AT SPITZBERGEN

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 1, 26 September 1921, Page 5

AT SPITZBERGEN

' THRILLING EXPERIENCES x WONDERFUL ESCAPE FROM ■ A CREVASSE By Telegraph—Press Association— Oonyrlrht (Rec. September 25, 5.5 p.m.) London, September 24. Mr. Ralph Segnit, who returned from Spitzbergen a, few days ago, recounted to the Australian Press Association thrilling experiences during an expedition to Mount Terrier, a sharp peak rising froin an immense glacier overlooking V Klerasbillon Bay and the whole of Spitzbergen. Mount Terrier had never before been climbed. Mr. Segnit and two other ' members of tho expedition trudged ten miles across n badly crevassed glacier. Mr. Segnit, who was the centre man in the Tope, fed tho loader over a doubtful looking snowbridge. When following the trail the bridge collapsed, and Mr. Seg- ■ nit disappeared to the depth of tho irapo, fifteen His companions anchored themselves with axes. Tho opening in tho bridge was very wide, the snow crashing down two hundred feat. Mr- Sognit was suspended, and ho thought the end had come, as he feared . tho ropo would bocomo embedded in ice, ' in which case his position would have | been most perilous. "I Hung myself forward against tho remaining portion of the snowbridge and succeeded in keeping the ropo above the ice. I was more than half an hour out of eight of my com- ' panions. Eventually I groped my way out by a swimming action. I was half frozen, but I soon recovered.’’ Mr. Segnit secured valuable fossils, mainly corals. He will write two papers for the London Geological Society.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. • ' [Mr. Segnit, who .is a South Australian student at Balliol College, Oxford, accompanied the Oxford University's expedition to Spitsbergen, as assistant geologist. The expedition, which is the first of its kind that has been arranged at Oxford, is devoted to exploration in zoology, geology, and botany.]