ICE GOD’S WRATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20644, 16 February 1929, Page 11

ICE GOD’S WRATH

GRIM ADVENTURES WITH BYRD. ANTARCTIC MYSTERIES. ELEMENTS WAGE BITTER WAR. (By Russell Owen—Special Correspondent with the Byrd Expedition, Copyright.) (Per Press Association.) Aboard the City of New York, in the Antarctic. Only a little dip into the Antarctic is necessary to make one realise how faint an expression of this region is conveyed in books. Cold wind and ice are anticipated, but no words can convey the magnificent desolation of this part of the world. And, so fickle is the weather, «o sudden its buffets, that one sometimes feels that an active and malignant consciousness is directall the elemental enemies of man against those puny beings who venture into its domain. (Copyright by the New York Times and St. Louts Post-Dispatch.) (All Rights Reserved.)

To-day the sun is shining warmly through the cutting wind that blows off the pack-ice only a few hundred yards away. The sky is blue and innocent of menace and white puffy clouds float lazily by. The horizon to the south is streaked with a pale peach tint and a thin cloud hank. An unusually beautiful effect, and below that is the white streak of the pack, hummocked and serrated w'here it has been forced up by the pressure.

A mile to the east is a solitary berg on the edge of a lead, glistening white in tlm sun. Between us and this scene of delicate colour is the dark blue belt of the sea. Nothing could be more calm or more beautiful, and yet we know from experience that in a few hours the sky may be lowering and black, the air thick with snow, and a gale blowing. It is treacherous, this Antarctic. ° The sudden changes in the weather ■and the inaccessibility of the Antarctic are its distinguishing characteristics, the things which above all else mark it as a region different from the Arctic.

Its geographical contrasts are, of course, equally great, but they have yet to be experienced, and while slowly forcing our way through this vast expanse of snow-covered pack-ice it is the isolation of this great continent and its storm belt which are most strongly impressed upon us. The Arctic can be approached in many ways, and the land masses of the Northern Hemisphere run well up into it. Nearly all land in the Arctic is more or less easily reached by man, and in most places is inhabited by natives or trappers. Only the great Arctic Sea with its pack-ice is difficult to enter, and even that has been penetrated deeply on foot and through the air, and to some extent by ships which have skirted its shores in making the north-west and north-east passages. But down here the land, although one of the great Continents of the world as large as the United States and Mexico, is shut off by an abysmal deep which is covered most of the year by an impassable ice-pack. Grim, threatening, and isolated, this vast extent of ice clad land can only be reached with Struggle and danger. Although the Arctic teems with, life, Antarctica is a lifeless waste except ■where the sea supports a few birds and seals along its shores. The point for which we are hound, the Bay of Whales, is 2300 miles from the nearest inhabited land. What that means can only be realised when it is recalled that-Spits-bergen, with its few hundred inhabitants, is only 600 miles from the North Pole and Point Barrow, Alaska, about 1100. It is 2600 miles from New York to San Diego, Cal. Only 300 miles more than we will be from New Zealand. Nowhere else in the world is it possible to get so far from civilisation and nowhere else is one so isolated by natural barriers.

It is into this forsaken region that we are heading at present with only, a few hundred more miles to go. On Commander Byrd’s last Polar flight he had his base at King’s Bay, Spitzbcrgcn, where there was a small community of civilised people, Norwegians, who lived there for the coal mining, and who love the north.

But when he lands at the Bay of Whales his only welcome will be from the penguins and the seals, and the seals don’t pay much attention. At King’s Bay he lived on the ship with his crew, but in the Antarctic he must take every thing ashore and set up quarters in which about 30 men will for a year or more.

This must be done over the dangerous bay ice at first, for when the City of New York gets there it is probable that the bay will not be clear. It never has been open until the middle of January. It is hoped that the Eleanor Bolling will be able to tie up further in alongside the barrier proper, which is very low at this point, making the transfer much easier and safer.

When Byrd arrives there and begins his work, he will be on the edge of a region which is the direct opposite of the Arctic.

Instead of facing a low expanse of sea ice over which he flew to the North Pole, with mild winds and fairly steady weather conditions, he will be at the edge of a continent which rises 400 miles inland to a height of 10,000 feet. From it pour great storms of heavy air, sweeping down the slopes to the sea, and causing same of the strangest meteorological conditions in the world. The uncertainty of Antarctic weather is in great contrast to the Arctic, where storms are generally local during thesummer months. °

But in Antarctica they are widespread, and move in paths which are yet undefined and largely unexplainable.

It is this variability of the weather which is his greatest obstacle. It has been studied by some able men, including Simpson, now the head of the British Meteorological Service, but the causes and the movement of the storms which pass over Antarctica are still somewhat clouded in mystery. This is due, of course, to the difficulty of obtaining observations at widely-sepa-rated points, something which every scientist and leader who has gone down there has hoped would be some day accomplished, because of the wide influence of the Antarctic pressure movements. Their periodicity at the main base, however, may be studied, and some general conclusions drawn from them to aid Byrd during his flights, and on this meteorological information much of his success may depend. It may readily be understood how dangerous it would be to a pilot to be -caught in a storm which obscured a snow surface that was hard to define even in clear weather.

Fortunately, however, moat of Byrd’s important flights will take place next season, giving an opportunity to collect a great deal of data upon which weather predictions may be made. Anyone who has watched the terrible behaviour of the barometer in these latitudes must realise the difficulty in determining just what weather to expect.

The vagaries of this instrument on the way from New Zealand to the Ross Sea have been an amusing study. It drops to depths that would make a meteorologist in the States shake in his boots, and the sun shines and gentle breezes blow.

It will rise and a gale come out of the south and west. Amundsen at Framheim once recorded a drop to 28.10 with only a moderate wind and a rise to 29.35 with a gale of 50 miles an hour, one of the few bad winds he experienced at his base.

But it must not be thought that the barometer can be interpreted by a reading opposite to the normal, for drops frequently mean storms, and it sometimes stays steady and high during good weather. Nearly every day it draws a curious wave on the chart, running sometimes from well above 29 as far as 28.80, and then back again. At first these abnormal drops made us glance at the sky with some apprehension, but now wo just wonder what the thing means and decide it probably doesn’t know itself. But all this gives some slight indication of the difficulty of predicting weather conditions in Antarctica, and yet it must be done to some extent if Byrd is not to be caught in a severe storm while on one of his flights. There are many advantages which to some extent offset the difficulties of a flight in the Antarctic when compared with one in the Arctic. At least a pilot is flying over a fixed surface instead of over the drifting ice of the northern sea. It is possible to lay bases inland along the route of flying which would aid a crew forced down to get back to the main base, and most of the preparatory work aboard ship now is directed toward the placing and provisioning of these depots. When Byrd flew to the North Pole he would probably have been lost if he had been forced down. He was faced with this possibility at one time, but kept on, and fortunately his motor did not fail. Amundsen came down ana was three weeks on the ice, escaping by a miracle. When Nobile’s airship was wrecked he ‘and his men were on the ice in sight of land for weeks before they were reached.

But, in the Antarctic, for all its blizzards, there is a solid surface under foot which does not shift, and, with bases laid inland for 300 or 400 miles, anyone being forced down not more than 200 miles from a base has a chance of getting home.

It is on these bases that work is being done now as we move slowly south through the ice pack. It is planned to send out dog teams southward over the barrier as soon as the City of New York reaches the Bay of Whales. The first two teams to go out will be trail markers. They will travel light, and be accompanied by a navigator.

At every 20-mile point a mark of some kind, probably a tent, will be left, and flag markers put out on each side for two miles. Flags will also be left every mile along the trail. A small supply of food will also be left at these bases.

At the 100-mile bases markers will be put on each side for eight miles, and at least 4001 b of equipment and food. There will also be at these larger bases wind cones and markers for a landing field for the aeroplanes. Following the light dog teams which will go ahead to select these positions will be freight teams of two sleds in tandem, -which will carry the heavy loads of food and supplies, and these loads may also be supplemented to some extent by loads carried forward by aeroplane after the bases have been selected. The sleds are being overhauled, lists of food and supplies made up and packed, and all equipment made ready so that this work may be begun without delay.

* ** P° ssible to push these bases to the 300 or 400 miles mark this season a distance which would put the last one well under the foot of the plateau, this will be done, and with good fortune we may arrive at the Bay of Whales earlv enough to do so.

One becomes very weary of making predictions down here, and for the same reason there is no telling just how successful the crew of an aeroplane would i l n 200 miles pulling a litrht sled with a limited amount of food and other supplies. e-.J ha n 18 °, n ° ,° f those P ro Wetna which can be solved only by actual expeuence, but it is certain that with the bases there wiH be a much bettor chance of getting home than,without them. It must never be forotten that the Anarctic wilderness differs from the Arctic pi mcipally m being entirely without animal life to supply food. al . e u .° Pol ar bears at all and no seals in the interior. So the Antarctic explorer must take with him everything he uses and the fatalities which have occurred clown here have been nearly all the result of this condition, Scott and his companions wore Hicmselves out pulling sleds, and died weak with hunger a few miles from a cache which a blizzard prevented them from finding.

On the Mawson expedition, wnen Ninrns fell through a crevasse with most of the food, Mawson and Martz started back with meagre rations, and Martz died of starvation, Mawson barely coming through because of his magnificent physique.

In the Arctic under similar conditions it is probable that within a reasonable distance of the land polar bears or seals might be found occasionally. There is another flying condition in the Antarctic which may, if theory is correct, compensate to some extent for the uncertainty of the, weather. It is believed that at a moderately high altitude, probably about 12,000 feet, the wind blows steadily towards the Pole, and lower down flows outward toward the sea.

It is certain that at the Bay of Whales wind direction is generally from the south, and observations Lave shown a strong wind blowing toward the Pole at the same time. This would make it possible for a pilot to take advantage of a tail wind if he could gain altitude quickly on the southward flight, and to use the favourable lower winds on the return home.

This condition is not paralleled in the Arctic, where the winds arc less violent and more .variable, and so far as is known have no definite inward and outward flow corresponding to that in the Antarctic. The condition does prevail to some extent in Greenland, where there is also a large ice cap forming heaving downward currents that must bo filled in above.

Thus it f may be seen that the problems that face Commander Byrd are different in almost every particular from those of the North Polar flight. Getting to his base alone will consume as much time as the whole trip to Spitsbergen and Ifcck to New York, and after he arrives there he must spend much more time in preparation for the work of nest season.

But the reward will be correspondingly great, for whereas he had little hope of discovering anything new in the Arctic, he will have in the Antarctic a virgin field of activity limited only by the dictates of commonsgnsp and prudence. Wherever he flies there will be some discovery to be made, and if his programme is carried out as he has planned he will map much more territory than has been possible by other expeditions.