Appendix 4 - Glossary
The Home of the Blizzard
By Douglas Mawson
Preface
Chapters:
1 - The Problem
and Preparations |
2 - The Last
Days of Hobart and the Voyage to Macquarie Island |
3 - From Macquarie
Island to Adelie Land |
4 - New Lands
| 5 - First
Days in Adelie Land |
6 - Autumn
Prospects |
7 - The Blizzard |
8 - Domestic
Life | 9
- Midwinter and its Work |
10 - The
Preparation of Sledging Equipment |
11 - Spring
Exploits |
12 - Across King George V Land |
13 - Toil
and Tribulation |
14 -
The Quest of the South Magnetic Pole
| 15
- Eastward Over the Sea-Ice |
16 - Horn
Bluff and Penguin Point |
17 - With
Stillwell's and Bickerton's Parties |
18 - The
Ship's Story |
19 - The
Western Base - Establishment and Early Adventures |
20 - The
Western base - Winter and Spring |
21 - The
Western Base - Blocked on the Shelf-Ice |
22 - The
Western base - Linking up with Kaiser Wilhelm II Land
| 23 - A
Second Winter |
24 - Nearing
the End |
25 - Life on Macquarie Island |
26 - A Land
of Storm and Mist |
27- Through
Another Year |
28 - The
Homeward Cruise
Appendices:
2 - Scientific Work
| 3 - An Historical
Summary | 4
- Glossary |
5 - Medical Reports |
6 - Finance
| 7 - Equipment
Summary (2 pages) of the
Australian Antarctic Expedition
| The
Men of the Expedition
Oceanography. The study of the ocean, including
the shape and character of its bed, the temperature and salinity
of the water at various depths, the force and set of its currents,
and the nature of the creatures and plants which haunt its successive
zones.
Neve. [n,e acute, v, e acute] The compacted
snow of a snow-field; a stage in the transition between soft, loose
snow and glacier-ice.
Sastrugi. The waves caused by continuous
winds blowing across the surface of an expanse of snow. These waves
vary in size according to the force and continuity of the wind and
the compactness of the snow. The word is of Russian derivation (from
zastruga [sing.], zastrugi [pl.] ), denoting snow-waves or the irregularities
on the surface of roughly-planed wood.
Ice-foot. A
sheath of ice adhering along the shores of polar lands. The formation
may be composed of attached remnants of floe-ice, frozen sea-spray
and drift-snow.
Nunatak. An island-like outcrop of
rock projecting through a sheet of enveloping land-ice.
Shelf-ice. A thick, floating, fresh water ice-formation pushing
out from the land and continuous with an extensive glacier. Narrow
prolongations or peninsulas of the shelf-ice may be referred to
as ice-tongues or glacier-tongues.
Barrier is a term
which has been rather loosely applied in the literature of Antarctic
Exploration. Formerly it was used to describe a formation, which
is mainly shelf-ice, known as the Great Ross Barrier. Confusion
arose when ``Barrier'' came to be applied to the seaward
ice-cliff (resting on rock) of an extensive sheet of
land-ice
and when it was also employed to designate a line of consolidated
pack-ice. Spelt with a small ``b'' the term is a convenient
one, so long as it carries its ordinary meaning; it seems unnecessary
to give it a technical connotation.
Blizzard. A high
wind at a low temperature, accompanied by drifting, not necessarily
falling snow.
Floe or Floe-ice. The comparatively
flat, frozen surface of the sea intersected by cracks and leads
(channels of open water).
Pack or Pack-ice is a field
of loose ice originating in the main from broken floe, to which
may be added material from the disintegration of bergs, and bergs
themselves.
Brash or Brash-ice. Small, floating fragments
of ice--the debris of larger pieces--usually observed bordering
a tract of pack-ice.
Bergschrund has been ``freely
rendered'' in the description of the great cleft between
the lower part of the Denman Glacier and the Shackleton Shelf-Ice
(Queen Mary Land). In a typical glacier, ``the upper portion is
hidden by neve and often by freshly fallen snow and is smooth and
unbroken. During the summer, when little snow falls, the body of
the glacier moves away from the snow-field and a gaping crevasse
of great depth is usually established, called a `Bergschrund',
which is sometimes taken as the upper limit of the glacier''
(``Encyclopaedia Britannica'').
Sub-Antarctica.
A general term used to denote the area of ocean, containing islands
and encircling the Antarctic continent, between the vicinity of
the 50th parallel of south latitude and the confines of the ice-covered
sea.
Seracs are wedged masses of icy pinnacles which
are produced in the surface of a glacier by dragging strains which
operate on crevassed areas. A field of such pinnacles, jammed together
in broken confusion, is called serac-ice
The following colloquial
words or phrases occurring in the narrative were largely determined
by general usage:
To depot = to cache or to place a stock of provisions in a depot;
drift = drift-snow;
fifty-mile wind = a wind of fifty miles an hour;
burberry = ``Burberry gabardine'' or specially prepared wind-proof clothing;
whirly (pi. whirlies) = whirlwind carrying drift-snow and pursuing a devious track;
night-watchman = night-watch;
glaxo = ``Glaxo'' (a powder of dried milk);
primus = primus stove used during sledging;
hoosh = pemmican and plasmon biscuit ``porridge'';
tanks = canvas bags for holding sledging provisions;
boil-up = sledging meal;
ramp = bank of snow slanting away obliquely on the leeward side of an obstacle;
radiant = an appearance noted in clouds (especially cirro-stratus) which seem to radiate from a point on the horizon
The following appended list may be of biological interest:
Birds Aves
Emperor penguin Aptenodytes
forsteri
King penguin Aptenodytes patagonica
Adelie penguin
Pygoscelis adeliae
Royal penguin Catarrhactes schlegeli
Victoria
penguin Catarrhactes pachyrynchus
Gentoo or Rockhopper penguin
Pygoscelis papua
Wandering albatross Diomedea exulans
Mollymawk or Black-browed albatross Diomedea melanophrys
Sooty
albatross Phoebetria fuliginosa
Giant petrel or nelly Ossifraga
gigantea
MacCormick's skua gull Megalestris maccormicki
Southern skua gull Megalestris antarctica
Antarctic petrel Thalassoeca
antarctica
Silver-grey petrel or southern fulmar Priocella glacialoides
Cape pigeon Daption capensis
Snow petrel Pagodroma nivea
Lesson's
petrel Oestrelata lessoni
Wilson petrel Oceanites oceanicus
Storm petrel Fregetta melanogaster
Cape hen Majaqueus oequinoctialis
Small prion or whale bird Prion banksii
Crested tern Sterna sp.
Southern black-backed or Dominican gull Larus dominicanus
Macquarie
Island shag Phalacrocorax traversi
Mutton bird Puffinus griseus
Maori hen or ``weka'' Ocydromus scotti
Seals
Pinnipedia
Sea elephant Macrorhinus leoninus
Sea-leopard
Stenorhynchus leptonyax
Weddell seal Leptonychotes weddelli
Crab-eater seal Lobodon carcinophagus
Ross seal Ommatophoca rossi
Whales and Dolphins Cetacea
Rorqual, finner, or
blue whale Balaenoptera sibbaldi
Killer whale Orca gladiator