A DEAD LAND’S MYSTIC SPLENDOURS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6873, 1 April 1929, Page 7

A DEAD LAND’S MYSTIC SPLENDOURS

Light and Twilight In the Far South TINY FIGURES ON VAST AND DESOLATE STAGE (Copyright from Byrd’s expedition by Russell Owen.) Received Sunday, 7 p.m. BAY OF WHALES, Maxell 29. Tke sun came up over the Barrier yesterday a huge ball of yellow, an. and in its slow journey along the horizon gave us a perfect day-one of those quite brilliant Antarctic days which enthrall the beholder. The air • ■the purest air in all the world —was so crystal clear that distance was foreshadowed and the eye leaped as if over only a few yards to tho faraway ridges of snow glistening in the morning li«kt. The sky was a thin blue as if one eould see into an infinity of s-pace far beyond the range of ordinary vision. All around the horizon was a than band of cloud which reflected the light as from a mirror. There were strange shadows in this clear light of the late Antarctic day. So low was the sun that every small protuberance in the sno-w, every shq,rp line, every gouged-out hollow and eroded hummock had its silver grey shadows. They stood out as if etched, against the gleaming white of the snow, and the vast field about us drew in and contracted as for The first time for many days wo were able to sec the details of its surface, details which were usually lost in the obscurity of diffused light undor an overcast sky. But the oddest shadow of all was that around us as we walked for so great was the reflection from the encircling horizon that a shadow was east on all sides and one moved as if innumerable spotlights were focussed on tho tiny figures on this vast and dcsolato stage. Then came the witchery of the Antarctic twilight, a dim half-light in which all things were distinctly outlined and yet half concealed. The luminous distant horizons, the chill gray of the snow and the cloud-barred moon make a scene that touches you with a weird attraction intensified by the deep silence of tho dead land. One might as well stand on tho lifeless moon itself '. There would'be nothing more strange.