ANTARCTIC CHALLENGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20087, 26 October 1928, Page 10

ANTARCTIC CHALLENGE.

THE BYRD EXPEDITION,

Bl' COMMANDER RICHARD B. BTRD.

FIRST ATTEMPT BY AIR, SECRETS OF ICE-BOUTJD LAND, " HOME OF THE BLIZZARD.**

No. I. From a base to be established on thtf Bay of Whales, a tiny harbour in the Ross Sea, on the borders of the great Antarctic Continent, my comrades and I intend to make the first attempt to reach the South Pole, and to photograph the surrounding country, by air. Since, I announced my intention of leading an expedition to explore the south polar regions by air no question has been more frequently asked me than, " Why are you going?" Tho general opinion, as I have gathered it, is that tho Antarctic Continent is obviously useless to anyone, and that any information obtained regarding it will represent just so much wasted effort. Time alone can tell. It is hard to say in advance what data are going to be valuable and what aro not. The world's weather largely depends upon three factors, of which the conditiona at the poles are two, and those at the equator the third. At present two of these factors are fairly well known, but tho third, tho nature of the conditions at the South Pole, is still largely unknown, and until wo are able to tell more about it much of our weather prediction will remain inaccurate. : Once Semi-tropical Region. Much has been said o£ tho possibility of finding some valley in the Antarctic wastes heated by hot springs or volcanoes I to a point where animal or even human life might exist. There are semi-active volcanoes within tho Antarctic CircleMounts Erebus and Terror in Victoria Land—but the possibilities of finding an inhabited valley aro remote. Geologists are convinced that the Antarctic represents at the present timo much the same climatic conditions as existed over all of North America during the Ice Age. But it is very possible that semi-tropical conditions may once have existed at the South Pole, and one of tho objects of my expedition will be to examine this possibility.

Sir Douglas Mawson's expedition found bits of coal in the dredges with which they were investigating deep-sea life off Termination Ice Tongue. Coal veins are not uncommon in the exposed rocks of King George V. Land 'and other places, and fossilised plant remains occur in occasional sandstone formations. It is probable that what is now the coldest and bleakest spot in the world was once part of a great semi-tropical forest. The coal beds indicate that. What caused the change ? That is something which exfloration may be able to help explain, t is entirely possible that locked in the wastes of "the Antarctic are the keys to many problems of science. At present wo know very little about the south polar continent, or Antarctica as it is called, in spite of the heroic efforts of the many brave men who have penetrated its boundaries. The South Polo itself has been reached. Poald Amundsen, in one of the most brilliant polar dashes ever made, reaching it in December, 1911, and planted the Hag of Norway there. A month later Captain Scott, taking a different route and fighting blizzards and misfortune at every turn, reached it also, turned back and perished, leaving beside his frozen body a. narrative of his tragic expedition which is one of the great epics of human endeavour. It is from the records of theso two expeditions, and of those which have studied outlying portions of the continent, that we gain our only ideas of the conditions to be faced. A Fortified Continent. Antarctica is guarded and barricaded like a great fortress. A belt of packice, often one hundred or more miles in width, completely surrounds its shores even during the brief summer, making the approach to the. .maiplaftd extremely hazardous. For great distances along the edge of the pack a solid wall of ice rises to a height as great as 275 feet, sometimes sheer from the berg-strewn water. The Arctic has nothing like this double barrier, unless perhaps in tha vicinity of the Greenland ice-cap. There are mountains in the far north, but the North Pole itself is in the midst of the great Polar Sea, and can be reached from many directions over comparatively level ice formations. The South Pole is known to bo on a plateau almost two miles abova sea-level and can be reached, as far as we know, only through broken and difficult country traversed by lofty mountain ranges and covered witn perpe'nal ice. Tho moving ice-packs of the North Polar Sea, five to fifty feet thick, present al terrible problem, but they cannot compare with the hazards of the south, There tho geographical problems—the ice-pack, the ice-barrier, mountains and rough conntry—are complicated by the worst weather in tho world. The Antarctic, with peaks rising to 17,000 ft. or more, and the greater portion , of the entire continent estimated to ba 6000 ft. above sea-level, has the greatest average elevation of any considerable body, of land known. The great elevation and the distance from the sun combine to produce tho lowest temperatures and tho highest winds on the faco of the globe. Terrific Hurricanes. The average wind velocity in the regions where Mawson spent the winter is in tha vicinity of fifty miles an hour, although there are places where the wind does not blow so hard. Past expeditions have recorded, as hourly averages, more than 100 miles an hour, and velocities of 80 or 90 miles an hour are far from unusual. During these hurricanes tho temperature descends more than 25 degrees below zero, and tho air is often so dense with flying snow that objects a few feet away are invisible. Not for nothing has the Antarctic been called the home of tho blizzard ! There is somo evidence, however, that the terrific hurricanes are localised to the western portion of tho Poss Barrier, and that they may be avoided in some measure by following tho routes taken by Amundsen and Scott. Obstacles for Exploration. The ice-barrier, the frightful weather and the lack of animal life are a lew ol tho things that luvo hampered exploration. Taken together they form alinos 1 insuperable obstacles. On the whole faco of tno globe there is now no uncharte area of any great size, with the ex fj®P' tion of the one which they guard, whole continent, estimated from the know boundaries is 2,400,000 miles larger _twn the United States, and contains 4,60U,uw - square miles of absolutely unknown coun „• With all the rest of the earth some race of man has a speaking acquaintance; ony this remains unknown. It is the spot nature still withholds—her last greatest challenge. » I believe that aviation ofters the adequate means of meeting that cha eg, • The expedition upon which I am abou embark will be only the opening g u . the battle; the skirmish, as it were, w will determine the possibilities 01 future. It will be the first altemp reach the South Pole or to P hoto^? r . any of the surrounding country by Naturally, it can complete but a .J small part of tho great task. Wh or not it is successful it will be, I only the forerunner of many exped which in the end will solve all the « teries of the Antarctic wastes.