Arctic Trips

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 14 (Supplement)

Arctic Trips

IT is difficult for us in this country to understand the illusions which fog and snow can produce. The story of Arctic exploration is full of instances of them. Nansen, the explorer, has several amusing examples of the way in which objects at a little distance can assume strange shapes. For much of his histories sledge journey southward he and Johansen were puzzled by the discrepancy between Lieutenant Payer's map of Franz Josef Land and the islands they found. Payer returned home with an account of tlio miglity Dove Glaciers which ho had seen shining down on him, the land trending away to the northeast. Nansen could find neither glaciers nor coastline, and it seems that Payer had mistaken banks of cloud for huge masses of ice. ° Professor Nordenskiold, the first Arctic explorer to sail round the north of Europe and Asia along the Northeast Passage, tells us that one can scarcely form any idea of the optical illusions produced by mist, and that the obscure contours of the fog-concealed objects aire often, by the ignorance of the spectator, converted into whimsical forms. He intended to row to an island. When tile boat started the air was clear, but while the party were shooting seafowl for dinner everything became wrapped in thick mist. They exerted themselves as much as possible to get in sight of the island, where the beach would afford them a safe resting place. While straining at the oars a dark border was seen through the mist at the horizon. It was taken for tlio island; but soon two white snowfields appeared, one at each side. They had not observed them before. Immediately after the fields camo in sight the scene was changed to a monster as big as a mountain, but the creature suddenly sank to the proportions of a walrus on a piece of ice, the' white tusks forming the snowfields, and the dark brown head | the mountain. Suddenly one of the men cried "Land!" There it'was before them, as they thought, with mountain peaks | and glaciers. The next moment they saw that it was really, only a piece of ice with a little earth sprinkled over it! '