ALMOST THERE

Southland Times, Issue 20940, 25 November 1929, Page 7

ALMOST THERE

■ BYRD EXPEDITION TREK TO THE POLE FLIGHT OVER MOUNTAINS (By Russell Owen. Copyright 1929 by the New York Times Company and the St. Louis Post-Despatch.) (All rights for publication reserved throughout the world.) (Wireless to New York Times.) Bay of Whales, November 21. The day before yesterday our Ford plane established a tiny base almost within the shadow of the South Pole. We went out a total of 440 miles. Before we started the flight, I told Dean Smith to deliver a mail to the mountains. We all know that an air mail pilot with a mail aboard will go through when it can be done. Dean did a fine job in holding the indistinct trail made by the dog teams of the geological party. We passed the party 200 miles out, and also looked down at our comrades 2000 feet beneath us, making only 10 or 15 miles a day, where we were making 100 miles an hour. It emphasized the great difference between the old method of Polar exploration by the dog team system and the new method of aviation. The dog team party, however, will be able to remain at the mountains for several . weeks, where an aeroplane might be blown away in. a storm. That is why minute geological investigations might be made by a traveller on foot. Even now, however, we have learned enough to design a plane that we can anchor to the snow, and so defy the winds. About midway in the flight we passed over the territory in the crevassed region that the supporting party worked its way through. Wc could see their zigzag path as it wound in and out along, and all the more we realized what a wonderful job this party did in getting through this area of a chaotic mass of cris-crossing chasms, gigantic ice blocks on end, and fanshaped cracks, wide and narrow, stretching for miles to east and west. It is entirely beyond my powers of description, and we must let the mapping camera tell the story. Not long after passing the crevassed area we sighted the great mountains on the starboard bow, and later on the return trip from 5000 feet, we thought we could follow them for 150 miles. We judged that we saw all the way to Beardmore Glacier where Scott and Shackleton ascended to the plateau on their polar effort. McKinley photographed this range and the new one running near it in the same direction. We can definitely join up the Axel Heiberg Glacier with the Beardmore Glacier. This is a magnificent range. As we approached the mountains peak after peak came into view until finally the whole horizon from the south-east to the south-west was filled with mountains. It looked as if Nature had built these to keep forever the secret of the South Pole, but as we approached nearer we saw huge glaciers debouching ice into the barrier through great rugged gashes in the mountains. Magnificent Scenery. These are the outlets for the two mile high plateau of ice on the centre of which lies the South Pole. Never have I seen such rugged mountains or such magnificent scenery as these great mountain masses rising from the sea-level precipitously to thousands of feet. Peak after peak towered to the heights, 12,000 and 15,000 feet. McKinley photographed with his mapping camera dozens of mountain peaks never before seen and he will develop his films so that the world can see what we saw, and science study at its leisure and with microscope these extraordinary glacial phenomena'. Perhaps one of the biggest moments of the whole expedition was the landing at the foot of the mountains, for landing away from the base on unknown fields is always uncertain and even more so in the polar regions with a heavy load aboard. As far as our aviation mission is concerned, and as far as many other vital things were concerned, all our "eggs” were in the plane when the landing was made. All was staked on that landing. It was an unknown quantity and what a colossal mess it. would have been had we failed. It was one of those risks one must sometimes take in the polar regions to win. Smith was given the responsibility of landing on this unknown ground and he did his “stuff.” He also carried the mail to the mountains. When we had built our base and taken the air again we could look back at the little pile of food and gasoline. It appeared to be very tiny and utterly lonely there on the great expanse of snow with these tremendous mountains in the background. They make our problem a peculiarly difficult one and prevent a non-stop flight to the Pole from Little America. We cannot carry a sufficient gasoline load to scale those peaks, reach the Pole and return on a non-stop flight so that is why we must have gasoline available at the foot of the mountains when we shall become short of feul on our return. AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS SUCCESSFUL DEVELOPMENT. THE BARRIER IN DETAIL. (Rec.. 5.5 p.m.) Bay of Whales, Nov. 22. While the men were occupied overhauling the big Ford plane, another group was busy in . the photograph laboratory developing aerial pictures of Queen Maud mountains. There are dozens of clear cut beautiful pictures of magnificent peaks, rising step by step from the barrier, plain, stark, bleak and majestic. They are now being assembled so they can be studied in detail, and some day they will be the first accurate record of this part of the Antarctic. Preparations to develop the films were made while the plan was in flight. About 800 gallons of water are required, and in this region it is necessary to provide it. Some expeditions have found it difficult to get enough water for the necessary cooking and washing purposes. Coal is necessary, and down here coal is as valuable as diamonds. A pailful of hard packed snow makes about a third of a bucket of water, so to get 800 gallons of water three tons of snow must be hauled and melted. Joe Rucket and Jim Feury put their heads together and evolved a smelter that would melt. With the help of a lot of other men, they dug a deep trench in the snow outside the photographic laboratory which is now buried so deeply they could construct a small snow house under the surface that would still be above the level of the photographic laboratory. They cut square holes in the side of two steel gasoline drums, placed them on their sides on a framework constructed of boxes and an odd pair of steel skiis which had belonged to the famous “snow mobile.” Under this, they put a pressure kerosene torch which gave a roaring flame and terrific heat. They then connected the two drums, ran a hose from the connection down to the laboratory and were all ready for the operation. Each one of these drums held 100 gallons, the water tank in the laboratory held 75, another spare tank in the mess hall held 75 and four developing tanks held 50 gallons each. That made 550 gallons which could be made ready before the work began, and the melter would supply the remainder as needed. They turned on the torch and with "half the camp hauling snow, quickly filled the drums outside which were drained into the tanks in the laboratory. After Captain McKinley had had a few hours sleep on his return from the flight, he started about noon on Wednesday and when the task had been completed, there were 120 photographs, showing the Barrier all the way to the mountains and back to the forced landing place, also pictures of the mountains taken from the air and while the plane was on the ground at the mountain base.