IN THE ANTARCTIC

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 31 January 1929, Page 5

IN THE ANTARCTIC

A SUCCESSFUL FLIGHT.

BYRD SEES SCOTT’S DISCOVERIES

FLYING OVER BROKEN ICE. By Russell Owen, copyrighted, 1928; by the “New York Times” company and "St. Louis Post and Despatch.” All rights •for publication reserved through the world. Wireless to “New York Times.” Received 9.5 a.m. to-day. BAY OF WHALES, Jan. 29.

There are not many good flying days down, here on account of the unnatural conditions of visibility, where one, appears simply to be in big and indeterminate bowl of misty white, which merges into an equally misty gray sky. Therefore, when “Cyclone”. Haines, the trusted weather mapper of our North Pole expedition, told us the weather was O.K. we felt that it would he a pity not to take off. We started at 2.50 pan. and got off with a heavy load in 30 seconds, thus indicating the strength of the skis, landing gear, and the practicability of getting off the Ice Barrier with a full load. We were delighted when the skis left the ground without breaking and we saw Little America looking little indeed, _as she faded away behind us. For this take off we must given Balohen the credit. We, were almost immediate looking into unknown areas. To our left was the ‘uncharted coastline of the Barrier cliffs and ahead and to our right we had visibility of unexplored parts of the Barrier surface for at least forty miles. When conditions are best down here visibility is. extraordinary. USE OF SUN, COMPASS. As -long as the bright sun would hold wo could check the magnetic compass with the sun compass and could be certain of our course. We knew before starting from the pilot balloons Haines had sent up to a high altitude that we would have a strong wind with us. We were making about 120 miles an hour. , The cabin was so full of gear we could ' nofc stand; up. It was necessary to have seven hundred pounds of equipment in place in case of a forced landing.. Twenty minutes after our skis left the snow we sighted a bay in the Barrier to our left and to the right forward of the bay was a long deep fissure and pressure ridge, which indicated there was land somewhere about. After an hour or so we passed a beautiful bay in the Ice Barrier, the mouth of which was several miles wide and four ar five miles deep. The Barrier surface on the right began to mount higher, which indicated that land was beneath and on the left, between the plane and the coastline, there was a Chaotic mass of crevassers extending for about twenty miles that no foot traveller could make headway over. PEAKS DISCOVERED BY SCOTT.

We w;ere exploring to the right of our course along four thousand square miles of an area hitherto unknown. On we went until a snowpeak loomed dead ahead. “It was Scott’s Nunataks that we were heading for, a bit of bare rock showing qu the northern side of Valiant. Soott had seen this peak from the sea in 1902 when lie had fought his way through some ice packs and then in 1911 his men had been able to reach it with dog teams after weeks of struggle. Along the ooastldne we looked down upon the sppt. where this explorer, had been stuck in his. tent for days, in a snowstorm, finally having to dig himself and his dogs out. From then on w.e were over areas never touched by human feet. ' Wo could see a number of peaks running south-eastwards. Scott had named them Alexandra Mountains. They were around fifteen hundred feet high and several of them showed bare rocks on, the northern side. It is extraordinary how pleasing the sight of this rock was after so many weeks of nothing but ice and snow. A, snow covered lane from these peak., evidently sloped rapidly to the sea. There were extraordinary terraced effects and the Whole area was greatly crevassed. To our left the Ross Sea was frozen over for mile® and we noted a large number of ice islands in it. Most of them were round. Some seemed to project a hundred feet from the iqe edge. A few minutes later we began dodging snow squalls. We were now over the frozen Ross Sea and there continued a number of large ice islands. Visibility toi the southward seemed excellent, so We sot our course back to the first peak We had passed and directed a course to the southward. The air got veiy rough hero and one hump dropped us five hundred feet. There appeared-a Channel to the northwards ■of Scott’s Nunataks so it is possible that King Edwardland is an, island. Balehen has expressed this opinion; however, it is a point to be proved. NEW RANGE DISCOVERED.

There was perfect visibility to the south of us. Presently there was an exclamation from Balchen. There were mountain peaks dead ahead and showing a lot of bare rook. We were then Hying at an altitude of 4000 feet. Soon other peaks appeared to the southward, all of client showing par® rock. We must admit that we got a kick out ol this. We 'had found a range of mountains. They run about north, and south and in all we found 14 peaks, extenu ing about 30 miles. They are not more than 200 feet above sea level, but solid lock. They certainly looked good down there in the snow. It was apparent there was little movement of the ice over the land in this area, as there were very few crevasses. This was quite different from the situation round Scott’s Nunataks. There was far more bare rock visible here than at the peaks we had just left. The first peak lies a little over fifty miles from 'Sioott’s Nunataks. in a; west by south direction. We picked out one place where an aeroplane landing might be made. Later on we hope to bring mtr geologist, Larry Gould, there .to make scientific investigations. Some rocks v r ere brownish and others much darker. Before we rea.ioh.ecl £he sontliemmos peak Balchen wrote a note saying that ■the gas was getting low and that perhaps we had better return, so we reluctantly changed our course for Little America.