The fact thus discovered, and which was amply supported by further observations, was that invariably in the Antarctic regions where glaciers run more or less east and west, the south side will be found to be much broken up and decayed, while the north side will be comparatively smooth and even. The reason of this, of course, is simple enough, for the sun achieves its highest altitude in the north, and consequently its warmest and most direct rays fall on the south side of a valley. Here, therefore, the greater part of the summer melting takes place, and a wild chaos of ice disturbance is caused.
Scott's party, by taking a different route, laid a depôt at a spot which Armitage had taken three weeks to reach, and was back again at the ship in less than a fortnight.
'We were,' Scott says, 'inclined to be exceedingly self-satisfied; we had accomplished our object with unexpected ease, we had done a record march, and we had endured record temperatures--at least, we thought so, and thought also how pleasant it would be to tell these things in front of a nice bright fire. As we approached the ship, however, Hodgson came out to greet us, and his first question was, "What temperatures [Page 155] have you had?" We replied by complacently quoting our array of _minus_ fifties, but he quickly cut us short by remarking that we were not in it.'
In fact during those few days there had been a very cold snap throughout the region. Barne's party on the barrier, where they had been laying a depôt, had the coldest time, and after their thermometer had fallen lower and lower its spirit-column broke at -67.7°. Royds and his party also had to endure -62°, but in other respects they were in luck. For on arriving at Cape Crozier they found that the Emperor penguins had already hatched out their young, and Wilson was delighted to get the opportunity of studying the chicks at such a tender age. Commenting upon this and another journey to Cape Crozier, Wilson wrote: 'The Emperor penguin stands nearly four feet high, and weighs upward of eighty to ninety pounds.... I think the chickens hate their parents, and when one watches the proceedings in a rookery it strikes one as not surprising. In the first place there is about one chick to ten or twelve adults, and each adult has an overpowering desire to "sit" on something. Both males and females want to nurse, and the result is that when a chicken finds himself alone there is a rush on the part of a dozen unemployed to seize him. Naturally he runs away, and dodges here and there till a six-stone Emperor falls on him, and then begins a regular football scrimmage, in which each tries to hustle the other off, and the end is too often disastrous to the chick.... I think it is not [Page 156] an exaggeration to say that of the 77 per cent. that die no less than half are killed by kindness.'