CYCLE OF FIRE Stephen]. Pyne Cycle of Fire is a suite of books that collectively narrate the story of how fire and humanity have interacted to shape the Earth. "Cycle" is an apt description of how fire functions in the natural world. Yet "cycle" also bears a mythic connotation: a set of sagas that tell the life of a culture hero. Here that role belongs to fire. Ranging across all continents and over thousands of years, the Cycle shows Earth to be a fire planet in which carbon-based terrestrial life and an oxygen-rich atmosphere have combined to make combustion both elemental and inevitable. Equally, the Cycle reveals humans as fire creatures, alter- nately dependent upon and threatened by their monopoly over com- bustion. Fire's possession began humanity's great dialogue with the Earth. Cycle of Fire tells, for the first time, that epic story. World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World Fire in America: A Cultural History ofWildland and Rural Fire Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica Cycle of Fire is part of Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books, published by the University of Washington Press under the general editorship of William Cronon. A complete list of Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books appears at the end of this book. THE ICE A Journey to Antarctica STEPHEN J. PYNE With a Foreword by William Cronon and a New Preface by the Author University of Washington Press Seattle and London The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica by Stephen]. Pyne has been published with the assistance of a grant from the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Endowment, established by the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation, members of the Weyerhaeuser family, and Janet and Jack Creighton. Originally published in 1986 by the University of Iowa Press Copyright © 1986 by the University of Iowa Reprinted by arrangement with the author Paperback edition published by the University of Washington Press in 1998 Foreword and Preface to the University of Washington Press paperback edition copyright © 1998 by the University of Washington Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechani- cal, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pyne, Stephen]., 1949- The ice : a journey to Antarctica / Stephen J. Pyne : with a foreword by William Cronon and a new preface by the author. — Pbk. ed. p. cm. — (Cycle of fire) Originally published: Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, 1986. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-295-97678-0 (alk. paper) i. Antarctica—Discovery and exploration. I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: Pyne, Stephen J., 1949- Cycle of fire. G86o.P96 1998 97-45053 9i9.8'904—dcii CIP The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Perma- nence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 739.48-1984. « "The End of the World" by Archibald MacLeish, from New and Collected Poems 1917-1976, copyright © 1976 by Archibald Mac- Leish, is reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Co. To Son/0, who saw the future where I saw only the past This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword by William Cronon / ix Preface to the 1998 Paperback Edition / xi Prologue The Berg / 1 Chapter 1 The Pack / 25 Chapter 2 No Middle Way: The Exploration of Antarctica / 65 Chapter 3 The Shelf / 117 Chapter 4 Heart of Whiteness: The Literature and Art of Antarctica / 149 Chapter 5 The Glacier / 207 Chapter 6 Earth and Ice: The Earth Sciences in Antarctica / 241 Chapter 7 The Sheet / 289 Chapter 8 The Cold Peace: The Geopolitics of Antarctica / 323 Epilogue The Source / 379 Afterword / 389 Notes / 393 Sources / 403 Index / 413 This page intentionally left blank Foreword A Fireless Land William Cronon Readers can certainly be forgiven for wondering what a book entitled The Ice, about the great frozen continent of Antarc- tica, is doing in a series of books devoted to the history of fire. The book's author, Stephen J. Pyne, has made his scholarly reputation by tracing, book by book and continent by conti- nent, the role of fire in shaping the natural and human past of this planet. The result is Cycle of Fire, a suite of books which the University of Washington Press takes great pride in publish- ing as part of our Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books series. Pyne has succeeded like no historian before him in helping readers see the full sweep of human history through the fiery lens of a planet whose carbon-based organic chemistry and oxygenated atmosphere make combustion an almost inevitable accompaniment of life on every continent but one . . . Antarc- tica. How, then, did this fireless place become part of Cycle of Fire? There are several possible answers to this question. The first is more or less biographical. After completing what appeared at that time to be his magnum opus—Fire in America, on the history of rural and wildland fire in the United States—it looked for a time as if Stephen Pyne, despite his unquestionable talents as a scholar and writer, might fail to find a permanent academic position and would have to seek employment in a line of work that would not permit him to keep writing history. It was at about this time that he was given the chance to spend three months in Antarctica, a journey that profoundly influ- enced him and led directly to the writing of this book. But it was also in Antarctica that Pyne broadened his historical hori- zons beyond the North American continent where he had obtained his scholarly training, and began to consider the possi- bility of writing history on a much broader canvas. It is no accident that a short while after finishing The Ice he chose to write Burning Bush, a "fire history" of that other great southern