EXPLORERS’ DIET

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 54, 27 November 1929, Page 11

EXPLORERS’ DIET

COOKING PROBLEMS AT 30 BELOW ZERO INGENIOUS STOVE CONVERTING SNOW INTO NUTRITIOUS SOUP (By Russell Owen. —Copyright to Sydney "Sun” and “New York Times.”) Cooking and food problems generally with the thermometer 30 to 50 degrees below zero have taxed the ingenuity of Commander Byrd and his fellow explorers in the Antarctic. In the following article Russell Owen, special correspondent with the expedition, tells how difficulties have been overcome and a wellbalanced diet arranged for ail. Little America, October 1. The most important thing on the trail is food, and the greatest trail problem is to carry enough food so as to give a well-balanced and sufficient ration. Too often the rations carried by polar explorers have been deficient in quantity or in nutritive value, for exposure and hard work in low temperatures quickly reduce men’s stamina, and if their food runs low they wear out quickly. If a tragedy does not result, it Is only after the greatest suffering that they manage to regain their base. The food for use on the trail by members of the Byrd expedition has been selected after a careful study of the rations used by former expeditions and a careful inquiry as to the value of various kinds of concentrated foods. It gives each man a daily ration of about thirty-six ounces, or approximately 500 calories a day, or 1200 pounds for six men for ninety days. It consists of pemmican, biscuits, butter, peanut butter, bacon, concentrated soup, oatmeal, sugar, powdered milk, cocoa, malted milk, tea, salt, and chocolate. The pemmican was made in Denmark, and is the same kind as used by Amundsen. The biscuits are in themselves a good ration, as they contain many things. The concentrated soup comes in sausage form, and has long been the standard ration for the German armies and has been used before in polar regions. A lemon powder which contains the important vitamin C is also an important part of the diet because of its anti-scorbutic properties. The meals on the trail are cooked in a stove which is a modification of Dr. Nansen’s famous cooker, and which was made by Master Technical Sergeant Victor Czegka. It is called the Nansen-Czegka Cooker, and will cook a meal for six men easily. It is built around a twoburner primus stove which burns gasoline- x It consists of a centre pot over the burners, which is filled with snow. The heat passes up the sides of the centre pot between it and a ring pot until stopped by a top pot, which acts as a cover and also contains snow. After hitting the bottom of this top pot, the heat passes over and down the outside of the ring pot and out at the bottom of the cooker. It will hold twenty-one quarts. This cooker has proved very successful when tested in a temperature of thirty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The snow in the centre pot was melted In seven minutes, and began to boil at the end of twelve minutes. This represented about a third of a pot of water, but by the time the water in the centre pot was hot, enough water had accumulated in the top and ring pots to be drained off through spigots and used for filling the centre pot. When camp is made for the night, the stove is filled with snow and started. When the water in the centre pot has boiled, the concentrated soup and pemmican are put in and dissolved, and heated. This makes a thick, nutritious soup. When that is finished, it is taken off and another centre pot is put in place and more water put into it to make tea. By the time the soup is eaten, the tea is ready. Then the first centre pot is put back and oatmeal is put in it. As soon as it begins to boil it is taken off and put into a vacuum jug and by next morning it is thoroughly cooked, saving time and fuel. At breakfast oatmeal is eaten with milk made from milk powder, and then tea is made and put into the vacuum jug to be used at the noonday halt. The noon lunch consists of a piece of cold pemmican, a cracker or two, and a piece of chocolate. The evening drink will probably be malted milk or chocolate, instead of tea, most of the time. The bulk of this ration is, of course, pemmican, biscuit, tea, and sugar, which are the most necessary items, the others being added for variety, with the exception of the lemon powder, which has a distinct value. It can best be used in the tea. There will be little change from the soup and oatmeal rations most of the time, although biscuit dr bacon can be added to the -soup, and the ingenuity of men on the trail in getting a new combination of food sometimes produces surprising results. Almost anything new tastes good after a month or two of the same diet. It is also possible, of course, that some fresh seal meat may be taken into the geological base by aeroplane on a base-laying flight. The coarser food is packed in bags, each of which contains’ a daily ration, and the lighter foods are packed in bags, each of which holds a week’s ration. By packing the food in this way it can be stowed securely in the canvas tanks on the sledges, and only a small amount need be taken out each night for use, thus cutting down the time used .in breaking camp in the morning, which has'always been a bugbear to explorers. ASTONISHING CONTRASTS IN WEATHER PREPARING FOR NEXT FLIGHT (By Russell Owen. —Special to “New York Times.”) Bay of Whales, November 24. The fair weather, which lasted a week and made flying to the mountain base possible, ended in a stiff blow. Clouds began to gather last night as the wind shifted, and in the night the wind hauled round to the east, and blew so much drift along the surface

that it covered the windows of the houses, so that every one in the administration building overslept himself. Digging out the windows now. is a job, for one has to go down nearly ten feet, and near the. bottom it is quite a heave to throw snow out of the hole. The contrasts in the weather here are astonishing. For several days the sun shone out of a cloudless sky with a gentle wind from the south that kept the air clear all the way to the mountains, and even over the plateau, but the day before yesterday it began to cloud up inland, where the geological party was plugging along with its dog teams, and yesterday the clouds began to form here. The thermometer went up to 18deg. above zero, but last night when the wind shifted the mercury began sliding down rapidly below zero. The weather is always uncertain here, and clears or gets thick as the cold air shifts out from the interior or the warm air blows in from the sea. Today there seems every prospect of several days’ overcast weather and strong winds from the east, the point from which come most of the blizzards that strike “Little America.” The period of waiting, however, has its advantages, as it permits necessary work to be done. On the big ’plane the causes of the heavy gasoline consumption on the recent base-laying flight, which brought about the forced landing, have been found and remedied, and in a flight test yesterday the consumption was found to be normal. Nevertheless, getting the ’plane over the hump of mountains and back to the base will require skilful handling, because of the fuel load and the added weight of mapping apparatus, and its operator and the food and equipment needed for the crew in case of a forced landing. Altogether it adds more than 6001 b. to the load. Value of Mapping Camera. Byrd’s original plans, based on the known performance of the ’plane, provided for a pilot and radio operator besides himself and a load which could be carried to the necessary height to fly over the 10,000 ft. plateau. The value of the mapping camera became apparent on the aerial survey of the Rockefeller Range last year, and the pictures of the mountains obtained on the flight last week have increased everyone's appreciation of their geographical importance. The camera shows mountains a hundred miles away, and so many peaks were disclosed even on this preliminary flight at an altitude of only 5000 feet that it is evident that on the Bolar flight some remarkable results may be obtained. Enough has already been learned from the aerial film exposed on the baselaying flight to indicate that mountain ranges and lands lie in different positions and run in different directions from what had been supposed, so that an entirely new conception of the land to the east of the Axel Heilberg Glacier may be gained from a careful study of the mapping photographs made on this flight and on the Polar flight, ‘so Byrd has decided to add to the difficulty of carrying a load over the high mountain range because of the importance of the aerial survey which will be obtained.

Dr. Gould’s geological party laid Depot No. 5 in latitude S2deg. 35min., which is 270 miles south of "Little America.” The party had a hard, slow trip from Depot No. 4, where they picked pp an additional load for the mountains. They also received radio messages from the 'plane in flight. On the next flight Byrd plans to drop aerial photographs of the mountains. which will help Gould, by determining the method of approach to the mountains for geological data. ICopvrighled 1928 by "New York Company and "St Louis Post-Dispatch. All rights for publication reserved throughout the world.]