BACK TO CAMP

Evening Star, Issue 20321, 1 November 1929, Page 5

BACK TO CAMP

THE GEOLOGICAL PARTY INCIDENTS OF THE JOURNEY Special to Press Association from the Byrd Expedition by Russell Owen. (Copyright.) BAY OF WHALES, October 31. (Received November 1, at 10.30 a.m.) The five door teams of the geological party, having taken their loads hundreds of mdcs, returned in eight and a-half days. They tumbled in just before dinner, the dogs eager for seal meat instead of pemmican, which they have eaten lately, and the men just as anxious to get inside and eat a warn dinner in comfort. All the five drivers (Vaughan, Goodale, Crockett, O’Brien, and Thorn) were in good condition though their faces were burnt and peeling from facing the wind going out and the sun all the way back. When they left they had a bitterly cold wind in their faces and the temperature rapidly dropped 30deg below on the interior of the barrier. They became soaked in perspiration when 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 20deg below it melted a bag of pemmican in ono depot which had been improperly covered with snow and even melted the snow on the canvas tanks.

About seventy-fivo miles out they came to a remarkable series of sartrug—snow which has 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 oi three feet high and as hard as flint, while between them the hollows were filled with soft snow. Travelling over these is very difficult. It was in the midst of these sartrugi that the geological .party left part of their loads in order to relieve the dogs. After reaching the hundred miles depot four days ago and finding that the support party had gone on they left their loads and with one light sledgo each started back for camp. They travelled fast, corning the whole distance in three days. The dazzling sun burnt their faces and huit 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 then cheeks, and their lips were cracked and broken. The day before yesterday they topped one of the Jong hills on the barrier and saw before them to the north a tiny black speck. It began to move and came down tire slope towards them, throwing the snow behind it and mutter to itself as it climbed again. It was a snowmobile full .of fuel and scornful words for the dogs. That was a merry meeting. The snowmobile started four days ago. After many vicissitudes Tim Ferny, the long-legged Irishman from Paterson Now 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 threads, and one day, with the aid of half of the camp, ran it out of the deep hole where it had been buried all riio winter.