FASCINATING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 293, 11 December 1929, Page 7

FASCINATING.

POLAR PHOTOGRAPHS

Pictorial Record Of Byrd's Epic

Flight.

GRANDEUR OF SCENERY.

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

(Received 9.30 a.m.); NEW YORK, December 10. [By Mr. Russell Owen. Copyrighted 1928 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 OP WHALES, December 9. The photographs of the Polar flight are fascinating. The flight through the mountains, up the deep gorge of the glacier where the walls, at times, seem only a few feet away from the 'plane, is shown, the rising surface of the Barrier coming closer and closer, necessitating the throwing overboard of food to lighten the 'plane, and then the final jump, over which the 'plane staggered to the long slope of | the plateau. The scenery is magnificent. There are great peaks rising above the 'plane, cloaked with snow, except where the black precipitous sides are too steep to hold it, rivers of ice which pour down between them, and a jumbled mass of mountains, as impressive as any in the world, rising along the edge of the interior plateau.

•* As the 'plane went southward from them and at the point where it entered the plateau, photographs were taken at intervals so that' they overlapped. They show mountains stretched to the east and gradually curved to the north until the 'plane reached the interior of the Polar plateau.

Even the mightiest of them disappeared below the horizon »nd there was*only a limitless plain beneath, without landmarks or guides except the sun and the magnetic compass.

Nothing could so well make clear the difficulty of this flight as these photographs. The whole trip to the Pole can be brought home to anyorfe when these strips are combined with the ones from Little America to the mountains, taken on the base-laying flight, and there is such astounding mountain scenery that everyone has been poring over them with exclamations of delight.

These mountains are particularly interesting because they are separated from any known land hitherto placed on the charts.

Commander Byrd, on his eastern flight, flew to the north, cast and south of the Alexandra Mountains, which run in a different direction than is shown on the charts. There is a considerable distance between the eastern and the new mountains, at least 50 miles, or probably more.