Aurora Australis

by Ernest Shackleton

If Ross Island be likened to a castle, flanking that wall the the world's end, The Great Ice Barrier, Erebus is the castle keep. Its flanks and foothills clothed with spotless now, patched with the pale blue of glacier ice, its active crater crowned with a spreading smoke cloud, and overlooking the vast white plain of the Barrier to the East and South, the dark waters of Ross Sea and McMurdo Sound to the North and West, and still further West, the snowy summits of the extinct volcanoes of Victoria Land, Erebus not only commands a view of incomparable grandeur and interest, but is in itself one of the fairest and most majestic sights that Earth can show. Erebus, as seen from our winter quarters, showed distinctly the traces of the three craters, observed from a distance by the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901 - 04. From sea level up to about 5,500 feet, the lower slopes ascend in a gentle but gradually steepening curve to the base of the first crater. They are largely covered with snow and glacier ice down to the shore, where the ice either breaks off to form a cliff, or, as at Glacier Tongue, spreads out seawards in the form of a narrow blue pier five miles in length: near Cape Rows, however, there are three long smooth ridges of brown glacial gravels and moraines mostly bare of snow. Those are interspersed with masses of black volcanic rock, and extend to an altitude of about 1,000ft. Above this, and up to above 5,000 feet above the sea, all is snow and ice, except of an occasional outcrop of dark lava, or a black parasitic cone, sharply silhouetted agains the light background of snow or sky. At a level of about 6,000 feet, and just north of the second, or main crater, rises a huge black fang of rock, the relic of the oldest and lowest crater. Immediately south of this the principal cone sweeps upwards in that graceful double curve, concave below, convex above, so characteristic of volcanos. Rugged buttresses of dark volcanic rock, with steep snow slopes between, jut out at intervals, and support the rim of this second crater, which reaches an altitude of fully 11,400 feet. From the north edge of this crater the ground seemed to ascend, at first gradually, then somewhat abruptly to the third crater, now active, further south. It is above this last crater that there continually floats a huge steam cloud. At the time of Ross’ Expedition this cloud was reddened with the glow of molten lava, and some thought they saw lava streams descending from the crater. The National Antarctic Expedition had also once or twice witnessed a similar glow, and although, during the few weeks we had been at Cape Royds we had not observed a similar phenomenon, we had at times seen the great steam cloud shoot up suddenly, in the space of a minute or so, to a height of fully 2,000 feet above the mountain top. This sudden uprush was obviously the result of a vast steam explosion in the interior of the volcano, and proved that it still possessed considerable activity.

Genres: Nonfiction

94 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922) was an Anglo-Irish merchant naval officer who made his reputation as an explorer during what is known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, a period of discovery characterised by journeys of geographical and scientific exploration in a largely unknown continent, without any of the benefits of modern travel methods or radio communication.

Reviews

[Preethi · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read through the University of Cambridge Digital Library: https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-AA...

[ö · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aurora Australis is a fascinating book, and I can only recommend the read. It is fascinating, however, for very unusual reasons. It lacks an overarching message or story arc: Elements that traditionally make a book engaging. Instead, it offers a unique window into history and a particular and unimaginable circumstance. Aurora Australis is the first book ever written, printed, illustrated, and bound in the Antarctic. Its production happened during the Nimrod expedition when a group of men led by Ernest Shackleton overwintered there in 1908-1909 at Cape Royds.

It consists of ten different sections written by different members of the expedition. There is no encompassing story, instead the sections are vastly different and independent from each other. The book begins with a recounting of the first ever ascent of Mount Erebus and ends with a story about Bathybia, an imaginary ice-free utopia full of mushroom jungles and gigantic water bears in the middle of the continent. Despite their differences, all the sections give an impression of living in and exploring the inhospitable and icy landscapes of the southernmost continent. I think this is where the book truly shines. If someone is interested in the living condition of early Antarctic expeditions, this book will be a blast. The first story about the ascent of a nearby volcano is especially illuminating in that regard.

While I would recommend the book mainly due to its historical value, it can certainly be enjoyed by its literary merits alone. All the sections are short, concise, and usually written with a good sense of humor. Before starting, I thought the book would be a dense and exhausting read but I was pleasantly surprised that this is not the case. Instead, I read it in about three sittings without ever having the desire to put it down. Taking the circumstances of production into account, that is a remarkable achievement. Still, it is by no means a masterpiece. Personally, I did not enjoy the fictional sections as much but that might be due to my interest in the historical setting in which the book was written.

For further readings regarding the Nimrod exploration and the creation of this book, I can recommend the book ‘The Heart of the Antarctic’ by Ernest Shackleton. There, more, and extended information about the expedition and the creation of ‘Aurora Australis’ can be learned. There is also the book ‘Scott’s Last Expedition’, where the tragic tale of a previous expedition is recounted which is referenced at various places within ‘Aurora Australis’.

[T Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ernest Shackleton led an expedition to Antartica in 1907. He knew that the men would become restless in the long, dark winter days and nights so he decided they would not only write a book but they would print, produce and publish it in the wooden hut they had built as their shelter. The frozen ink had to be warned to be workable by the heat of candles, the books were boarded with wood from the packaging crates that held their rations and then bound in seal skin. Unsurprisingly this was the first book to be created on Antartica

The writing, mainly prose but some poetry, and the drawings are decidedly amateurish. These men were explorers not artists. It reads rather like a6th form or University magazine or review. This is not a book about the 1907 expedition, it is a creative distraction from the dark of those nights.

But what a story, enriched by a short foreword by the great Edmund Hilary which confirms that proceeds from the book are being used to help save Shackleton's hut for future generations.