BYRD EXPEDITION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 163, 11 June 1929, Page 7

BYRD EXPEDITION.

CHANGES IN TEMPERATURE.

MEN THRIVE OF SEAL AND WHALE MEAT.

(By Russell Owen, copyright 1928 by the New York Times Company and the St. Louis Post Dispatch; all rights for publication reserved throughout the world. Wireless to tho Now York Times.) BAY OF WHALES, June 9. There has been a remarkable fluctuation in the thermometer: changes of 65 degrees—from 48 below to 16 above zero. This warm, temperature was caused by a wind from the north, which brought the heaviest snowfall we had had for some time. It felt queer to have our feet sink into snowdrifts again, because drifts are usually formed by high winds and the snow packs so hard that one’s foot hardly makes any impression on it. The overcast sky for a fortnight made it dark and difficult to walk any distance. Everyone is well, however, and so far the Polar night has not caused either discomfort or irritability. There is only a fortnight to midwinter, when the sun will begin the journey back again, but our coldest time comes in July or August. We weighed ourselves on the scale the other day, and we found, much to our amusement, that nearly everyone in the Byrd expedition was getting fat. Several men tipped the scales at between 170 and 210 pounds. It is all George Tennant’s fault. Our cook has so many tricks and ways of fixing seal meat or whale cutlets that he makes nearly everyone like them. The seal is as black as can be, but is tender and with very little fish taste to it, and when George has some left over he fixes it up so that it looks like stewed truffles and tastes like nothing on earth that one ever ate before, but it is good. Curried whale can be palatable even when it suggests whale too strongly, and when one begins to crave for something else George -will produce ham or roast pork or mutton stew. The dehydrated beans actually taste like string beans, and some other vegetables are very good.