POLAR ICE PACK

Southland Times, Issue 22200, 18 December 1933, Page 7

POLAR ICE PACK

EXPEDITION ENTERS PASSAGE BETWEEN BIG ICEBERGS COLOURFUL SCENES (Special to United Press Association, Copyright.—By Radio from Mr Lincoln Ellsworth.)

On board the Wyatt Earp, Dec. 15. W ■ are about 200 miles inside the great polar icepack held up by wide heavy floes. Snow is drifting up with a south-west wind and the whole pack is in motion. To be locked in there without means of propulsion would be a serious affair, but we expect the wind and the current will soon make rifts in the ice and leave lanes of open water of which we will take advantage and proceed. , Our entry into the pack was sudden and dramatic. Our only warning was a quick drop in the temperature to two below freezing point and a light fog. Three hours later two huge iccbeigs loomed in sight, one to port and one to starboard. Fitting guardians, they seemed, to the realm of the ice king. We passed between them and two hours later, and 180 miles to the north of where Rear-Admiral Byrd found it in 1930, we entered the polar pack—a world apart from the one we left and where silence and desolation rel S. n supreme. Lifeless and unfriendly it may seem, yet it holds a fascination all its own.

Amidst such surroundings men are drawn closer together, so within the four walls of our little ship there exists a comradeship that can make us forget the dreary outside. To work in these latitudes we must eat often, and we look forward to our mess every four hours which brings us together from our work. None on an exploring ship can afford to be idle. There are sledges to make, sewing to do and films to take, and everyone takes a turn at watch on deck. Occasional wary gulls, fulmar and black and white Antarctic petrels, are to be seen. Yesterday morning we saw the first sea crab-eater, and last night Bernt Balchen shot one which we had to-day for dinner. Notwithstanding the first impression, there is much colour in polar scenes, for the drifting ice is tinged with yellow-red and greenyellow microscopic vegetable matter known as diatoms, and upon it tiny red and green shrimp life feeds. The shrimp in turn is food for seals and whales. Interesting phenomena seen in these latitudes are ice-blinks and a water sky. Ice-blinks are indicated by white or pale greyish streaks upon the clouds, while the water sky is represented by a heavy streak of a dull, tarnished, lead-grey colour.