SIGNS OF SPRING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 232, 1 October 1929, Page 7

SIGNS OF SPRING.

Seals Reappear In Antarctic Regions.

COLD SNAP REPORTED. (United Service.) NEW YORK, September 30. [By Mr. Russell Owen. Copyrighted 192S by the "New York Times" Company and the "St. Louis Post Dispatch." All rights for publication reserved throughout the world. Wireless to the "New York Times"] BAY OF WHALES, September 29. A blizzard, which lasted a few days, has been followed by an unexpected cold spell. The thermometer now is hovering between 50 and CO degrees below zero. The sky has been clear for two days and the sun is shining brilliantly. Its warmth can be felt when we face it, but it has little effect in this cold drift of air from the south. Yesterday it extended as high as the meteorologists could trace it with their balloon. There are many signs, however, that spring is not far off, because in the brief interval between the blizzard and the cold wave it was so warm that seals came out on the bay ice in great numbers. Men went far out on the bay toward the sea until they reached a point within a mile of a curtain of 6ea-smokc j , beyond which they could see nothing. They saw hundreds of seals basking in the sun, mostly on new ice which extends to a point about fourteen miles north of our base, where the bay ends at the East Cape of the Barrier. This ice is broken and heaped up by pressure. In the pressure holes are the places where the seals come up to breathe. They crawl out when the weather ie not too cold. Many of them are crab-eaters. They are the most edible, and one of them was killed and brought back to the camp. It tasted good—very much like an ordinary round of steak when cooked well with dehydrated onions. Seal is valuable, as is all fresh meat, for its vitamin content, and the men who go out on the trail will be able to get plenty of it before they leave.