DISCOVERY BATTERED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20766, 8 January 1931, Page 9

DISCOVERY BATTERED.

FURY OF THE ANTARCTIC. GRINDING MASSES OF ICE. SYDNEY. Jan. 7. A message from Sir Douglas Mawson, now in the Antarctic in the Discovery, states Since my last message Providence has sustained our best efforts to cope with the exceptional hurricane. The berg-strewn waters of D'Urville Sea- were lashed into' fury, consolidating the packice into a grinding mass against the ship. " Frozen spindrift and fleecing snow obscured the view so effectively that only by a miracle we missed crashing into a gigantic tabular berg which loomed up about a length ahead. " The brave ship tumbled and staggered In the unequal onslaught, but steadily drove back to leeward of the most gigantic mill ever conceived—the fury of the driven, heaving, frenzied, grinding ice-masses of this vicious pack. We survive to relate that by skilful handling the Discovery escaped destruction, and Captain MacKenzie succeeded in working the ship, through God's great will, into the calmer waters of the slack area. " Within one day the whole body of the pack-ice was driven 50 miles and crumpled against an immovable barrier of grounded ice and bergs, charted as Clarie Island. Slack water closed in for a moment, but after an anxious struggle we emerged staggering into the leaping, spuming sea. It was then clear enough to make navigation possible.

" The wind has now moderated and wo may land to-morrow on the shores of the high, ice-casod land which lies on the starboard beam."