Manawatu Daily Times The Tragedy of the Ice

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6668, 23 July 1928, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times The Tragedy of the Ice

The bitterness of defeat for the maimed remnant of Nobile’s band of Arctic adventurers has, been made more bitter by the harsh and tactless criticism of Danish and German newspapers. Whatever truth there may have been in these caustic jibes at the Italia’s ill-starred cruise they had been better left unsaid even though the Danes and their neighbours were smarting under the loss of such men as Amundsen and Malmgren.

Whatever may be the rights or wrongs of the cruise Of th® Italia it has to be remembered that the survivors have gon® through ant,appalling experience,-the effects of which will remain with them to their life’s end. And the men who have eone have' died nobly and left behind the record of heroic endeavour. What finer monument could the discoverer of the South Pole have than the jaajestic statuary and ageless silences of the Arctic? Amundsen himself would have chosen it so.

To those who remain there is the memory of failure and the marks of their -terrible experiences. What they must have endured can be realised from a graphic description given by Sir Hubert Wilkins of the hardships which the Italia’s marooned crew would have encountered. Writing to the London Times he said: “Their world is at the moment one of chips floating on water,” he wrote. “Sometimes the chips come together, sometimes they separate, sometimes they pile on the top of one another arid sometimes they are submerged. They vary in size, Some are as big as a room, .others as big- as Hyde Park. Their colour, at this time of year (June), is a dirty yellowish white, due to the decomposition of vegetable matter and marine organisms in the sea.. The surface will be covered with soft, slushy snow, on which it is impossible to lie down; and through the snow a yellow matter oozes. If they try to sleep they will find themseives in an hour or two surrounded by a pool of water. Probably they will have to snatch their rest during the warmth of the'noonday and walk up and down to keep, their blood circulating when the temperature gets lower.’’

After discussing the possibilities of rescue, Sir Hubert Wilkins added: • ■ Confined, as they must be, to a small area on the ice, the men will not be exerting a great amount of energy and therefore their food consumption need only be small. Last year, carrying packs of 1001 b. weight, working 14 hours a day, walking and crawling over solid ice-floes, Lieutenant Eielson (my pilot) and I would consume not more than 14pz. each ol solid food a day. Plenty of water can be obtained from the sea ice and at this time of year pools form in the centre of the icefloes. Water found on pack-ice during this season is invariably fresh and fit for human consumption. ’

The bi'oadcasts from the Manawatu Club’s radio station. 2ZF are becoming increasingly peppier throughout New Zealand and each mail brings congratulations'from north and south. Yesterday afternoon a telephone bureau message from Blenheim brought a report that the New York relay was coming through splendidly.

At the inquest at Hawcra on Saturday on George Appleyard, farmer, aged -17, who was struck last Saturday week by an express train -while driving a farm waggon over a level crossing near the ITawera station, the jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence, that death resulted from a fractured skull,, no blame being attachable to the enginedriver. A rider to the verdict described the crossing as dangerous and recommended the installation of an automatic alarm system. (P.A.J 1

Pleas of guilty on two counts to breaches of the Apiaries Act were made at the Hawera Court last week by Stephen Matthews, of Te Eoti, tua charges being that in May ho did keep bees in an unregistered apiary and that he kept bees in other than frame hives. The inspector of apiaries, Mr, D. S. Tiobinson, of Palmerston North, pointed out that the maximum penalty for keep ing bees in improper hives had boon increased recently from £5 to £SO. Owing to the likelihood under such conditions of disease developing in the hives aud its spread through swarming to other apiaries the box hives of the kind kept by defendant and not fitted with loose frames was a serious menace. None but loose frame hives were permissablo. Conviction and lines of £1 on each charge were entered with costs totalling £l/2/-. Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure . For Children’s Hacking Cough.