BYRD EXPEDITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 94, 18 October 1939, Page 12

BYRD EXPEDITION

GIANT SNOW CRUISER

(From "The Post's" Representative.) . % NEW YORK, August 15. The giant snow cruiser to be used by the Byrd Antarctic expedition, which will sail shortly, is claiming much attention in the scientific world as a radical departure in Polar exploration. It is now under construction by the Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Company, to the design of the Research Foundation of the Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago.

Dr. T. C. Poulter will be in command of it till it is unshipped in the Bay of 'Whales via New Zealand, and will return by air. Dr. A. F. Wade, who was recently, appointed chief scientist of the expedition, will take over from Dr. Poulter, and will carry out the observations that will be undertaken jointly by the crew of the snow cruiser and the crews of the three bases it is intended to establish.

Photographic observations will be made to determine auroral features, and there will be observations in the upper air to measure the intensity of cosmic rays. Geological, glaciological, and meteorological observations will also be made by the expedition, along with measurement of the ice pressure, variations of the temperature and density of the ice. Dr. Poulter will be in communication each night with the snow cruiser by short-wave radio.