1912 (35 page)

One rather eccentric possibility was put forward by Osmond Fisher, at the end of the nineteenth century: the Earth had rotated too quickly during its early formation, causing it to split and form the moon, leaving the Pacific Ocean as a scar on the surface. Fisher speculated that, as a result of this massive rupture, the granite crust left behind experienced tremendous pressures and fractured, forming continents and causing
massive amounts of volcanic activity that created the world's mountains. It was an imaginative idea, but no one seems to have taken it seriously.

The American Frank Bursley Taylor put forward an alternative concept in 1908, suggesting that the continents were formed by ‘huge landslides from the polar regions towards the equator'. Granite and other continental rocks could flow, and in doing so formed mountains, leaving ocean basins behind. To explain why the continents moved out from the pole, Taylor pointed to the gravitational pull of the moon and associated tides dragging rock equatorwards. But the forces required were so vast they would have stopped the planet rotating millions of years ago. Taylor's idea that continents could move horizontally as well as vertically was too left-field for most, and was largely forgotten.

Instead, the most widely accepted view explaining the surface of our planet was contraction theory, the brainchild of the American geologist James Dwight Dana. During 1873 he published a series of influential papers outlining the principle, which was based on the well-known fact that miners found it considerably warmer deeper underground, consistent with the idea that the planet had started as a molten ball of rock and cooled over time. Being a liquid, it was reasoned, the hot interior should contract relatively more than the solid surface, shrinking as it did so. Over time the cooler exterior would then collapse into the newly formed space, creating folds and faults in the rocks—‘just as an apple wrinkles owing to the loss of more moisture from the interior than from the rind', as one textbook of the time put it.

Edward Suess, the great Austrian geologist, described it less eloquently as ‘the collapse of the Earth is what we are seeing,' and used the sinking of the Earth's crust as the premise for an explanation of earthquakes. By the time the expeditions were heading south for 1912 a large part of the scientific community
had embraced contraction theory. It was an elegant idea, and it was completely wrong.

An Earth cooling quickly in its early history implied tremendous subsequent upheavals. These upheavals, some scientists argued, could have created or destroyed the purported land bridges, now considered the most likely explanation of the similar geology and life forms scattered across the southern hemisphere. As Mawson declared to the Royal Geographical Society in 1914, ‘Rumours of the existence of wingless parrots and other continental forms of life indicated that perhaps Macquarie island was the last remaining summit of a vast sunken southern land. Other evidence also suggested that probably at one time such a land existed uniting Australia with the Antarctic Continent.'

During the expedition the wireless operator on Macquarie Island, Arthur Sawyer, repeatedly noted earthquakes in his diary, which suggested that the same process underway in the past continued into 1912. The evidence seemed to support an early separation of the southern continents, and not all at the same time. ‘New Zealand, though possessing many of the features of Antarctic flora and fauna, never received a marsupial population, and its final separation is thereby allocated to the early Tertiary times,' Mawson reasoned. ‘Australia, then separated by the formation of Bass strait, and more recently Tasmania and South America, have become isolated by the engulfment, due to diastrophism, of the land bridges connecting both with the Antarctic continent.' Davis just had to take the
Aurora
across the Southern Ocean and take depth soundings of the seabed to find the evidence required.

As he was to the German expedition, Bruce was extraordinarily generous to the Australasian effort, providing advice and lending equipment from his own ship, the
Scotia
. The most important piece of kit was a Lucas sounding machine, set up
on the forecastle head. When a site was chosen, the vessel was stopped and one or more sinker weights were dropped over the side. The weights were attached to a long metal wire, which was fed out from a central drum until the line went limp, indicating the seabed had been reached. The genius of the Lucas machine was that the wire passed over a measuring wheel which, with its spring brake system, meant it could provide accurate and rapid measurements to an impressive depth of eleven thousand metres.

The AAE targeted key areas in the ocean, including the mysterious Royal Company's Islands, a group supposedly southwest of Tasmania and perhaps marking the high point of a subterranean land long since drowned. Davis had previously attempted to find them as part of Shackleton's
Nimrod
expedition, but with no success. Again, there was ‘No appearance of land!' and the Lucas machine indicated no hint of anything resembling a sunken land bridge.

Moving on to Macquarie Island, Davis was not surprised to learn that all had not been well among the team there. Ainsworth's high-handed leadership grated with the other men and several times it had nearly led to blows. The much-needed supplies from the
Aurora
gave a welcome relief and broke the strained atmosphere, albeit temporarily. Davis continued his search of the seabed but found the island shelf dropped away quickly in all directions. Frustratingly, there did not appear to be a vast submerged land anywhere.

Then, on 15 November 1912, Davis remarked in his diary, ‘Blowing a fresh breeze this morning at 5 am when we got a sounding of 792 Fathoms [around fifteen hundred metres] and rock—this was a surprise, I imagined the weights had slipped off somehow so putting more on sounded again, this time got 794 Fathoms so I think we may claim to have made a very interesting discovery, there is evidently a submerged ridge here which I hope we shall be able to trace for some distance.'

Davis was hopeful: it was ‘a most curious confirmation of the theory of a land connection between Australia and the Antarctic'. But his excitement proved premature. The shallow depths did not continue across the ocean but rather appeared to mark an isolated plateau. Later reporting his findings, including what became known as the Mill Rise—since renamed the South Tasman Rise—to the RGS, Davis left others to speculate about whether he had discovered a remnant of the long-sought land bridge.

In Adelie Land it had soon become obvious that the storms experienced during the establishment of the Winter Quarters were not unusual. No one had ever reported anything like it. The Norwegian explorer Borchgrevink had written of ‘frightful winds' at Cape Adare, commonly experiencing speeds of more than sixty kilometres an hour, but Cape Denison appeared considerably worse.

Anemometers were critical to the team's scientific work, and they frequently could not cope with the conditions: high winds would often rip the spinning cups off, while the extremely low temperature often meant they seized up. To try to understand just how strong the winds were at the highest speeds, Mawson built what became known as the puffometer, an ingenious device set up on a pole from which a small aluminium ball would seemingly dance in the air. The ball was connected to a spring, the pull on which was a measure of the wind strength. Each tug was recorded on carbonised paper housed in a small wooden box that could be retrieved under more hospitable conditions.

In the highest wind speeds the puffometer was ‘left out for an hour at a time, and separate gusts up to one hundred and fifty and one hundred and eighty miles [240 and 280 kilometres] per
hour were commonly indicated', providing a unique measure of what was happening outside. Longer-term wind speeds averaged a staggering seventy kilometres per hour, with temperatures around -14°C, equivalent to -40°C with wind chill added. During the winter one twelve-hour period had a wind-speed average of 143 kilometres per hour, hurricane in strength, which Laseron later described as an ‘icy inferno'. The Australian and New Zealand team had established their base in the windiest place on the planet.

They still had to operate outside, and the high winds often resulted in a characteristic gait, the men walking at a jaunty angle into the wind. Journeys to collect scientific data under such conditions were fraught with danger. The Stephenson screen housing the thermometers and barometers was a particular hazard, set on a local high point to the east of the living quarters. Remarkable footage shot by Hurley shows observers frequently being thrown to the ground, often onto surrounding rocks. When conditions were too poor, ‘little could be done except keep the self-recording instruments in order,' and during so-called calmer times it was not uncommon for the paper records to be ‘carried off by the wind'.

When going to put the puffometer up one day, Mawson was surprised to find that ‘the wind picked me up clear of the ground and dashed myself and the instrument on some rocks several yards away. The latter was badly injured, but thick clothing saved me from serious injury.' No one was safe.

Of all the scientific observations made at Cape Denison, arguably the most important in Mawson's eyes were the magnetic readings. Needing a large flat area and to be free of any influence from the wireless masts or metal in other huts, the
Magnetograph House was built four hundred metres from the living quarters, the furthest away of the scientific sites.

To make the measurements Eric Webb and his assistant—whoever had drawn the short straw—would first have to negotiate the conditions outside. Snowdrifts, a constant threat, could produce large dumps in just an hour, preventing the use of guide ropes, while high winds threatened to blow the men towards open water. During the long winter night the effects were exacerbated. The two men were often found going out on their hands and knees, following a set course with their heads down, until they reached a distinctive rocky ridge, over which they would clamber to the Magnetograph House.

But the wind could sometimes help. Webb wryly commented, ‘If the Magnetograph House had been advertised, it would have been described as “two minutes from the Hut.” This can easily be understood, for the magnetician after leaving home is speedily blown over a few hillocks and sastrugi, and, coming to an ice-flat about one hundred and fifty yards wide, swiftly slides over it, alighting at the snow-packed door of his house.'

Day in, day out, regardless of the conditions, measurements were made. Inside the small wooden hut the observer would grope his way forward through the darkness, as Webb later reminisced, ‘to a large box almost concealing the feeble glimmer of a lamp. The lamp is the source of the light, projected on to small mirrors attached to the magnetic needles of three variometers. A ray of light is reflected from the mirrors for several feet on to a slit, past which revolves sensitized photographic paper folded on a drum moving by clockwork. The slightest movements of the suspended needles are greatly magnified, and, when the paper is removed and developed in a dark-room, a series of intricate curves denoting declination, horizontal intensity and vertical force, are exquisitely traced.'

Webb struggled to fit in with many colleagues on the expedition. His superior professional air tended to wind many up, including Mawson, who at one point found he was being challenged over the value of his 1909 magnetic measurements. Mawson was so concerned about the younger man's ability to work in a close-knit sledging team that he seriously considered holding Webb back from the attempt on the South Magnetic Pole.