YOUTH IN ARCTIC

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 224, 21 August 1935, Page 14

YOUTH IN ARCTIC

WINTERING ON UNKNOAYN COAST. AN OXFORD EXPEDITION. A correspondent of the London Times wrote early in July:—ln the latter part of July the Oxford University Arctic Expedition, 1935-36, arranged under the auspices of the Oxford University Exploration Club, is leaving England to spend 14 months on the unknown coast of tho barren ice-clad North-East Land. The expedition, which is probably the youngest which has ever wintered in the Arctic, consists of the following members:—A. R. Glen, glaciologist and leader; Andrew Croft, dog-driver and second-in-com-mand ; A. Dunlop-Alackenzie, organiser; A. S. T. Godfery, R.E.. surveyor; It. A. Hamilton, physicist; D. B. Keith, ornithologist; R. Aloss, physicist; A. B. AYnatman, Royal Corps of Signals, wireless; J. W. AVriglit, surveyor; and Dr. A. Ballantine. The average age of tho members is 23. Of these, Croft anti Godfrey were members of last year’s Britis)) expedition which sledged across Greenland and southwards along the eastern mountains, while Keith and Wright have been on summer Cambridge Icelnnd expeditions. Glen was leader of the 1933 Oxford Spitzbergen expedition, and it was while he was in Spitzbergen during the summer of 1934 that tire idea of this present expedition was suggested to him by the Swedish explorer, Dr. Ahlmann, of Stockholm. The preparations for the expedition have l>een decentralised so that each member of the personnel was responsible for some branch of the plans. VALUABLE ASSISTANCE. The University of Oxford, the Royal Society, and the Royal Geographical Society have supported the expedition generously, as have various other societies and funds, notably Oxford and Cambridge colleges. The War Office has attached two officers and has lent a great deal of wireless equipment, and scientific equipment has been lent by the Admiralty, the Aleteorological Office, and the National Physical Laboratory. Moreover the expedition has been presented hv British firms with goods of the estimated value of no less than £2090. Aloss and tho doctor will he taken to Alossel Bay, in north-east Spitzbergen, by the Norwegian Government steamer, where they will he left with some 20 tons of stores and equipment. The rest will sail in the expedition ship, the in.s. Polar, of Tromso, to Rijps Bay, midway along the north coast of North-East Land, where they will be landed and where the base hut will he built. The ship will then proceed to Alossel Bay to pick up Aloss and the doctor, anil to bring them and their cargo to Rijps Bay. The first thing to be done after all the stores and equipment have been landed will be to build the base hut, which will be the headquarters of the expedition. Since the crew of the Polar will be helping to build the hut, a party of three, consisting probably ot Dunlop-Alackenzie, Glen, and Wright, will set out, ns soon as the cases of stores and equipment have all been brought ashore, in a whalo-boat, iittcil with an outboard engine, to explore the western part of .the north coast Iving between North Cape and Rijps Bay. A CONTINUOUS SURVEY. Although only three expeditions have worked in the interior of North-East Land and although no expedition has yet wintered there, the west coast was surveyed by the Swedish-Norwegian Expedtion as long ago as 1899-1901, anil as one of their trigonometrical points was near North Cape it is hoped that it will ho possible to join the survey to theirs, and continue the theodolite framework eastwards, filling in tho detailed topography by plane table.

Once the hut has been finished, Whatman and Hamilton will begin theii work. Whatman, as well as being in charge of radio-communications, is planning to carry out observations on the ionosphere, for the first time north of the auroral belt, in continuation of the work of the British Polar Year Expedition of 1932 under Professor Appleton, with whoso advice the present programme has been arranged. Hamilton is responsible for the measurement of atmosphere ozone which will he attempted for the first time in such a high latitude as 80deg. N. Two stations are to ho maintained on the inland ice over the winter and into the spring of 1936. One of the stations will he sited o?j the summit of the eastern area of inland ice at a height of some 2600 ft about 60 miles direct from the base hut, and the other betwen the higher station and the base, near the edge of the ice cap on one of the glaciers flowing into Dove Bay. If conditions have been good and the first summer’s programme lias lieen completed before the end of August two sledge parties may set out to cross tho East lee so as to make a barometer soction of it, and to look for the fjord which in 1872 Nordenskiold declared existed in the south-east. It is more likely, however, that the journey will bo made in the spring ot 1936. FOUR MONTHS OF DARKNESS. The purpose of the winter stations is a thorough investigation ot the present balance of glacial conditions to be obtained through measurement of the parts played hy precipitation and ablation, and a further investigation of the separate factors obtaining in each: snowfall, hoar-frost lime, and driit in the former, and thaw, radiation, evaporation, and wind action in the latter. Investigations or. the physical structure of the ice will also be carried out, and the work will he in the hands of Glen and Aloss. \ T ery severe conditions will have to be allowed for, and although the relatively short distances between the stations themselves and the base will doubtless facilitate matters, routes will have to he flagged with great care as the undulating ice cap is entirely without landmarks and blizzards can arise without warning. Although every effort will lie made to change the personnel periodically at each station, it is not improbable that the weather may make this impossible. In that event the two men .at each station will have to be prepared to spend at least six months by themselves, four months of which will he total darkness, relieved only by moonlight, and the periodical displays of the Aurora Borealis. In the early spring one of those slations will be relieved, while the personnel of the other will be changed so as to continue its observations into the early summer. When this has been done a sledge party will journey along the eastern part of the north coast, bv way of Dove Bay, to Cape Leigh Smith, so as to complete the survey, and from there to continue it down the east coast. The beginning of summer will be spent in completing any work which may have been left over, as well as in examining some of the new problems that will have doubtless arisen from the previous year’s work.