IN ARCTIC PERIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19328, 15 May 1926, Page 4 (Supplement)

IN ARCTIC PERIL.

BLUE WALLS OF ICE.

In the voyage of a British Arctic expedition, which, has lately returned, there were some desperate moments amid the dense pack-ice and the icebergs which prevented the ship irom getting farther north than the 82nd. parallel, 500 miles from the Pole. Tlie story of some of them is told by John Mart', the boy scout who was chosen to go with the ill-fated Shackleton expedition to the Antarctic, and who, still feeling the call of polar adventure, elected three years after to travel with this one. In the interval he had finished his education at Aberdeen University, and he went on this expedition, not in his former capacity as cabin-boy, but as biologist. He tells how the ship broke its propeller soon after entering »the pack-icc, so that the ship had to be worked through the icelanes for hundreds of miles under sail alone. Dangerous work it was, for many an uncharted reef and rock encumbers these unneighbourly seas, and pluck and hard work and skill were wanted to navigate them. Some days the wind fell light, and the ship could not be kept from poking her nose into danger, and once she drifted uncontrollably and perilously toward a gigantic berg. Closer and closer she drifted. A boat was hastily lowered overboard, and the men rowed furiously to turn the ship's head off. She swung at last, but her stern slowly dropped round till it was. only 10ft. 'away from the menacing blue wall of ice towering above the ship like a cathedral. For long minutes it seemed as if the ship must bump,'and Scout Man- and others hastily rolled a big spar aft to fend off the collision. Still the men in the boat pulled, and gradually the 10ft. was increased to 50ft., though the iceberg seemed to draw the ship like a magnet.' Then, while they still perspired

with their efforts, the explorers saw a great gap appear in the ice-wall. The towering cliff had caved in with a roar like thunder. It was a wonderful sight as thousands of tons of ice showered down in a crystal waterfall, but the men on the ship had little inclination to admire it. The ice cliff was now hollow. At any moment its awful overhanging li row might plunge down on them. Hours seemed to pass as, foot by foot, the men in the boat pulled the ship back and clear from danger. They got clear at last, and when once away the light and tricky wind drew ship and berg away from* their dangerous companionship.