RETURN TO BASE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 33, 2 November 1929, Page 11

RETURN TO BASE

DOG TEAMS’ JOURNEY BEYOND ICE BARRIER PROVISIONS CARRIED 100 MILES EFFECTS OF WIND AND SUN ON DRIVERS’ FACES (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (By Russell Owen. —Special to “New York Times.”) Bay of Whales, October 29. The five dog teams of the geological party, having taken their loads a hundred miles, returned in eight and a half days. They tumbled in just before dinner, the dogs eager for seal meat instead of the pemmican they have eaten lately, and the men just as anxious to get inside and eat a warm, dinner in comfort. All five drivers, Vaughan, Goodale, Crockett, O’Brien, and Thorne, were in good condition, though their faces were burned and peeling from facing the wind going out and the sun all the way back. When they left they had a bitter cold wind in their faces, and the temperature rapidly dropped to 30 degrees below zero on the interior of the Barrier. They became soaked by perspiration travelling in the hot sun during the day, and when they stopped at night their outside clothing froze before they could get it off. The sun was so warm that at 20 below it had melted a bag of pemmican in one depot which had been improperly covered with snow, and even melted the snow on the canvas tanks. Hard Travelling. About 75 miles out they came to a remarkable series of sastrugi snow, which had been driven and cut into sharp ridges by the wind, flat on top and with overhanging knifelike edges. On the windward sides they were two or three feet high and hard as flint, while, between them the hollows were filled with soft snow. Travelling over these was very difficult, and it explains the trail. It was in the midst of these sastrugi that the geological party left part of their loads in order to relieve the dogs. After .reaching the hundred-mile depot four days ago, and finding the support party had gone on, they left their loads, and with one light sledge each started back for camp. They travelled fast, coming the whole distance in three days. The dazzling sun burned their faces and hurt their eyes, for they were facing it all the way, as it is still too cold to travel in what would normally be the hours of night,, when the sun is low in the south. The skin was peeling from their cheeks and their lips were cracked and broken. The "Snowmobile’’ on the Move. The day before yesterday they topped one of the long hills on the Barrier and saw before them to the north a tiny black speck. It began to move, and came down the slope towards them, throwing the snow behind it and muttering to itself as it climbed again. It was the “snowmobile,” full of fuel and scornful words for dogs. That was a merry meeting. The “snowmobile" started four days ago, after many vicissitudes. Ham Feury, the long-legged Irishman from Paterson, New Jersey, who drove it last year, dug it out of the snow about ten days ago, and went to work on its internal arrangements. He took the clutch out, cleaned it, fixed the treads, and one day, with the aid of half the camp, ran it out of the deep hole where it had been buried all winter. (Copyright 1928' by “New York Times” Company and “St. Louis Post-Dispatch.” All rights for publication reserved throughout the world.) NORTH POLAR FLIGHT GRAF ZEPPELIN’S CREW WILL PARTICIPATE Berlin, October 80. The Graf Zeppelin's crew has agreed to participate in the North Polar flight, against which they struck last month. They will receive special pay and Insurance.