Author: David B. Williams

Scott’s Well-Traveled Cairn

“I do not think I can write more…For Gods sake look after our people,” wrote Robert Falcon Scott on March 29, 1912. These were the final words he wrote in his journal. At the time he was in a small tent, that he, Dr. Edward Wilson and Lt. Henry Bowers had erected 10 days earlier. They were the final three men left from Scott’s team of five, which had reached the South Pole on January 17.

No one would discover the tent and the frozen bodies until November 12, when surgeon Edward Leicester Atkinson and a search party located the site. Atkinson wrote of their discovery “It was an object partially snowed up and looking like a cairn. Before it were the ski sticks and in front of them a bamboo which was probably the mast of the sledge.” The tent was a quarter of a mile from another cairn and about eleven miles from a food cache known as One Ton Depot.

After thoroughly searching the tent, the men, and the surroundings, during which Atkinson’s party located “35 lbs. of very important geological specimens,” the searchers built a “mighty cairn.” They finished the commemorative ice structure the next day. Atop it rose a rough cross, made from skis, and nearby stood two sledges. Within a metal cylinder, Atkinson left the following record:

‘November 12, 1912, Lat. 79 degrees, 50 mins. South. This cross and cairn are erected over the bodies of Captain Scott, C.V.O., R.N., Doctor E. A. Wilson, M.B. B.C., Cantab., and Lieutenant H. R. Bowers, Royal Indian Marine—a slight token to perpetuate their successful and gallant attempt to reach the Pole. This they did on January 17, 1912, after the Norwegian Expedition had already done so. Inclement weather with lack of fuel was the cause of their death. Also to commemorate their two gallant comrades, Captain L. E. G. Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons, who walked to his death in a blizzard to save his comrades about eighteen miles south of this position; also of Seaman Edgar Evans, who died at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. ‘”The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”‘

In the century since Scott, Wilson, and Bowers died, their bodies have slowly moved away from their point of death. According to an article by R.K. Headland in the July 2011 Polar Record, the tent was located on about 360 feet of ice on the Ross Ice Shelf. Based on ice movement measurements, the tent and ice cairn have traveled about 37 miles from their original location. They are also buried under 53 feet of ice. Headland further calculated that the bodies will reach the edge of the ice front in another 248 years or so, buried by more than 325 feet of ice, which will put them below sea level.

The bodies will not, however, then just pop out of the ice into the water. Headland writes that they most likely will be “carried off within an iceberg when they get close enough to the ice front.” Ice currents, the iceberg’s size and how it melts will ultimately determine the fate of the men and the cairn. I am guessing by that time, the cairn will be one of, if not, the best traveled cairn in history.

 

 

Curb Your Enthusiasm

What’s the most common use for granite dimension stone in the US? Curiously, it is often curbs? Yes, regular old street curbing. For instance in 2010, 154,000 tons of granite was used for curbing versus 103,000 for buildings. In 2009, curbing hit 138,000 tons compared with 133,000 tons for monumental uses. Crazy.

I would have thought in this modern age that the abundance and quality of concrete would have lead to much less granite use. Of course, I don’t have the statistic on how much concrete goes into curbing. I suspect there is far more concrete curbing than granite but the amount of granite curbing still surprises me. And, of note, this reflects only how domestic stone is used.  I couldn’t locate comparable statistics for international stone but the use of imported stone dwarfs the use of domestic stone in the building trade. (Brazil is the largest importer.)

I do know that the National Park Service uses granite curbing regularly. They do so for the reasons that others do, too. Granite lasts longer than concrete, is far better looking, and far more grand. If money was no object I am sure that most builders would use granite.

Granite is not the only stone used for curbs. I have seen marble curbs in Carrara, Italy; basalt curbs in Hilo, Hawaii; and gneiss curbs in Morton, Minnesota. These latter curbs are pretty nifty because the stone is 3.54 billion years old. And, with the basalt curbs probably no older than a few thousand years, if not much younger, that’s a pretty good age spread of stone.

[nggallery id=23]When I do my building stone tour in Seattle, I like to point out the curbs in the downtown area. (I know, I lead a pretty exciting life!) Seattle builders initially curbed its streets with the local granite, a 32-million-year old salt and pepper stone from Index. It looks quite similar to concrete. After the granite, they turned to concrete though it seems that it was not very high quality. On many streets, you can still find the steel railings that were used to protect the concrete. With better concrete, steel was no longer needed.

In fact, it’s sort of a nifty way to age date one’s neighborhood in Seattle. Older ones still retain some granite. Younger have the steel railing and the youngest neither steel nor granite.

And one final use for granite curbing, from my pal Dave Tucker at NW Geology Field Trips. He sent me this great photo of adaptive reuse of an old granite curb in Bellingham. The title is “Days Go By” by Brian Goldbloom. He completed it in 1987 from curbstone removed in 1982 “to make way for modernization.” I like it!