our days grew shorter rapidly. in the fading light we made haste to examine our surroundings with care, and to make sure that we could not find a still better location for the long winter ahead. when the water outside was clear of ice we cruised in the launch along the barrier to make what chauncey gale called “scientific developments.” we became convinced, soon, that our warm river formed at its mouth the only available retreat for the billowcrest, and further, that this river, following up the coast of victoria land, was without doubt the current noted by borchgrevink, who seems not to have thought of tasting as well as testing its waters. just outside the harbor this river is met by the slow-moving, southward flowing salt current, and forced aside. the ice-wall to the left, or westward, angles somewhat to the north, and the deflected current naturally follows this coast, diffusing itself gradually over the opposite-flowing, sluggish ocean current.
147examining our river at the point where it emerged from the ice, we found that at low tide there was a space of several feet between its normal surface and the massy barrier above, and in this we recognized a possible entrance to the inland continent, had there been any assurance that we should reach the other side, or, at least, a point above highwater mark before the tide’s return. chauncey gale peered into the blackness, and shook his head.
“i don’t like to go into a hole and pull the hole in after me,” he said, “and it seems to me that’s about what we’d do in this case.”
we decided therefore not to attempt this, at most not until the return of summer, and after we had tested the efficiency of our balloon.
the river, we concluded, had been one day open to the sky throughout, but at some far-off period the ice and snows of winter had formed so deeply upon it that the summer warmth could not entirely dissolve them. each year and century had added thickness and strength to this crystal bridge, until were it not for the widening harbor at the mouth, above which the ice appears never to have remained throughout the year, there would be little to mark the point of entrance.
concerning the barrier itself, i became convinced that it was not, as reported by others, from points farther north, a mass formed about, or abreast of 148a mountain range; but that where we were at least, it was the accumulation on a comparatively flat shore of the solidified snows of centuries. there is, of course, a heavy antarctic snowfall each year, and this is partly melted and frozen again during almost every day of the long polar summer. the stratified lines in the barrier showed us clearly the formation of the upper layers, while the lower layers, formed countless ages ago, had settled and congealed into a concrete crystal mass. we decided that it was the formation of this mass out over the sea, and the final breaking off by its own weight, that produced the antarctic berg, always recognized by its tabular, or flat, top and blue strata lines, the latter often showing throughout the full height of the berg’s exposed surface—an elevation of two hundred feet or more.
but these lines above the water reveal merely what have been the topmost layers of the towering wall from whence the berg came. below the water-line the ice extends downward for perhaps eighteen hundred feet, and this added to the height above gives approximately the elevation of the great antarctic barrier! for full two thousand feet above the billowcrest rose this almost perpendicular blue precipice. our harbor formed a little more than half a circle, and was something less than half a mile across. it will be seen, therefore, that 149our name of bottle bay, conferred by chauncey gale on the moment of our arrival, was not inaptly chosen.
for a time we could not get rid of the feeling that the surrounding wall would presently topple and destroy us. but as days passed we grew strong in our security, while our opening to the north, whence, in this latitude, the sun sends its warmest comfort, became at midday a wonderful gate of gold. we named it the “portal of the sun,” and through it, less than two months later, we were to see that life-giving luminary disappear. would we be there to watch for its return when the long winter night had passed? who should say?
