SOUTH POLE VENTURE.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17885, 4 December 1929, Page 5

SOUTH POLE VENTURE.

BYRD’S NARRATIVE. AMONGST LOWERING PEAKS. MANY PICTURES SECURED. (By Commander Byrd. Copyrighted 1995 by the New York Times Company ana the St. Louis Post Dispatch. All rights for publication resorved throughout tne world. Wireless to the New York Times. | Unitea Press Assn.— -Elec. Tel.—Copyright BAY OF WHALES, Dec. 2. Commander Byrd, continuing his narrative of the flight to the South Pole, referring to the weight of the machine, says:— Balchen, McKinley and June were glad to take a chance, because of the value of the results that might be obtained. However, there must be no mistake about our load. Every ounce of food, every piece of clothing, everything that went into that plane, including ourselves, had to be weighed carefully. George Black, our supply 'Officer, did 'the weighing, and when he told me that the total weight of the plane was about six and a-half tons, I knew there was no mistake about it. We headed for the Axel Heiberg Glacier. We knew Amundsen had reported that the highest point of the pass there was 10,500 ft. high, with lowering peaks each side. But would they be so close together that the air currents would dash us to the ground, hovering as we would he with our heavy load near 'the absolute ceiling of the aeroplane, near the altitude where the controls no longer function ? To the right was the other great glacier we had seen on our base-laying fight. It looked passable, but was it wide enough ? Were there mountains beyond that would block us, over which we could not fly ? The top of the pass was partly cloud-covered. Would the Heiberg Glacier be entirely cloud-covered ? Clouds so frequently hover around the tops of these mountains even on the clearest days, and the sun on the hare vertical rocks sends up warm currents which, striking on the cold above, form fog. Balchen and I discussed whether we should choose the unknown glacier. ,If we should fail to get over, and have to select another pass, we could not reach the Pole. The petrol would be 100 low. We would have to turn back to Little America. We decided to stake our success on the unknown glacier to the right.

Mountain Like a Pigmy. We would have to keep out of the clouds while dodging around among tiie mountains, for in the clouds we would almost certainly collide with a peak. Soon we had passed near our little cache of food and petrol more than a mile above it. If was, of course, too tiny to toe seen fiom our altitude. When we had landed ot that base, the mountain ridge, running in an easterly and westerly direction for about four miles, loomed very large- Now we could see behind it and toward the south and south-west towering peaks, that made our base mountain look like a pigmy. We realised forcefully then that very little indeed is seen by the traveller on foot. Now below us was the ice-line of the great glacier. For some distance it was terribly crevassed with cracks running parallel, looking like a great washing hoard. It was a bad landing place. The mountain peaks and formations that were in our view now were awe-inspiring in their majesty, terrible in their colossal shapes that had been carved dnto extraordinary jagged rounded forms by ice cutting through them for untold years. That bottom of the world has been in the clutches of the ice age. As we eagerly looked around we felt very insignificant and small among these lofty, eternal peaks, which since the childhood of mankind have symbolised its inspiration. Everywhere we looked was some formation that probably no living thing had ever before seen, for this area, the coldest on earth, is dead. But there was little time for such thoughts, for our aeroplane was busy, a great contrast to our lifeless surroundings. McKinley, with his aerial camera, elated at this opportunity to record for geography unknown things about him, snapped picture after picture.

The Critical Time. The critical time had come now, the moment we had discussed a 1000 times. What had been our gasoline consumption ? Would we have enough left to reach the Pole? Would we have too much on board to climb over tne humps ? Calmly, even tranquilly, Jim stood examining the gauges of the five petrol tanks in the great wings. Then he unscrewed the cap of the tank in the fuselage and measured with a graduated stick the petrol left. There and then he cut open some sealed five-gal-lon tins, and dumped the petrol into the tank, so that we could throw the tins overboard. Each can weighed hardly a pound, but every pound counts at this critical ceiling of the aeroplane. Jim figured for a moment on a pad, and handed me the results with a smile. We had enough petrol to go beyond the Pole, if we did not have to dump any.