RECORD ANTARCTIC COLD

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1929, Page 13

RECORD ANTARCTIC COLD

HEAR ONE’S BREATH FREEZE

WIND CAUSES UNBEARABLE PAIN.

(Copyright—From Byrd Expedition.) Bay of Whales, July 19. The last fortnight has been the coldest there has been here; in fact the average for July is the coldest ever reported from the Antarctic. It has been 50. degrees below zero compared with Amundsen’s August, with 44 below. Eleven of tho first 13 days averaged 60 degrees below, with one day touching 70, and that is cold. When it is calm at 70 degrees below there is no discomfort, inside or out’, for a ehort time, if warmly clad, for, ■with fur clothing, only the exposed parts of the face suffer, and when the nose is warmed by the hand it soon becomes warm again. The only trouble is that while warming the nose the hand freezes. One feels a sudden bite on the fingertips, as if it had been seized by a pair of tiny pincers. But when the wind blows at all at low temperatures, then it is almost impossible to face it for more than a few minutes at one time. To-day, for instance, It was 50 below, a temperature to which the men have become accustomed while walking, hut there is a ten miles’ wind, and that wind whips around the face and* causes intense pain. The nose continually suffers and the cheeks are nipped as if by fire. Cold without wind can be withstood, but' cold with wind is impossible. Extreme cold docs strange things. It is odd to stand outside and hear one’s breath as it freezes. The barrier snow contracted sharply, and all about could be heard cracks, and snaps where the snow crystals let go under the contraction. It was weird, as if the houses wore built on an unstable element that was moving beneath one’s feet. So small are those cracks that the men have not seen any except for a large crack just north of the camp. « Tho bay icc booms like distant guns at’ times, when-large cracks apparently run across it. The guy wires on the antenna posts became taut as harp strings and hum when the slightest wind hits them. The cold has a curious effect on the lights also. Candles used under’ the meteorological balloons must be warmed before they will burn outside for more than a few minutes.

Incidentally what is believed to be a record observation in a cold temperature was made when a balloon was sent on a day when the temperatures were 70 degrees below zero. Kerosene lanterns when taken outside freeze up, the mixture of kerosene and gasoline becoming as hard as ice, rubber insulators on the wires get so brittle that they break at the slightest touch, and porous rubber crumbles. “Yes, it is cold, but the coldest weather is still ahead. In two months the sun will begin to warm up this frozen land. It will appear on August 2, and everyone is looking forward to seeing that comfortable old globe loom above the horizon, ’’’he light in the north grows a little stronger every day.