40 MONTHS IN POLAR SEAS

Evening Star, Issue 19186, 1 March 1926, Page 13

40 MONTHS IN POLAR SEAS

MAUD'S DRIFT 111 THE ARCTIC THE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS The drift of Captain Roald Amundsen’s ship Maud in the Polar seas, the story of which is now for the first time given to the world, forms an epio of the arctic. It is the' second time in history that such a feat has been accomplished. The voyage extended over forty months, and for twenty-four months the Maud was held fast in the icegrip, drifting at the mercy of the pack. Twice the ship and the lives'of all on board were within an ace of destruction. Once the Maud was lifted out of the water by the pressure of ice floes. Again, in an ice jam, she was thrown on her beam ends, and was about to be abandoned. Luck hejd, however, and the ice pressure relaxed. The ship’s company were kept in touch with civilisation by wireless. Nothing thrilled them more than a message that Captain Amundsen had emerged safe and sound from Bis Polar flight. Of the adventurers who set out on the Polar drift seven have returned in safety. The eighth. Assistant-engi-neer Syvertsen, gave bis life. Ho was buried at sea. The voyage has resulted in a substantial addition to knowledge in respect of oceanographic and magnetic conditions. IMPENETRABLE ICE BARRIER. Captain Oscar Wisting, who was in command of the Maud, states that the object of the cruise was to drift across the Polar ice, from the Alaskan side to the Spitsbergen side, in an effort to penetrate what is still an unknown region of an immense area. Prom Julv 30, 1922, to August 9, 1924, the Maud was drifting for hundreds of miles with the ice fields backwards and forwards. In the spring of 1924, however, a north-westerly drift was resumed, and in August the Maud was in a position north of the New Siberian Islands, where she succeeded in getting out of the ice. Captain Misting continues: Had wo remained in this region, and used every opportunity to penetrate to the nortli, it is probable that we should have drifted across the Polar Sea, which would have taken three years more, because wo were approximately where Nansen’s ship, the Fram, was frozen in in 1903. But we had received orders by wireless from Captain Amundsen to abandon further efforts to drift across and to return to Nome (Alaska). The ice barrier was impenetrable, and all attempts to find a passage were unavailing. Once more we had to resign ourselves to the ordeal of another Arctic winter. Then, as the ice broke up, we proceeded under our own power, shaping a course parallel to the Siberian coast, tending generally eastward towards Nome. We reached Behring Strait on August 11, 1925, and Nome on August 9 2. •HELD IN A VYGE, During our long drift in the icepack danger was ever present. We wore held as in a vyce, carried along at the whim of the drift ice. Twice wo were in critical danger, and each time, unable as wo were to help ourselves, luck was with us. The first occasion was on October 31, 1923, when the ship was caught in a jam of rafting ice between converging floes. Thanks to the Maud’s form of construction and to her strength she was lifted clean out of the water, now rising by the head, now by the stern, a toy of the grinding ice. She was rolled about from one side to the other, but always remained on top, almost but not quite unscathed. For two hours wo were in expectation that every moment the ship would succumb to the pressure, and that we should bo left on the ice to face what would have been certain death during tlio Arctic winter. The only damage that the ship sustained, however, was a certain amount of straining, which resulted in water trickling through the port side aft. '' DIFFICULTIES OF AIRMEN. An interesting account of the difficulties of flight in the Arctic is given by Mr Odd Dael, aviator and motion-pic-ture photographer with Captain Amundsen's Polar exploration ship Maud. The mission of the aeroplane of this expedition (says the ‘Central Nows’) was to make (lights over a radius of 300 miles from the Maud, and to make observations to ascertain the existence or nou-existeuco of bodies of laud in the unknown Polar Sea. As it was, wo got only a few miles away from the ship, and then only in test flights, made more for the purpose of ascertaining the airworthiness of the ’plane than to observe the territory below us. The first two flights were successful, but it was found impossible to take-off the third time, and the aeroplane plunged headlong into a big snowbank. Damage having been repaired, a further flight was attempted on July 16, Captain Amundson’s birthday. We were going to make this flight' as a token to him, runs the narrative. Our plans for the take-off seemed to have been correct. The little hump served nicely; the take-off was good; hut a few feet up on the rise the engine began missing.

T was unable to increase speed after several futile attempts, and I made a forced landing right into hummocky ice. When we hit the ice the whole works came up through the forward cockpit, in which Captain Wishing was seated, and his legs were entangled in the wreckage. When' we helped him out, a quick survey revealed the fact that if it had been another foot higher the debris would have crushed his legs. Fortunately neither of us got a scratch, but the plane was smashed beyond repair. We salvaged the engine and some of the parts and brought them back to Seattle. NKW LIGHT ON THE ARCTIC. Dr H. 11. Sverdrup, scientist in Captain Roald Amundsen’s polar exploration ship Maud, .summarising the work of the expedition, sets forth facts and conclusions of great scientific value. We have made an extensive investigation of the tidal phenomena on the North Siberian shelf between Point Barrow, Alaska, and Cape Tajeljuskin, the northmost. point of the Asiatic continent, says Dr Sverdrup. , This study led to the conclusion that the tidal wave .practically enters this shelf from the north. It seems, therefore, that tlm wave comes directly across the Polar Sea from the Europeon side to the Siberian and Alaskan coast without meeting any obstruction formed by masses of laud. This result is a contradiction of the hypothesis of the late Professor Eollin A. Harris, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Surrey, that extensive land masses exifjt within the still unknown region of file Polar Sea between Wrangel Island and the North Pole. His conclusion was based upon a study of the tides, but he had tidal observations from only two stations available a-ithin the large region from which the Maud now is bringing abundant record. 1 think it therefore safe to say that the conception of the progress of the tidal wave across the North Siberian shelf to which wo have arrived is correct, and the tidal phenomena do not indicate the existence of any land. INTERESTING DISCOVERY.

Another interesting discovery is the reason for the small rise and fall of tides along the North Siberian coast. When studying the tidal currents while dritfiug hundreds of miles of! the coast

we found that the tidal wave was subject to an enormous Resistance, because the wave has to press its way through the comparatively thin layer of water between the bottoni of the sea and the ice covering the surface. The energy oi the wave is eaten up by this resistance, and there is very little left of the wave when the coast is reached. The lowest temperature experienced on the voyage was Sldeg below zero Fahrenheit. At periods during every winter we experienced temperatun around this point. Observations of the temperature from the free air, obtained by means of kites equipped with re cording instruments, revealed the interesting fact that the low winter temperatures are confined to a lat er of ah directly above the ice with a thicknessof around 400 ft. “COVER OF COLD AIR.”

Above this altitude the temperatureincreases abruptly to an average of 12deg. The increase continues further with a few degrees until 3,000 ft, from which altitude a decrease takes place. The Polar Sea is thus in winter covered by a thin layer of cold air above which warmer air is founa. The explanation is that the air is cooled from below by contact with the snow-covered ice surface, which loses heat by a radiation to space. The cold air is heavy, and stays at the ground, separated from the warmer air above by a marked boundary surface. The knowledge of the ' coyer of cold air” seems of fundamental importance for the understanding of the meteorological conditions over the Polar Sea. Every member of the expedition has taker, part in the scientific work. All were not scientists, but each man was a willing student. Without co-opera-tion from nil hands, the final results might read far differently. If when all observations have been reduced and discussed they show results of great scientific value, the credit is not due to the scientists alone, but to the enthusiastic co-operation of every member who participated in the work of the Maud expedition.