Sir Douglas Mawson: the Journey

Background

'Sir Douglas Mawson was a man of great vision and determination, whose tireless work has provided the world with a legacy of scientific knowledge and great inspiration.'

'South Australian Museum'

Sir Douglas Mawson, an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and academic was a key expedition leader in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration along side Roald Amundsen, James Ross, Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton. He was born on May 5 1882 at Shipley, Yorkshire, England. He was the second son of Robert Ellis Mawson, a clothes merchant and his wife Margaret Ann. 


Mawson's education was at Rooty Hill and at Fort Street Model school in Sydney. At the age of just sixteen, Mawson started at the University of Sydney. This was the beginning of his studies which resulted in the publishing of various important papers. He studied mining engineering from 1899 - 1901 and graduated in 1902. Later on, he took a six month leave to do a geological survey of New Hebrides, now known as Vanuatu. This was Mawson's introduction to scientific exploration. He wrote 'The Report of New Hebrides'. This task was one of his first major geology projects on Melanesia. Melanesia is an extended subregion of Oceania, its location is the western end of the Pacific Ocean. 


In 1905, Mawson agreed to take on the role of lecturer in mineralogy and petrology (a branch of geology that studies rock) at the University of Adelaide. That's when he became interested in the glacial geology of South Australia as well as keeping his interest in radioactivity.


Mawson returned to supplementary studies in geology in the year 1904 after publishing a paper on the geology of Mittagong, New South Wales with Thomas Griffith Taylor in 1903. This was followed by a paper on radioactive minerals in Australia with Thomas Laby in 1904, not to forget several additional papers on the New Hebrides. 


In 1905, Mawson continued lecturing in the University of Adelaide, he gained lectureship and professorship in mineralogy and petrology as well as the reputation of an exceptional, teacher, a fine scientist and a man of action.  


On the March 31, 1914, Mawson married Francisca Adriana (Paquita) Delprat at Holy Church of England, Balaclava, Victoria. They had two daughters, Patricia and Jessica. In 1914, he was knighted by King Edward VII and became Sir Douglas Mawson for his contributions and courage during expeditions he had already undertaken. Then he was completely taken up with the Scott Disaster and the outbreak of World War I, in which he served as a Major in the British Ministry of Munitions. After the war, he continued his academic studies as well as taking on further expeditions.


Mawson spent majority of his time researching the geology of the northern Flinders Ranges in South Australia. When he retired from teaching in 1952, he was appointed Emeritus Professor of the University of Adelaide. On October 14, 1952, he died at his home at the age of seventy six from a cerebral haemorrhage, a bleeding in the brain. At the time, he was still in the process of editing papers and the results of his expedition. This was only completed by his eldest daughter, Patricia, in 1975.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:100_
dollar_note_front.jpg

Sir Douglas Mawson's image appeared on the Australian one hundred dollar note from 1984 - 96. In recognition of his achievements, Mawson Peak (Heard Heard Island), Mount Mawson (Tasmania), Mawson Station (Antarctica), Dorsa Mawson (Mare Fecunditatis), the geology building on the main University of Adelaide campus, numerous suburbs in Canberra and Adelaide, a South Australian TAFE institute, the main street of Meadows, South Australia are all named after him. At Oxley College in Burradoo, New South Wales, a sports house is called Mawson, as is at Clarence High School in Hobart, Tasmania, and Fort Street High School, where he was educated. The Mawson Collection of Antarctic exploration artefacts is on permanent display at the South Australian Museum, including a recreated version of his journey that was shown on ABC Television on May 12, 2008.


Motivation 
His Motivation was that he loved his country so much and wanted other countries to respect Australia for researching and claiming new land, Antarctica.
(www.nationaltimes.com.au)


As a result of the Discovery expeditins with BANZARE, "Mawson claimed for Britain all the land of East Antarctica between longitude 40 deg. E and 160 deg. E with the exception of the small sliver of Adelie Land, claimed by France. The territorial claim - 42 percent of all Antarctica with an area the size of Australia without Queensland - was transferred to Australia in 1935."
http://www.douglasmawson.com.au/Mawson.html


As a Geographer, he also believed that his role was to "fill in the details provided by the navigator.” He was not interested in money or fame as was the motivation of many others and "While (others) were focused on reaching the South Geographical Pole, Mawson was interested in advancing sicence."
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/history/people/douglas-mawson


Mawson’s focus was not for wealth or fame, but to advance objective scientific research and discover the truth. He lamented that tales from Antarctica were told by whalers and sealers motivated by financial gain. He was also disappointed by the personal glory sought by those wanting to be the first to the Pole. Mawson set out to understand the unknown, and saw that his collaboration with John King Davis, whom he met on Shackleton’s expedition, would achieve that:

“The task of the geographer is to fill in the details provided by the navigator.”

In leading Australia’s first major scientific exploring endeavour beyond the Australian continent, he unintentionally became one of Australia’s most famous and respected heroes.
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/history/people/douglas-mawson

Travels

Mawsons Australasian Antarctic Expedition 

In 1910, Mawson turned down an offer of going on the Terra Nova Expedition with Robert Falcon Scott. Instead, he lead his own expedition, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. The expedition went to King George V Land and Adelie. This Antarctic section was immediately south of Australia. At the time it was also almost unexplored. 

Mawson wanted to chart the "2000-mile coastline directly south of A ustralia.... The great span between Cape Adare, lying to the south of New Zealand, and Gauss Berg, lying south of the Indian Ocean (which) was virgin land virtually unexplored." 

http://www.south-pole.com/p0000099.htm

The ship that Mawson and his companions Mackay and David were taking on the expedition was the SY Aurora which departed from Hobart on December 2, 1911 and reached it's destination, Cape Denison on Commonwealth Bay on January 8, 1912. There, they established Main Base. A second camp was located to the west on the ice shelf in Queen Mary Land.

http://www.south-pole.com/p0000099.htm

Cape Denison turned out to be intensely windy, the average winds speed for the whole year was 80 km/h with some extreme winds reaching about 320km/h! Mawson and his cohorts constructed a hut on a rocky cape, before wintering through nearly constant blizzards. Mawson then decided to do an aerial exploration. Francis Howard Bickerman was the pilot of the first ever plane flown to Antarctica, the Vickers REP type monoplane. When the aircraft was damaged a few hours before leave, plans had to be rearranged so it's only use was a tractor on skis. Nevertheless, the engine did not operate in cold, so it was returned to Vickers, England. On the 1st of January 2010,fragments of the aircraft's fuselage, which had been abandoned, were rediscovered on behalf of the Mawson's Hut Foundation, they were also restoring the original huts.  


Mawsons exploration program was carried out by five parties from the Main Base and two from the Western Base. Even Mawson was a part of a three-man sledding team, the Far Eastern Party, including Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis. They headed east on the December 10, 1912, to survey King George V Land.
When five weeks came around, they had made excellent progress mapping the coast line and collecting samples and they were now crossing the Ninnis Glacier 480 km east of the main base.


Mertz was skiing and Mawson was on his sled with his loss of weight. Ninnis was jogging beside the second sled. Then Ninnis fell through a snow covered crevasse, his body weight was likely to have breached the limit. They then lost their six finest dogs, majority of the party's rations, their tent and other essential supplies, they had all disappeared into the massive crevasse. They then spotted one of their dogs, dead and one with an injured leg fifty metres below them. Ninnis was never seen again. Mawson and Mertz immediately turned back after a brief inspection. They had one week's supply for three men, no dog food but heaps of fuel and primus. Yet, they sledged on for another twenty seven hours straight to obtain spare cover they had left behind. Their lack of supply led them to forcing their remaining sled dogs to feed other sled dogs and themselves.


 "Their meat was tough, stringy and without a vestige of fat. For a change we sometimes chopped it up finely, mixed it with a little pemmican, and brought all to the boil in a large pot of water. We were exceedingly hungry, but there was nothing to satisfy our appetites. Only a few ounces were used of the stock of ordinary food, to which was added a portion of dog's meat, never large, for each animal yielded so very little, and the major part was fed to the surviving dogs. They crunched the bones and ate the skin, until nothing remained." Douglas Mawson.


There was a deterioration in the explorers' physical condition during the journey. Both men suffered dizziness; nausea; abdominal pain, irrationality, mucosal fissuring; skin, hair and nail loss; and yellowing of the eyes and skin. Soon, Mawson noticed a major change in Mertz travelling attitude. Losing the will to move, Mertz wished to stay only in his sleeping bag. Rapidly, he started to deteriorate with diarrhoea and intense madness. On one particular occasion, Mertz refused to believe that he was a victim of frostbite which resulted in biting a tip of his own finger off. This unusual behaviour was followed by violent raging - Mawson had to sit on his suffering companion's chest and hold down his arms to prevent him damaging the tent. Mertz then suffered more seizures before sadly falling into a coma and dying on January 8, 1913.

At the time, it was unknown that the husky liver contains extremely high levels of vitamin A. Extreme levels is poisonous to the human body, that was also unknown at the time. With six huskies between them (a liver on average weighing 1 kg), it is possible that the two explorers ingested enough livers to bring on a condition recognised as 'Hypervitaminosis A'. They consumed highly dangerous levels of vitamin A from the huskies livers. On the other hand, Mertz may have suffered more than Mawson because he found it quite a challenge to eat the tough muscle tissue, therefore, he ate more liver than Mawson. It is also traditional to Eskimos that they do not eat a dogs' liver. Yet another theory states that Mertz was a a vegetarian. In The Medical Journal of Australia, it states again that Mertz was a vegetarian and perhaps the sudden change of diet, that was predominately meat, could have helped trigger his illness. That combined with the psychological stress related to the death of his close friend, Ninnis, the death of dogs that he cared for as well as having to eat the remaining dogs. All these things combined are thought to have killed Mertz.


After the unfortunate tragedy, Mawson continued another 160 km alone. On his return trip to the Main Base, he fell into the lid of a crevasse. Luckily, he was saved by his sledge wedging itself into the ice above him. He was then forced to climb out using his harness attaching him to the sled.


When Mawson eventually made his way back to Cape Denison, the ship Aurora had already left only a few hours before Mawsons' arrival. It was recalled by wireless communication, only to have the bad weather prevent the rescue. Mawson, plus six men which had remained behind to look for Mawson, wintered another year until December 13. I n Mawsons' book, 'Home of the Blizzard', he describes his experiences. His party, and those at the Western Base, had explored large areas of the spectacular Antarctic coast in which they describe its geology, biology and meteorology. More importantly, they defined the location of the south  magnetic pole. 


In 1916, the American Geographical Society awarded Mawson the David Livingstone Centenary Award.


This is just one of four of his intense expeditions.

Douglas Mawson went on four expeditions to Antarctica; his first expedition was part of the Ernest Shackleton British Antarctic Expedition. In association with Australian geologist, Professor Edgeworth David and naval surgeon Alistair Mackay, Mawson was the first to reach the magnetic south pole in January 16, 1909.
Mawson undertook two more explorations in Antarctica; one in 1929 and his last exploration in 1931, leading the first and second British, Australian and New Zealand Research Expeditions, the BANZAR.


The purpose of these BANZAR expeditions were to 'concentrate on oceanography, Antarctic and subantarctic marine biology and Antarctic coastal exploration to the west of the Shackleton Ice Shelf'
http://www.douglasmawson.com.au/Mawson.html

This is where Mawson went on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition.



Transportation
He relied on ships to reach his destinations: Antarctica, New Zealand (Macquarie Island, Auckland Island, Campbel Island, Snares Islands, Stewart Island). In the Antarctic, Mawson used huskies to get around.


During the 1909-1911 Nimrod (name of the ship) Expediton, the team brought ponies, one of which died on arrival and the other was shot during the journey. Fortunately they also had brought a motor car supposedly adapted for Antarctic conditions. Ironically the car suffered from overheating of the engine and the men had to wait in the cold for it to cool down again before it could run.


Here's a bit of information about the AURORA
"The AURORA, built in Dundee, was still in relatively good condition despite her old age. The hull was made of stout oak planks, sheathed with greenheart and lined with fir. The bow was a mass of solid wood re-enforced with steel-plated armor. The heavy side frames were braced by two levels of horizontal oak beams. The primary dimensions were 165 feet in length, 30 feet in width and 18 feet in depth, with a carrying capacity of approximately 600 tons. The engines were compound, supplied with steam from a single boiler. Six large steel tanks were built into the bottom of the hold for storage of fresh water. On the deck was a deck-house, comprising the cook's galley, steward's pantry and two laboratories. Forward from this area was storage for kerosene, lamps and other supplies. The fo'c'sle-head accommodated the carpenters' stores while below it were the quarters for a crew of sixteen men."
http://www.south-pole.com/p0000099.htm

Timeline

Event Date:	Event Title:	Event Discription:
05/05/1882	Mawson's Birth	Mawson was born in Yorkshire, England on May 5, 1882.
02/02/1884	Relocation	Mawson Family moved to Australia when Douglas was only 2 years of age.
1898	University	Mawson starts University at the age of sixteen studying mining engineering
1902	Graduation	Mawson graduated from Sydney Uni at the age of 20
1902	New Hebrides	Mawson took a six month leave to do a study on New Hebrides. This was his introduction to scientific research.
1905	Lecturer	Mawon agreed to take on the role of lecturer in minerology and petrology.
1907 1908	Shackleton Mt Erubus	Shackleton's expedtiton In March 1908, Mawson and his group led by David became the first to climb Mount Erebus.
1908	Region of the South magnetic pole	A.F. Mackay and Mawson became the first to reach the vicinity of the south Magnetic Pole.
1911	Australasian Antarctic Expedition	Mawson lead an this expedition to the King George V land and Adelie
1914	Marriage	Mawson married Francisca Delprat. They had to girls, Patricia and Jessica Mawson.
1916	Awards	The American Geographical Society awarded Mawson the David Livingstone Centenary Award.
1929 and 1931	BANZAR Expedition	The British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition lead by Mawson
1952	Retirement	He retired from teaching and was awarded Emeritus Professor of the University of Adelaide.
14/10/1952	Death	Mawson died in his own house of cerebral haemorrhage.

This is a video of Sir Douglas Mawson rising the flag of the magnetic south pole:
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/history/people/douglas-mawson


Discoveries & Achievements


Mawson identified a radioactive mineral described as davidite. This mineral containing titanium and uranium was also found in a region now recognised as Radium Hill. Radium Hill was the first major ore body discovered in Australia.


Throughout his South Australian period, he was investigating highly mineralised Precambrian rocks in the Barrier Range. This investigation extended from the northern Flinders Ranges through to Broken Hill. Australia is full of igneous and sedimentary rocks with varying degrees of mineralisation. Mawson discovered two groups: an older Archaean, also known as Willyama, and a newer, Proterozoic also known as Torrowangee. This investigation was publicized, 'Geological Investigations in the Broken Hill area'. Mawson submitted the material of his investigation to the University of Adelaide (1909). 


'Never an 'armchair geologist', his enthusiasm, spirit of adventure and conscientious approach have made him a hero in every sense of the word, and a person of whom all Australians may be proud.'

'South Australian Museum'