots of dogs and men have drawn across the endless white surface down
there in the South -- like a railroad of exploration into the heart
of the unknown. The wind in its everlasting flight sweeps over these
tracks in the desert of snow. Soon all will be blotted out.

But the rails of science are laid; our knowledge is richer than before.

And the light of the achievement shines for all time.

Fridtjof Nansen.

Lysaker,

May 3, 1912.


FIGURE 1

The Opening of Roald Amundsen's Manuscript.

To face page I, Vol. I.









CHAPTER I

The History of the South Pole[2]

"Life is a ball In the hands of chance."

Brisbane, Queensland, April 13, 1912.

Here I am, sitting in the shade of palms, surrounded by the most
wonderful vegetation, enjoying the most magnificent fruits, and writing
-- the history of the South Pole. What an infinite distance seems to
separate that region from these surroundings! And yet it is only four
months since my gallant comrades and I reached the coveted spot.

I write the history of the South Pole! If anyone had hinted a word of
anything of the sort four or five years ago, I should have looked upon
him as incurably mad. And yet the madman would have been right. One
circumstance has followed on the heels of another, and everything
has turned out so entirely different from what I had imagined.

On December 14, 1911, five men stood at the southern end of our earth's
axis, planted the Norwegian flag there, and named the region after
the man for whom they would all gladly have offered their lives --
King Haakon VII. Thus the veil was torn aside for all time, and one
of the greatest of our earth's secrets had ceased to exist.

Since I was one of the five who, on that December afternoon, took part
in this unveiling, it has fallen to my lot to write -- the history
of the South Pole.

Antarctic exploration is very ancient. Even before our conception
of the earth's form had taken definite shape, voyages to the South
began. It is true that not many of the explorers of those distant times
reached what we now understand by the Antarctic regions, but still
the intention and the possibility were there, and justify the name of
Antarctic exploration. The motive force of these undertakings was --
as has so often been the case -- the hope of gain. Rulers greedy of
power saw in their mind's eye an increase of their possessions. Men
thirsting for gold dreamed of an unsuspected wealth of the alluring
metal. Enthusiastic missionaries rejoiced at the thought of a multitude
of lost sheep. The scientifically trained world waited modestly in
the background. But they have all had their share: politics, trade,
religion, and science.

The history of Antarctic discovery may be divided at the outset into
two categories. In the first of these I would include the numerous
voyagers who, without any definite idea of the form or conditions of
the southern hemisphere, set their course toward the South, to make
what landfall they could. These need only be mentioned briefly before
passing to the second group, that of Antarctic travellers in the proper
sense of the term, who, with a knowledge of the form of the earth,
set out across the ocean, aiming to strike the Antarctic monster --
in the heart, if fortune favoured them.

We must always remember with gratitude and admiration the first sailors
who steered their vessels through storms and mists, and increased our
knowledge of the lands of ice in the South. People of the present day,
who are so well supplied with information about the most distant parts
of the earth, and have all our modern means of communication at their
command, find it difficult to understand the intrepid courage that
is implied by the voyages of these men.

They shaped their course toward the dark unknown, constantly exposed
to being engulfed and destroyed by the vague, mysterious dangers that
lay in wait for them somewhere in that dim vastness.

The beginnings were small, but by degrees much was won. One stretch
of country after another was discovered and subjected to the power of
man. Knowledge of the appearance of our globe became ever greater and
took more definite shape. Our gratitude to these first discoverers
should be profound.

And yet even to-day we hear people ask in surprise: What is the use
of these voyages of exploration? What good do they do us? Little
brains, I always answer to myself, have only room for thoughts of
bread and butter.


The first name on the roll of discovery is that of Prince Henry of
Portugal, surnamed the Navigator, who is ever to be remembered as
the earliest promoter of geographical research. To his efforts was
due the first crossing of the Equator, about 1470.

With Bartholomew Diaz another great step in advance was made. Sailing
from Lisbon in 1487, he reached Algoa Bay, and without doubt passed
the fortieth parallel on his southward voyage.

Vasco da Gama's voyage of 1497 is too well known to need
description. After him came men like Cabral and Vespucci, who
increased our knowledge, and de Gonneville, who added to the romance
of exploration.

We then meet with the greatest of the older explorers, Ferdinand
Magellan, a Portuguese by birth, though sailing in the service of
Spain. Setting out in 1519, he discovered the connection between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the strait that bears his name. No one
before him had penetrated so far South -- to about lat. 52° S. One
of his ships, the Victoria, accomplished the first circumnavigation
of the world, and thus established in the popular mind the fact that
the earth was really round. From that time the idea of the Antarctic
regions assumed definite shape. There must be something in the South:
whether land or water the future was to determine.

In 1578 we come to the renowned English seaman, Sir Francis
Drake. Though he was accounted a buccaneer, we owe him honour for the
geographical discoveries he made. He rounded Cape Horn and proved
that Tierra del Fuego was a great group of islands and not part of
an Antarctic continent, as many had thought.

The Dutchman, Dirk Gerritsz, who took part in a plundering expedition
to India in 1599 by way of the Straits of Magellan, is said to have
been blown out of his course after passing the straits, and to have
found himself in lat. 64° S. under high land covered with snow. This
has been assumed to be the South Shetland Islands, but the account
of the voyage is open to doubt.

In the seventeenth century we have the discoveries of Tasman, and
towards its close English adventurers reported having reached high
latitudes in the South Atlantic.

The English Astronomer Royal, Halley, undertook a scientific voyage to
the South in 1699 for the purpose of making magnetic observations, and
met with ice in 52° S., from which latitude he returned to the north.

The Frenchman, Bouvet (1738), was the first to follow the southern
ice-pack for any considerable distance, and to bring reports of the
immense, flat-topped Antarctic icebergs.

In 1756 the Spanish trading-ship Leon came home and reported high,
snow-covered land in lat. 55° S. to the east of Cape Horn. The
probability is that this was what we now know by the name of
South Georgia. The Frenchman, Marion-Dufresne, discovered, in
1772, the Marion and Crozet Islands. In the same year Joseph de
Kerguélen-Trémarec -- another Frenchman -- reached Kerguelen Land.

This concludes the series of expeditions that I have thought it proper
to class in the first group. "Antarctica," the sixth continent itself,
still lay unseen and untrodden. But human courage and intelligence
were now actively stirred to lift the veil and reveal the many secrets
that were concealed within the Antarctic Circle.

Captain James Cook -- one of the boldest and most capable seamen
the world has known -- opens the series of Antarctic expeditions
properly so called. The British Admiralty sent him out with orders
to discover the great southern continent, or prove that it did not
exist. The expedition, consisting of two ships, the Resolution and
the Adventure, left Plymouth on July 13, 1772. After a short stay at
Madeira it reached Cape Town on October 30. Here Cook received news of
the discovery of Kerguelen and of the Marion and Crozet Islands. In
the course of his voyage to the south Cook passed 300 miles to the
south of the land reported by Bouvet, and thereby established the fact
that the land in question -- if it existed -- was not continuous with
the great southern continent.

On January 17, 1773, the Antarctic Circle was crossed for the first
time -- a memorable day in the annals of Antarctic exploration. Shortly
afterwards a solid pack was encountered, and Cook was forced to return
to the north. A course was laid for the newly discovered islands --
Kerguelen, Marion, and the Crozets -- and it was proved that they
had nothing to do with the great southern land. In the course of his
further voyages in Antarctic waters Cook completed the most southerly
circumnavigation of the globe, and showed that there was no connection
between any of the lands or islands that had been discovered and
the great mysterious "Antarctica." His highest latitude (January 30,
1774) was 71° 10' S.

Cook's voyages had important commercial results, as his reports of
the enormous number of seals round South Georgia brought many sealers,
both English and American, to those waters, and these sealers, in turn,
increased the field of geographical discovery.

In 1819 the discovery of the South Shetlands by the Englishman,
Captain William Smith, is to be recorded. And this discovery led to
that of the Palmer Archipelago to the south of them.

The next scientific expedition to the Antarctic regions was that
despatched by the Emperor Alexander I. of Russia, under the command
of Captain Thaddeus von Bellingshausen. It was composed of two ships,
and sailed from Cronstadt on July 15, 1819. To this expedition belongs
the honour of having discovered the first land to the south of the
Antarctic Circle -- Peter I. Island and Alexander I. Land.

The next star in the Antarctic firmament is the British seaman, James
Weddell. He made two voyages in a sealer of 160 tons, the Jane of
Leith, in 1819 and 1822, being accompanied on the second occasion by
the cutter Beaufoy. In February, 1823, Weddell had the satisfaction
of beating Cook's record by reaching a latitude of 74° 15' S. in the
sea now known as Weddell Sea, which in that year was clear of ice.

The English firm of shipowners, Enderby Brothers, plays a not
unimportant part in Antarctic exploration. The Enderbys had carried on
sealing in southern waters since 1785. They were greatly interested,
not only in the commercial, but also in the scientific results of
these voyages, and chose their captains accordingly. In 1830 the
firm sent out John Biscoe on a sealing voyage in the Antarctic Ocean
with the brig Tula and the cutter Lively. The result of this voyage
was the sighting of Enderby Land in lat. 66° 25' S., long. 49° 18'
E. In the following year Adelaide, Biscoe, and Pitt Islands, on the
west coast of Graham Land were charted, and Graham Land itself was
seen for the first time.

Kemp, another of Enderby's skippers, reported land in lat. 66° S.,
and about long. 60° E.

In 1839 yet another skipper of the same firm, John Balleny, in the
schooner Eliza Scott, discovered the Balleny Islands.

We then come to the celebrated French sailor, Admiral Jules
Sébastien Dumont d'Urville. He left Toulon in September, 1837, with
a scientifically equipped expedition, in the ships Astrolabe and
Zélée. The intention was to follow in Weddell's track, and endeavour
to carry the French flag still nearer to the Pole. Early in 1838 Louis
Philippe Land and Joinville Island were discovered and named. Two
years later we again find d'Urville's vessels in Antarctic waters,
with the object of investigating the magnetic conditions in the
vicinity of the South Magnetic Pole. Land was discovered in lat. 66°
30' S. and long. 138° 21' E. With the exception of a few bare islets,
the whole of this land was completely covered with snow. It was given
the name of Adélie Land, and a part of the ice-barrier lying to the
west of it was called C^ote Clarie, on the supposition that it must
envelop a line of coast.

The American naval officer, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, sailed in
August, 1838, with a fleet of six vessels. The expedition was sent out
by Congress, and carried twelve scientific observers. In February,
1839, the whole of this imposing Antarctic fleet was collected in
Orange Harbour in the south of Tierra del Fuego, where the work
was divided among the various vessels. As to the results of this
expedition it is difficult to express an opinion. Certain it is
that Wilkes Land has subsequently been sailed over in many places
by several expeditions. Of what may have been the cause of this
inaccurate cartography it is impossible to form any opinion. It
appears, however, from the account of the whole voyage, that the
undertaking was seriously conducted.

Then the bright star appears -- the man whose name will ever be
remembered as one of the most intrepid polar explorers and one of
the most capable seamen the world has produced -- Admiral Sir James
Clark Ross.

The results of his expedition are well known. Ross himself commanded
the Erebus and Commander Francis Crozier the Terror. The former
vessel, of 370 tons, had been originally built for throwing bombs;
her construction was therefore extraordinarily solid. The Terror,
340 tons, had been previously employed in Arctic waters, and on this
account had been already strengthened. In provisioning the ships,
every possible precaution was taken against scurvy, with the dangers
of which Ross was familiar from his experience in Arctic waters.

The vessels sailed from England in September, 1839, calling at
many of the Atlantic Islands, and arrived in Christmas Harbour,
Kerguelen Land, in the following May. Here they stayed two months,
making magnetic observations, and then proceeded to Hobart.

Sir John Franklin, the eminent polar explorer, was at that time
Governor of Tasmania, and Ross could not have wished for a better
one. Interested as Franklin naturally was in the expedition, he
afforded it all the help he possibly could. During his stay in Tasmania
Ross received information of what had been accomplished by Wilkes and
Dumont d'Urville in the very region which the Admiralty had sent him
to explore. The effect of this news was that Ross changed his plans,
and decided to proceed along the 170th meridian E., and if possible
to reach the Magnetic Pole from the eastward.

Here was another fortuitous circumstance in the long chain of
events. If Ross had not received this intelligence, it is quite
possible that the epoch-making geographical discoveries associated
with his name would have been delayed for many years.

On November 12, 1840, Sir John Franklin went on board the Erebus
to accompany his friend Ross out of port. Strange are the ways of
life! There stood Franklin on the deck of the ship which a few years
later was to be his deathbed. Little did he suspect, as he sailed
out of Hobart through Storm Bay -- the bay that is now wreathed by
the flourishing orchards of Tasmania -- that he would meet his death
in a high northern latitude on board the same vessel, in storms and
frost. But so it was.

After calling at the Auckland Islands and at Campbell Island, Ross
again steered for the South, and the Antarctic Circle was crossed on
New Year's Day, 1841. The ships were now faced by the ice-pack, but
to Ross this was not the dangerous enemy it had appeared to earlier
explorers with their more weakly constructed vessels. Ross plunged
boldly into the pack with his fortified ships, and, taking advantage
of the narrow leads, he came out four days later, after many severe
buffets, into the open sea to the South.

Ross had reached the sea now named after him, and the boldest voyage
known in Antarctic exploration was accomplished.

Few people of the present day are capable of rightly appreciating this
heroic deed; this brilliant proof of human courage and energy. With
two ponderous craft -- regular "tubs" according to our ideas -- these
men sailed right into the heart of the pack, which all previous polar
explorers had regarded as certain death. It is not merely difficult
to grasp this; it is simply impossible -- to us, who with a motion
of the hand can set the screw going, and wriggle out of the first
difficulty we encounter. These men were heroes -- heroes in the
highest sense of the word.

It was in lat. 69° 15' S. and long. 176° 15' E. that Ross found the
open sea. On the following day the horizon was perfectly clear of
ice. What joy that man must have felt when he saw that he had a clear
way to the South!

The course was set for the Magnetic Pole, and the hope of soon reaching
it burned in the hearts of all. Then -- just as they had accustomed
themselves to the idea of open sea, perhaps to the Magnetic Pole
itself -- the crow's-nest reported "High land right ahead." This was
the mountainous coast of South Victoria Land.

What a fairyland this must have seemed to the first voyagers who
approached it! Mighty mountain-ranges with summits from 7,000 to
10,000 feet high, some covered with snow and some quite bare --
lofty and rugged, precipitous and wild.

It became apparent that the Magnetic Pole was some 500 miles distant
-- far inland, behind the snow-covered ridges. On the morning of
January 12 they came close under a little island, and Ross with a
few companions rowed ashore and took possession of the country. They
could not reach the mainland itself on account of the thick belt of
ice that lay along the coast.

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