IN ROSS SEA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 49, Issue 65, 27 December 1928, Page 6

IN ROSS SEA

THE BYRD EXPEDITION.

THE TOW THROUGH ICE PACK. (Dilited Press Association— Copyright) NEW YORK, December 25. In a copyright message from the Byrd Expedition now in the Ross Sea, Mr Russei Owen, of the "New York Times," on Board the City of New York, writes: , "We are out of the ice-pack and sailing along in a calm sea. There is a blue sky overhead and the sun is so warm that we can stay on deck without hat or gloves and not feel uncomfortable. The pack is behind us, and only one iceberg shows to the east, shining white in the sun. "Oddlv enough, in this lonely sea, we see the smoke of a ship on the horizon. It is one of those whalers which come here each year. All the way across the Pacific we did not see a single ship, and now we have three largs ships and 15 small chasers moving about within 100 miles of us. We came through the pack in seven and ahaif days, towed by the C. A. Larsen, the big whaler which brought Commander Byrd and some of his men from California to New Zealand. We have been towed nearly 2000 miles. The C. A. Larsen, a vessel of 17,000 tons, goes through the ice every year and we were fortunate in being able to use the pathway it left behind when its powerful engines forced aside the ice, which we could not have broken. As a result, we came through quickly and l easily/using very little coal, and if good weather holds we should be at the barrier several days before it has been reached by other expeditions. "Wo hope to be at Discovery Inlet, in the ice barrier, on Christmas night, but we don't know how much ice lies between us and that point. The baro* ter is hhrh and steady for the first time, and we hope it will stay there."

Through The Ice Wall. "Our last day in the pack was one of the most interesting of the entire trip. The ice was heavy, and with all our manoeuvring we could not avoid some violent collisions. Once we sidled »p to a huge floe, and scraped along it, trying to go round the corner, but nearly knocked off our port lifeboat against the top. "We had several false alarms of sea ahead, and when we actually did meet the edge of the pack it came upon us so suddenly that we were taken by surprise. This is due to several reasons, the most important of which was the peculiar alignment of the bergs along its edge. For some time before we reached the bergs we had, seen them outlined' againßt the sky and wondered at their cause. They stretched to the right and left of us as far as we could see—small table bergs with perfectly flat tops, which rose about 30 feet above the water. They formed a perfectly natural wall, which reminded one of the Great Wall of China. As we drew nearer we could see dark water between some of them, and realised that we were only a few miles from the open water. " The heavy bergs had completely stopped the swell which usually warns one that the edge of the pack is near, ialthough we learned when he had passed through them that the Ross Sea was almost as calm as Long Island Sound on a pleasant summer day. " As we drew abreast of this ice rampart, through an opening between two of the largest bergs, we began to rise and fall on a little swell, and in a moment we were outside in the midst of the mushy ice that was to the seaward of the bergs for upwards of a mile. Before us lay the smiling, smooth surface of Roes Sea, which, after the storms of higher latitudes and the threatening pack ice, was the pleasantest sight we had ever looked upon. "We turned to look back at the pack, that grim, white wall of bergs looked even more imposing from the open water. Beyond them' was an unbroken stretch of white, and the passage through which we had come might almost have had written upon it: 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,' so desolate it looked after our swift release.

Whale-Chasers at Work. "The C. A. Larsen cut us off and in a short time the little chasers were dashing away stretching out like skirmishers and looking for whales. In not more than an hour there was the banging of a gun to windward and the fishing had begun again. "Captain Nilsen, of the 0. A. Larsen, came aboard the City of New York for a moment to bio! Commander Byrd good-bye and wish him luck, and we toasted him as one of the finest sportsmen and friends any one could wish in these forsaken waters. Busy as he had been, he has found time to give us good advice and help us in innumerable ways which did not interfere with his operations. "He has given us a lot of whale meat which has been a welcome addition to our fresh meat supply, and we have had it in almost every form that George Tennant, our cook, could devise. It seems to be best when cut thin and fried or chopped up with onions im meat balls. It is as tender and as good meat as one could desire. About two tons of it is hung in our rigging and some will be dried for use on the trail. It is feed to the dogs as Well as the crew and both are thriving on it. 'Pass the whale' is one of the phrases at mess at which we have long ceased to laugh. "Captain Nilsen was of the opinion that the berg barrier at the edge of the ice pack, which he had never seen before, was due to the breaking off of a large but low piece of barrier ice which had floated to the edge of the pack before disintegrating."—Australian Press Association.