In certain of the sandstones, dynamited and chiseled after
boring revealed their nature, we found some highly interesting
fossil markings and fragments; notably ferns, seaweeds, trilobites,
crinoids, and such mollusks as linguellae and gastropods - all of
which seemed of real significance in connection with the region's
primordial history. There was also a queer triangular, striated
marking, about a foot in greatest diameter, which Lake pieced
together from three fragments of slate brought up from a
deep-blasted aperture. These fragments came from a point to the
westward, near the Queen Alexandra Range; and Lake, as a biologist,
seemed to find their curious marking unusually puzzling and
provocative, though to my geological eye it looked not unlike some
of the ripple effects reasonably common in the sedimentary rocks.
Since slate is no more than a metamorphic formation into which a
sedimentary stratum is pressed, and since the pressure itself
produces odd distorting effects on any markings which may exist, I
saw no reason for extreme wonder over the striated depression.
On January 6th, 1931, Lake, Pabodie, Danforth, the other six
students, and myself flew directly over the south pole in two of
the great planes, being forced down once by a sudden high wind,
which, fortunately, did not develop into a typical storm. This was,
as the papers have stated, one of several observation flights,
during others of which we tried to discern new topographical
features in areas unreached by previous explorers. Our early
flights were disappointing in this latter respect, though they
afforded us some magnificent examples of the richly fantastic and
deceptive mirages of the polar regions, of which our sea voyage had
given us some brief foretastes. 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 Dunsanian dreams
and adventurous expectancy under the magic of the low midnight sun.
On cloudy days we had considerable trouble in flying owing to the
tendency of snowy earth and sky to merge into one mystical
opalescent void with no visible horizon to mark the junction of the
two.
At length we resolved to carry out our original plan of flying
five hundred miles eastward with all four exploring planes and
establishing a fresh sub-base at a point which would probably be on
the smaller continental division, as we mistakenly conceived it.
Geological specimens obtained there would be desirable for purposes
of comparison. Our health so far had remained excellent - lime
juice well offsetting the steady diet of tinned and salted food,
and temperatures generally above zero enabling us to do without our
thickest furs. 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. Several savage
windstorms had burst upon us from the west, but we had escaped
damage through the skill of Atwood in devising rudimentary
aeroplane shelters and windbreaks of heavy snow blocks, and
reinforcing the principal camp buildings with snow. Our good luck
and efficiency had indeed been almost uncanny.
The outside world knew, of course, of our program, and was told
also of Lake's strange and dogged insistence on a westward - or
rather, northwestward - prospecting trip before our radical shift
to the new base. It seems that he had pondered a great deal, and
with alarmingly radical daring, over that triangular striated
marking in the slate; reading into it certain contradictions in
nature and geological period which whetted his curiosity to the
utmost, and made him avid to sink more borings and blastings in the
west-stretching formation to which the exhumed fragments evidently
belonged. He was strangely convinced that the marking was the print
of some bulky, unknown, and radically unclassifiable organism of
considerably advanced evolution, notwithstanding that the rock
which bore it was of so vastly ancient a date - Cambrian if not
actually pre-Cambrian - as to preclude the probable existence not
only of all highly evolved life, but of any life at all above the
unicellular or at most the trilobite stage. These fragments, with
their odd marking, must have been five hundred million to a
thousand million years old.


Popular imagination, I judge, responded actively to our wireless
bulletins of Lake's start northwestward into regions never trodden
by human foot or penetrated by human imagination, though we did not
mention his wild hopes of revolutionizing the entire sciences of
biology and geology. His preliminary sledging and boring journey of
January 11th to 18th with Pabodie and five others - marred by the
loss of two dogs in an upset when crossing one of the great
pressure ridges in the ice - had brought up more and more of the
Archaean slate; and even I was interested by the singular profusion
of evident fossil markings in that unbelievably ancient stratum.
These markings, however, were of very primitive life forms
involving no great paradox except that any life forms should occur
in rock as definitely pre-Cambrian as this seemed to be; hence I
still failed to see the good sense of Lake's demand for an
interlude in our time-saving program - an interlude requiring the
use of all four planes, many men, and the whole of the expedition's
mechanical apparatus. I did not, in the end, veto the plan, though
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. In preparation for this transfer, one of the
planes had begun to move up a good gasoline supply from McMurdo
Sound; but this could wait temporarily. I kept with me one sledge
and nine dogs, since it is unwise to be at any time without
possible transportation in an utterly tenantless world of aeon-long
death.
Lake's sub-expedition into the unknown, as everyone will recall,
sent out its own reports from the shortwave transmitters on the
planes; these being simultaneously picked up by our apparatus at
the southern base and by the Arkham at McMurdo Sound, whence they
were relayed to the outside world on wave lengths up to fifty
meters. The start was made January 22nd at 4 A.M., and the first
wireless message we received came only two hours later, when Lake
spoke of descending and starting a small-scale ice-melting and bore
at a point some three hundred miles away from us. Six hours after
that a second and very excited message told of the frantic,
beaver-like work whereby a shallow shaft had been sunk and blasted,
culminating in the discovery of slate fragments with several
markings approximately like the one which had caused the original
puzzlement.
Three hours later a brief bulletin announced the resumption of
the flight in the teeth of a raw and piercing gale; and when I
dispatched a message of protest against further hazards, Lake
replied curtly that his new specimens made any hazard worth taking.
I saw that his excitement had reached the point of mutiny, and that
I could do nothing to check this headlong risk of the whole
expedition's success; but it was appalling to think of his plunging
deeper and deeper into that treacherous and sinister white
immensity of tempests and unfathomed mysteries which stretched off
for some fifteen hundred miles to the half-known, half-suspected
coast line of Queen Mary and Knox Lands.
Then, in about an hour and a half more, came that doubly excited
message from Lake's moving plane, which almost reversed my
sentiments and made me wish I had accompanied the party:
"10:05 P.M. On the wing. After snowstorm, have spied mountain
range ahead higher than any hitherto seen. May equal Himalayas,
allowing for height of plateau. Probable Latitude 76° 15',
Longitude 113° 10' E. Reaches far as can see to right and left.
Suspicion of two smoking cones. All peaks black and bare of snow.
Gale blowing off them impedes navigation."
After that Pabodie, the men and I hung breathlessly over the
receiver. Thought of this titanic mountain rampart seven hundred
miles away inflamed our deepest sense of adventure; and we rejoiced
that our expedition, if not ourselves personally, had been its
discoverers. In half an hour Lake called us again:
"Moulton's plane forced down on plateau in foothills, but nobody
hurt and perhaps can repair. Shall transfer essentials to other
three for return or further moves if necessary, but no more heavy
plane travel needed just now. Mountains surpass anything in
imagination. Am going up scouting in Carroll's plane, with all
weight out. You can't imagine anything like this. Highest peaks
must go over thirty-five thousand feet. Everest out of the running.
Atwood to work out height with theodolite while Carroll and I go
up. Probably wrong about cones, for formations look stratified.
Possibly pre-Cambrian slate with other strata mixed in. Queer
skyline effects - regular sections of cubes clinging to highest
peaks. Whole thing marvelous in red-gold light of low sun. Like
land of mystery in a dream or gateway to forbidden world of
untrodden wonder. Wish you were here to study."
Though it was technically sleeping-time, not one of us listeners
thought for a moment of retiring. It must have been a good deal the
same at McMurdo Sound, where the supply cache and the Arkham were
also getting the messages; for Captain Douglas gave out a call
congratulating everybody on the important find, and Sherman, the
cache operator, seconded his sentiments. We were sorry, of course,
about the damaged aeroplane, but hoped it could be easily mended.
Then, at 11 P.M., came another call from Lake:
"Up with Carroll over highest foothills. Don't dare try really
tall peaks in present weather, but shall later. Frightful work
climbing, and hard going at this altitude, but worth it. Great
range fairly solid, hence can't get any glimpses beyond. Main
summits exceed Himalayas, and very queer. Range looks like
pre-Cambrian slate, with plain signs of many other upheaved strata.
Was wrong about volcanism. Goes farther in either direction than we
can see. Swept clear of snow above about twenty-one thousand feet.
Odd formations on slopes of highest mountains. Great low square
blocks with exactly vertical sides, and rectangular lines of low,
vertical ramparts, like the old Asian castles clinging to steep
mountains in Roerich's paintings. Impressive from distance. Flew
close to some, and Carroll thought they were formed of smaller
separate pieces, but that is probably weathering. Most edges
crumbled and rounded off as if exposed to storms and climate
changes for millions of years. Parts, especially upper parts, seem
to be of lighter-colored rock than any visible strata on slopes
proper, hence of evidently crystalline origin. Close flying shows
many cave-mouths, some unusually regular in outline, square or
semicircular. You must come and investigate. Think I saw rampart
squarely on top of one peak. Height seems about thirty thousand to
thirty-five thousand feet. Am up twenty-one thousand, five hundred
myself, in devilish, gnawing cold. Wind whistles and pipes through
passes and in and out of caves, but no flying danger so far."
From then on for another half hour Lake kept up a running fire
of comment, and expressed his intention of climbing some of the
peaks on foot. I replied that I would join him as soon as he could
send a plane, and that Pabodie and I would work out the best
gasoline plan - just where and how to concentrate our supply in
view of the expedition's altered character. Obviously, Lake's
boring operations, as well as his aeroplane activities, would
require a great deal for the new base which he planned to establish
at the foot of the mountains; and it was possible that the eastward
flight might not be made, after all, this season. In connection
with this business I called Captain Douglas and asked him to get as
much as possible out of the ships and up the barrier with the
single dog team we had left there. A direct route across the
unknown region between Lake and McMurdo Sound was what we really
ought to establish.
