In World of White

Evening Star, Issue 20054, 20 December 1928, Page 6

In World of White

PROGRESS OF CITY OF NEW YORK DRIFTING THROUGH THE ICE PACK REGION CF GREY SILENCE Press Assooistiaa—By TaUjjjraph—Copyright. VANCOUVER, December 19. (Received December 20, at 9.35 a.m.) A copyright message from the Byrd Expedition, dated December 18, states: " We are lying in a world of drifting white. For hours the ship has not moved. If is shut in by solid ice that stretches for many miles. It is snowing hard, so one cannot ace more than 50yds, and the wind-driven snow sifts past us in a curtain that opens and closes, giving swift glimpses of tortured surfaces, which are quickly hidden “ Overhead is a palo glow, where the guilds trying to break through, but it only succeeds in making a diffused light that hurts the eyes as they strain to pierce the obscuring drift. There is a fascination of the mysterious in this eerie concealment. It is not a haze or a mist, but an enshrouding, impalpable light that closes about ns. When if opens for a moment wo realise that our microcosm is not the limit of this frozen wea, but almost instantly that quick, stabbing rift is blotted out. and we are alone

“ What is ahead of us in tile forbidding land that \re are approaching day and night? How have we been living in this grey silence, broken only by the whittle of the wind in the rigging and the whine of the dogs? Voices are lost in this vast emptiness. Every hour light and colour have changed, painting scenes which can never be forgotten. I Before the snow there was wind, which I lifted clouds of scurrying drift from the surface of the ice and concealed the horizon, it changed its density constantly, and lifted up cakes and hummocks which pushed out in the gloom, then were swiftly hidden, as if an j opaque but invisible hand had swept down over them.”—Australian Press Association.