Commander Byrd Tells Why Going to Antarctic Regions

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6667, 21 July 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

Commander Byrd Tells W hy Going to Antarctic Regions

It made no particular difference to Michael Faraday’s generation, or even to the next generation after his, that he discovered the secret of magnetic induction; but to-day much of the world is run by electricity. It will make no great difference to this generation, or perhaps even to the nest, that Commander Eichard IS. Byrd was filled with curiosity about glacial change in the antarctic and so .'went there to study it, and' whatever r-strengd.'animal .and plant life he could find. . , But; sometime, way off in the future/ mayhap man will say, ‘.‘Back ■ in the. twentieth* century, a fellow named Byrd became curious about glaoiaVichango in .the antarctic and went ‘'there in a little tri-mo bored airplane to v see what was happening. , , ~. ‘ ‘And habitation, in course of time no doubt having- come closer than 2300 miles to, the South Pole, will have had something of influence added to it because a man named ' Byrd preserved, when he was grown the same cariosity ■ that made him insist on going round the world alone when he was a boy of

' 12.. ,' A ; ... . Things are quickening around Com- ’ mander Byrd’s homo in Boston. The Samson, Norwegian ice ship in which he, and 54 men, and 100 sled dogs will sail for, the-Bay-of "Whales, on the fringe of the Boss ice barrier on the tenth Of September,' is to Boston. The Commander, talking in a room filled with . decorative expression ■ of . China, Japan, Korea, measured, wita half-closed eyes, space for briefly anchoring the Samson in the Charles Biver Basin so that the public might , see the bid and capable wooden ahip in'which men will voyage to that last mystic outpost,, the 'Antarctic. - Younfc Dickie Byrd, nearly eight how, ' blonde and serious-eyed, very - much a . ■ man over the impending separation, '■<wandered by, stdod-an. instant looking - v at the mist-veiled sheet; of the basin, thinking possibly that it would bo a good job if Father fetched, the Samson right up to the back gate, as you might say.-V. > ' . • >■ ", ;-■■. ■ The Commander says he is not going to talk any more before he sails. “Too much to do. The IJTorth Pole is oyer u.hnd done-with.':- The trans-atlantio— A; that too. Theres nothing to talk

Plans are Progressing. lu a-storage warehouse on the New York waterfront, consignments of dehydrated vegetables, pcmmican and other necessities for a possible two years in the antarctic arc being checked for stowing in the ship. “There are nearer areas of glacial change,” the Commander said. “But the books say things about the; antarctic. Are they true? Books say things about glaoiffl change. Are those true? I want to know. I’m going to find out if I can. The ..‘ologists’, have a lot of things they want to find out about, too. As nearly aWI can make out from my correspondence, 2000 more people have things they’d like to find out about the antarctic, too.” The Commander did not say he expected to find a lost race, as well as lost species of animal and plant life, but it is not impossible. • , You get the idea that ho is the kind to expect to find quantities of things no one else ever heard of. Says Dogs Get You Somewhere. “I don’t care anything about sticking up a flag. Ohj I’d do it in passing. -The sled dogs are going because tho planes must have landing fields.-and only men and dogs can find us landing fields., . And the. ‘.ologists’ are impatient fellows; they- can’t’wait;for airplane service. ‘ Sled dogs give me a feeling of security. I believe in- planes, ‘hut when you start out with dogs you get somewhere in conditions and .country planes don't like. It’s all right to look down from the air on, territory that looks to bo a smooth plateau oi snow, but you don’t want to como down suddenly and find 1 opt that the plateaus roll'like waves at sea and are snowcovered hummocks hundreds of, feet high. I dashed for the North Pole. I want to go to the South Pole, but I am not going to be rushed, because it is go that way or not at all.

“For ages nature has kept barriers around the antarctic. Barriers have been kept tip for long periods between nations. 1 was right all the years I believed that the airplane would be an instrument of good will ahd peace, of commerce not warfare. I believe aviation can conquer the barriers thrown up by nature around the antarctic. Wc’ll have,a look, anyhow.”