TRANS-ANTARCTIC CROSSING

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28491, 22 January 1958, Page 10

TRANS-ANTARCTIC CROSSING

“Fuchs Only Man To Decide”

Dr. Fuchs was the only man capable of deciding whether he should continue with his transAntarctic crossing, said Dr. Trevor Hatherton, the former leader of the New Zealand scientific party at Scott Base, who returned to New Zealand in the United States transport John R. Towle yesterday. Conditions from the South Pole to Scott Base were likely to become very severe after midMarch, but the last stretch of the route was well-marked and well-supplied, said Dr. Hatherton. Unless Dr. Fuchs’s party reached Scott Base before that time, it would probably have to winter over at the base. Dr. Hatherton would not express any opinion on Sir Edmund Hillary’s decision to travel to the Pole.

Discussing the scientific programme carried out during the last 13 months at Scott Base, he said that the scientists had been mainly concerned with the study of the upper atmosphere and the formation of the ice and the land beneath it.

Extensive records of readings and observations made at the base had been brought back by the I.G.Y. team and would now be examined and analysed. Dr. Hatherton said that he may return to the Antarctic next summer, but would in the meantime continue to work on the I.G.Y. studies in New Zealand. His place as leader of Scott Base has been taken by Mr L. H. Martin, a senior broadcasting engineer, of Dunedin.