The volcano was emitting a
great deal of smoke, and the glow of its internal fires showed
occasionally against the smoke-clouds above the crater. Stevens,
Spencer-Smith, and Cope went to Cape Royds on the 20th, and were still
there when the sun made its first appearance over Erebus on the 26th.
Preceding days had been cloudy, and the sun, although above the
horizon, had not been visible.
"The morning broke clear and fine," wrote Mackintosh. "Over Erebus
the sun's rays peeped through the massed cumulus and produced the most
gorgeous cloud effects. The light made us all blink and at the same
time caused the greatest exuberance of spirits. We felt like men
released from prison. I stood outside the hut and looked at the truly
wonderful scenery all round. The West Mountains were superb in their
wild grandeur. The whole outline of peaks, some eighty or ninety
distant, showed up, stencilled in delicate contrast to the sky-line.
The immense ice-slopes shone white as alabaster against dark shadows.
The sky to the west over the mountains was clear, except for low-lying
banks at the foot of the slopes round about Mount Discovery. To the
south hard streaks of stratus lay heaped up to 30 degrees above the
horizon.... Then Erebus commenced to emit volumes of smoke, which rose
hundreds of feet and trailed away in a north-westerly direction.
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