IGLOO DWELLER’S TALES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8681, 14 March 1914, Page 11

IGLOO DWELLER’S TALES

SWEDISH DRILL IN SLEEPING BAGS AND A TERRIFIC MEAL.

LONDON, January 27. Curious Antarctic facts . noted by the northern party of Captain Scott s last South Polar expedition were related by Surgeon Murray Derick at the rooms of the Society of Medicine yesterday. A broken bottle of champagne became frozen, and crystals of colouring matter were formed which remained insoluable when the champagne was thawed. The other bottles of champagne, which were not broken, were effervescent when thawed. Illustrating the changeability of the weather, he said they would sometimes get a perfect morning, and in twenty minutes there would be a blizzard, which might last for days. In one place where the ship had landed them miles further south they found tho fossils of tropical trees. The northern party was the one which lived for months in an igloo. Surgeon Levick mentioned that when the time came for them to leave this ice dwelling they had about three weeks of Swedish drill, most of which they were able to do in their sleeping half's, and it was extraordinary bow fit they were when they started. He attributed this to the carnivorous-diet, which he believed was the only thing that carried them through.