MAWSON EXPEDITION

Evening Star, Issue 20685, 7 January 1931, Page 6

MAWSON EXPEDITION

THE DISCOVERY IN HURRICANE SKILFUL HANDLING SAVES VESSEL Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyrifeht SYDNEY, January 7. (Received January 7, at II a.m.) A message from Sir Douglas Mawson states: — “Since my last message Providence has sustained our best efforts to cope with the exceptional hurricane. The berg-strewn waters of the D’Urville Sea were lashed into fury, consolidating the pack into a grinding mass against the ship. Frozen spindrift and fleecy snow obscured the view so effectively that only by a miracle wo missed crashing into a gigantic tubular berg which loomed up about a length ahead. The brave ship tumbled and staggered in the unequal onslaught, but steadily drove back to the leeward of the most gigantic mill ever conceived. “The fury-driven, heaving, frenzied, grinding ice masses of this vicious pack we survived by the skilful handling of the Discovery, and Captain Mackenzie succeeded in working the ship through God’s great mill into the calmer waters of the slack area. Within one day the whole body of the' pack ice was driven fifty miles and 'crumpled against the immovable grounded barrier of ico and bergs, charted as Clarie Island. The slack water closed in for a moment, but after .an anxious struggle we emerged staggering into the leaping, spuming sea It was now clear enough to make navigation possible. The wind has now moderated, and we may land to-morrow on the shores of the high, ice-cased land which lies on the starboard beam.”