BYRD EXPEDITION

Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1934, Page 3

BYRD EXPEDITION

NEXT SEASON’S PLANS. LIEUTENANT ENGLISH’S LETTER. The tentative plans for next season of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition (New Zealand unit) are revealed in a letter received by Mr. A. N. Pepper, of Waione Street, Petone, from Lieutenant R. A. J. English, of the Bear of Oakland. The letter is dated December 19. Lieutenant English states that the tentative plans of the expedition for next season call for the Bear of Oakland to cruise along the western short after transiting the pack ice, entering McMurdo Sound in the event of it being ice-free. Norwegian whalers who visited there a few years ago stated that the Old' Discovery hut at Hut Bint, the Scott Hut at Cape Evans and Shackelton Hut at Cape Royds were no longer in existence. After a brief stay at McMurdo Sound, it was proposed to chart the Barrier on the cruise to the eastward, prior to arrival at the Bay of Whales.

If loading conditions were favourable and the Jacob Ruppert gained entrance to the Bay of Whales, the expedition would again go up to Cape Colbeck and retrace the Barrier to the westward, thereby completing the survey of the Barrier in its entirety. This was done by the Discovery in 1902 and by the Terra Nova in 1910, and it was most important that the movements which have occurred during the past twenty-five years should be known to science. In the event that the base relief was done leisurely and without mishap it was planned to send the Bear of Oakland farther to the eastward along the northern, edge of the pack for oceanography survey in high latitudes. In the event that the ice conditions were favourable, the expedition might be able to establish the coastline as far as 110 west, which area was now in doubt.