OHYALMAT - Spring Again
Oct. 21st, 2012 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI've been really terrible about keeping up with this, but there hasn't been anything of especial significance happening with the men at Cape Evans in September and October of 1912. So here it is, all lumped together: ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO LAST MONTH AND THIS!
In general there was a continuation of scientific work, Silas having inherited the meteorological side of things as well as his running studies on ice, magnetism, gravity, et al. Debenham was the sole remaining geologist as Griff had gone back with the ship. Nelson and Atch continued their biological work, Atch determining the sudden inexplicable deaths that had stalked the sledge dogs from day one were likely down to a microscopic nematode which they'd probably picked up when originally shipped at Vladivostok. Everyone else was busy with their own projects and with exercising and training the mules which the ship had brought from India to replace the previous year's Siberian ponies. They took to snowshoes much better than the ponies had, and by the second half of October were running short trips with loaded sledges.
There were some small adventures along the way: On September 5th, the chimney of their stove caught fire. "We got the flames under control," wrote Atch in the official report, "by covering the chimney on the outside with large slabs of snow, the inside of the hut meanwhile being full of smoke ... During the worst time the funnel for nearly half its length was red-hot and glowing, and the heat inside the hut was very uncomfortable." Silas added in his memoirs, "Needless to say, the chimney was then scraped clean as should have been done before the winter began." Silas was party to another adventure with ventilation: on October 16 he bent to pick up a ball from their tabletop bagatelle game and fell flat on his face, "drunk with carbon monoxide fumes." The engine which was used to charge batteries for various scientific paraphernalia was designed to vent outside the hut, but with all the blizzards that winter, its exhaust vent had drifted over and it was now backing up into the hut itself.
By the middle of October, serious attention began to be paid to the planned trip south to find what had happened to the Polar Party. Due to the foul weather and general volatility of that year, they didn't know how long the ice in the bay between Cape Evans and Hut Point was going to hold, so they took as many supplies as they could to the more southerly location. Another depot-laying trip was undertaken by Atch, Cherry, Deb, and Dimitri, restocking the route as far as Corner Camp with food for mules and dogs; on the way back one of the teams had a close shave with a crevasse, four of them falling through a snow lid and only being extricated with a great deal of careful work. "As the sledge and team were on the crevasse at the same time, it was fairly anxious work." (Atch)
But they pulled through, and after a few remaining anticipatory errands, the party was ready to head south again on October 29th.
In general there was a continuation of scientific work, Silas having inherited the meteorological side of things as well as his running studies on ice, magnetism, gravity, et al. Debenham was the sole remaining geologist as Griff had gone back with the ship. Nelson and Atch continued their biological work, Atch determining the sudden inexplicable deaths that had stalked the sledge dogs from day one were likely down to a microscopic nematode which they'd probably picked up when originally shipped at Vladivostok. Everyone else was busy with their own projects and with exercising and training the mules which the ship had brought from India to replace the previous year's Siberian ponies. They took to snowshoes much better than the ponies had, and by the second half of October were running short trips with loaded sledges.There were some small adventures along the way: On September 5th, the chimney of their stove caught fire. "We got the flames under control," wrote Atch in the official report, "by covering the chimney on the outside with large slabs of snow, the inside of the hut meanwhile being full of smoke ... During the worst time the funnel for nearly half its length was red-hot and glowing, and the heat inside the hut was very uncomfortable." Silas added in his memoirs, "Needless to say, the chimney was then scraped clean as should have been done before the winter began." Silas was party to another adventure with ventilation: on October 16 he bent to pick up a ball from their tabletop bagatelle game and fell flat on his face, "drunk with carbon monoxide fumes." The engine which was used to charge batteries for various scientific paraphernalia was designed to vent outside the hut, but with all the blizzards that winter, its exhaust vent had drifted over and it was now backing up into the hut itself.
By the middle of October, serious attention began to be paid to the planned trip south to find what had happened to the Polar Party. Due to the foul weather and general volatility of that year, they didn't know how long the ice in the bay between Cape Evans and Hut Point was going to hold, so they took as many supplies as they could to the more southerly location. Another depot-laying trip was undertaken by Atch, Cherry, Deb, and Dimitri, restocking the route as far as Corner Camp with food for mules and dogs; on the way back one of the teams had a close shave with a crevasse, four of them falling through a snow lid and only being extricated with a great deal of careful work. "As the sledge and team were on the crevasse at the same time, it was fairly anxious work." (Atch)
But they pulled through, and after a few remaining anticipatory errands, the party was ready to head south again on October 29th.
