Antarctica-A Study in Technological Impact
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The design for the new South Pole Station is now Key Construction Personnel virtually complete; and the majority of the exterior "shell components of the station have already been Task Force 43 Assistant Chief of Staff for Civil En- procured and shipped to McMurdo. Actual construc- gineering—Comdr. Archer E. Church, CEC, USN tion of the station is scheduled to begin in Deep to January 14, 1970; thereafter Lt. Comdr. Freeze 72. Thomas L. Boennighausen, CEC, USN. Officer-in-Charge, NCBU-201—Lt. John E. Perry, Jr., CEC, USN. the technical know-how of his own enlightened cen- Antarctica-A Study in tury. The compass to determine direction and the log to measure speed, both Jong known, he supple- Technological Impact mented with the sextant and the chronometer, which made possible relatively accurate course laying and HENRY M. DATER location keeping. Somewhat empirically, but never- theless efficaciously, he dealt with scurvy, that age- Historian old scourge of mariners, by using preserved vege- U.S. Naval Support Force, Antarctica tables (mostly pickles and sauerkraut) and malt and herb extracts. He applied the latest techniques of The history of the Antarctic goes back a little over naval hygiene which, among other things, meant 200 years, although the quest for a great southern that he made his sailors air their bedding periodi- continent is much older. The Greeks, with a pro- cally, and also that he knew how to delouse a ship. found belief in symmetry, assumed that the existence Finally, he chose his vessels carefully, selecting as his of such a continent was necessary to balance the land models the colliers that carried coal down the east masses of the north. They even had a name for it— coast of England from Newcastle to London. Their Antarctica, the opposite of Arctic or Bear, their name sturdy construction served to fend the blows of ice or for the constellation that included the North Star. unexpected groundings, and their shallow draft was Although islands within the Antarctic Con- ideal for navigating uncharted waters. vergence had been discovered before his epoch- It is paradoxical that none of Cooks successors, making voyage, Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, is as long as ships depended upon sail for motive power, the real founder of antarctic history. Between the were better equipped than he. Actually, the little years 1772 and 1775, he circumnavigated the Ant- ships of the British and American sealers, who may arctic Continent in high southern latitudes without have been the first to sight Antarctica, had vessels even sighting it. He neither proved nor disproved the better adapted to polar navigation than the warships existence of the mythical southern land, but he dem- used by Dumont dUrville and Wilkes. The large, onstrated that it did not exist in an area inhabitable square gun ports of their vessels admitted both cold by man and thus disposed of the dream of a con- air and frigid water, making their interiors a living tinent densely inhabited and endowed with resources. horror. The only expedition equipped in a fashion In fact, Cook, after trying in vain to penetrate the ice comparable to that of Cook was also outfitted by the pack, came to the conclusion that, if indeed there Royal Navy. Relying upon British experience in the was land behind the barrier, it was not worth dis- Arctic, the commander, Sir James Clark Ross, chose covering, and he seriously doubted that men would his vessels carefully and had them especially strength- sail further south than he had done. ened for work in the ice. As a result, he alone of the Despite his gloomy and erroneous inferences, Cook great early nineteenth century explorers dared plunge remains one of the great navigators of all time. From into the ice. When he did, he broke through the pack the viewpoint that I intend to approach the history into the sea that now bears his name, and sailed of Antarctica, he is important not so much for what farther south than any man before him. He went, in he did or did not do, as for the way in which he did fact, about as far south as it is possible to go, up to it. The heir of five centuries of great voyagers, he the great ice shelf. knew well the lessons of the past. To them, he added Reading Ross narrative, however, quickly reveals the difficulty of maneuvering sailing ships through the ice. The constant alternations of course, with the ' Modified from a Presidential Address given before the need to change sails, quickly exhausted the crew. It Antarctican Society, May 13, 1970. is no wonder that a few years later, when Ross ships July–August 1970 145 were sent to the Arctic on the ill-fated Franklin Ex- ship into the ice in some sheltered bay, and this was pedition, the Admiralty equipped them with auxili- successfully done by Commander (later Captain) ary steam engines. This combination of sails for Robert Falcon Scott in 1902 during the British Na- cruising and steam for maneuvering remained a tional Antarctic Expedition. A hut was erected on characteristic of polar ships until the 1930s. The shore for storage and recreation, and a futile attempt first steam-driven vessel to visit Antarctica was the was made to furnish it with a wind-driven electric German ship Grönland which, in 1874, explored the generator for lighting. When high winds blew down South Shetland Islands and the west coast of the the vanes, an acetylene gas system was installed. On a Antarctic Peninsula. Very shortly thereafter, HMS long sledge journey across the Ross Ice Shelf, a prob- Challenger, a steam vessel engaged in a worldwide lem occurred that Scott never solved, and this fail- oceanographic cruise, crossed the Antarctic Circle. ure ultimately cost him his life. After a time on the The circumnavigation by Challenger will forever trail, the three members of the traverse party were remain one of the great scientific voyages. Wilkes be- afflicted with scurvy, and one of them, Lieutenant lieved, in 1840, that he had sighted enough landfalls (later Sir) Ernest Shackleton, very nearly died. He to establish the existence of a southern continent. The was so afflicted that, much to his chagrin, he was in- scientists aboard Challenger gave to this hypothesis valided home. In one respect, Scotts expedition a solid scientific underpinning: without penetrating marked a regression. During the last quarter of the the ice pack or seeing the land, they dredged from nineteenth century, Scandinavian explorers in the the antarctic seas rocks and boulders deposited by Arctic raised the art of polar travel to a high level. melting icebergs, which could only be of continental They adopted the Eskimo use of dogs and very origin. The revelation of these results, in 1893, ex- greatly improved the natives methods. These tech- cited the scientific community to the point that the niques were well known and could easily have been International Geographical Congress, held two years adapted to antarctic conditions. Poor selection of later in London, declared that investigation of the animals and ineptness in their handling caused Scott Antarctic was "the greatest piece of geographical ex- and his followers to underestimate dogs and to prefer ploration still to be under taken," and recommended almost any other means of hauling sleds, including that scientific societies throughout the world urge doing it themselves. this work to commence before the end of the century. Not only were the Scandinavians techniques of The appeal was favorably received all over west- northern travel available, but the reawakening of ern Europe. The first to sail were the Belgians under interest in the Antarctic coincided with a period of Adrien de Gerlache, aboard the converted sealer rapid technological advance in the western world. Belgica. Frozen into the Bellingshausen Sea by ac- It was an age which developed useable internal com- cident, they earned the distinction of being the first bustion engines, electric power and lighting, and scientific party to winter over. Tfie physician, Dr. radio communications, among others. Scott had a Frederick A. Cook, an American who was later to captive balloon on his first expedition, and on Febru- become embroiled in a famous controversy over the ary 4, 1902, he became Antarcticas first aeronaut, attainment of the North Pole, pulled the party followed some six weeks later by the German ex- through the winter and avoided the danger of Plorer Erich von Drygalski. scurvy by prescribing seal meat, no matter how the When Shackleton organized his own expedition in expedition members regarded this doubtful delicacy. 1907, he equipped it with a motor car that ran suc- The lesson was not lost on the vessels first mate. cessfully on the fast ice of McMurdo Sound, but not Roald Amundsen. While Belgica was drifting with in snow or on the ice shelf. Nevertheless, he proved the ice, a British expedition led by Carstens Borch- that internal combustion engines could function in an grevink, an Australian science teacher of Norwegian antarctic environment. As a source of illumination, origin, who had previously visited Antarctica aboard he, like Scott, used an acetylene-gas generator. For a whaler, landed his party at Cape Adare. There, a trail work, he adopted the sledges, skis, clothing, and hut was erected in which to pass the winter, while reindeer sleeping bags of the Scandinavians but, re- his ship returned to New Zealand until the follow- membering his experience with Scott, he rejected the ing spring. For inland journeys, Borchgrevink had use of dogs. Instead, he selected Siberian ponies, brought along dogs and sledges, the first introduction which were not, as it turned out, a happy choice.