RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS’ DRIFT

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 162, 5 April 1938, Page 3

RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS’ DRIFT

Polar Precedents NANSEN’S MOST DARING VOYAGE Four years ago the Russian ship Chelyuskin, with a large and very mixed company on board, was crushed and sunk in , the ice off the Siberian coast, says J. M. Scott in the London “Daily Telegraph.” An ordinary merchant ship, she was trying to prove the safety and usefulness of the NorthEast Passage. In this she failed. But the eyes of the world were turned from this failure by the skill and courage of the aviators who rescued the party marooned on the floe. One hopes that the Russians will be equally successful In rescuing their four scientists now drifting on the pack-ice off the Greenland- coast. [They were rescued recently off the coast of Greenland.] There are three main possibilities of rescue: by air, by ice-breaker dr by the men themselves walking to the coast. It is impossible to say definitely which is the most likely to succeed, for drifting paek-ice is, by nature, for ever changing. Unsafe for ’Plane Landings. As things are at present, however, direct air rescue, as opposed to mere reconnaissance, seems out of the question. It is the Arctic winter, which means that there would be little or no direct light when the ’planes arrived on the scene. Every skier knows that iu diffused or reflected light it is hard to tell whether the ground slopes up or down, whether one is moving or standing still. So the difficulties of an aeroplane trying to land can be imagined. Moreover, heavy pack-ice, especially after storms such as have recently been experienced in the North Atlantic, presents the most broken surface imaginable. Floes from one to five years old have been crushed together and forced one above another, on end, and at. a.M angles, in fantastic confusion. Even if it were possible, it would be little use making a landing run, for a change of wind or current would destroy it in an hour.

A seaplane would have a better chance than a machine fitted with skis, for if the ice opened and formed a pool, as it might, the ’plane could make a landing and take off before the pressure changed, 7—'While the ice remains crushed together an ice-breaker will be almost as ’helpless as an aeroplane. No ship ever built can force her way through heavy pack, for it must be remembered that a mass of ice protruding, say, 10 feet above the surface is about eight, times as great under the water. Even in comparatively loose pack a ship’s course is more or less governed by the direction of the open leads and by the drift of the ice as a whole. An icebreaker, in fact, can break her way through new ice, but once caught in the pack she will be lucky not to be broken herself. Nansen’s Drift Across the Pole. Thus it seems that unless the pack opens and the floes become scattered the Russians’ best chance of safety Is to make for the coast of Greenland, which is now in sight. But that the pack will become looser as it drifts south is certain. The Polar ice drifts down between Spitsbergen and East Greenland, becoming looser all the way. What is left of it turns the toe of Greenland and eddies round to the west coast.

It was when this known fact was

only a hypothesis that Nansen made his most daring voyage, which, though it has not been so stated, was no douot the inspiration of the Russian venture. In 1884 an Eskimo found a sailor’s cap frozen into a floe off the coast of South-West Greenland. This cap bore the name "F. C. Lindemann.” Now, a sailor Of this name had belonged to the Jeanette, a ship which three years before had been crushed and sunk off the New Siberian Islands,' on the other side of the Arctic Ocean. Nansen felt sure that the cap had drifted over the top of the world, 2900 mi.es in 1100 days, or. at a mean speed of 2.6 miles a day. His deduction was 'this: ships had so far failed to reach the Pole because they had attacked it from the Atlantic, struggling against the polar current. He would approach from the other side and drift across the Pole with the current. His ship was the famous Fram, which later took Amundsen to the Antarctic for his journey to the South Pole. Her lines were more like those of a saucer than a ship, so that when pressure came she would rise above the ice instead of being crushed. Her drift lasted for three years. She missed the Pole by 300 miles, but came safely into open water off the coast of Spitzbergen. The Same Course. The Russian scientists have followed I much the same course as the Fram during the last part of her voyage. ,And they have been making much the same observations, though with more modern instruments —meteorology, oceanography and magnetism. But the Russians, unlike Nansen’s men, will not have a sturdy ship beneath them if they drift into open water. The best they can hope for is a ship somewhere near to pick them up. For this reason one hopes they will make for the Greenland coast at once, while the floes are still tight together and before they pass Scoresby Sound. Further south they will not come to another settlement before Angmagssalik, 500 miles away. That their own floe has cracked and broken seems to matter comparatively little. There must be plenty more. Travelling over the pack is as difficult as walking over the ruins of a town razed by an earthquake, but it is not particularly dangerous. Peary reached the North Pole that way, while Nansen left his ship in latitude 85deg., walked about 100 miles north over the 'drifting floes; and then found his way. south, by walking and by kayak, all the way to Franz Josef Land, 400 miles away. Compared with these epic journeys the Russians seem to have no more than a stroll in front of them. They would have to leave nearly all their gear behind, which they would no doubt be loath to do. They would almost certainly find a wide strip of open water close to the coast. But the ice would ensure that this was calm. If they ha'd a little boat they could cross it. If not, they could surely build some sort of craft or even ferry themselves over on a- small ice floe. Then they could wait on terra firma to be rescued, or walk to Scoresby Sound. This plan may be less praiseworthy than staying at their post, continuing their observations and waiting to be picked up by aeroplane or ice-breaker; but at least it would be safer.