DOG TEAMS RETURN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 13

DOG TEAMS RETURN.

BITTER ANTARCTIC COLD.

EXTREMES OF TEMPERATURE.

NEW YORK. Oct. SI. [Bv lf>. Russell Owen. Copyriehted 1928 by the New York Times Company and the St. Louis Post Dispatch. All rights for publication reserved throughout tne world. Wireless to the New York Times.] BAY OF WHALES. Oct, SO. The five dog teams cf the geological party, having taken loads 100 miles distant, returned after eight and a-half days. All five drivers are in good condition, although their faces are burned and peeling from facing the wind going out and the sun all the way back. When they left they had a bitter cold wind in iheir faces and the temperature rapidly dropped to 30 degrees below on the interior ot the Barrier. They became soaked in perspiration through travelling in the hot sun during the day and when they stopped at night their outside clothing froze before they could get it off. The sun was so warm that with the thermometer at 20 degrees below zero it melted a bag of pemmican in one depot which had been improperly covered with snow, and even melted the snow on the canvas tanks. About 75 miles out they came to a remarkable series of sartrugi snow, which had been driven and cut into sharp ridges by the wind. The ridges were flat on top with over-hanging knifelike edges on the windward sides. TEey were two or three feet high and as hard as fliut, while between them the hollows were filled with soft snow. Travelling over these is very difficult. After reaching the 100-mile depot four days ago and finding that the support party had gone on, they left their loads and with on>\ light sledge each started back for car:v>. They travelled fast, coming the whole distance in three days.

The day before yesterday they topped one of the long hills on the Barrier and met a snow-mobile full of fuel. Four days ago the snow-mobile was started, after having been buried in snow all fche winter.