IN ANTARCTICA

Hokitika Guardian, 24 April 1929, Page 6

IN ANTARCTICA

AFTER A BLIZZARD

ENJOYING A BATH

(Bv Bussell Owen—Copyrighted 11)29 by the New York Times Company, and St. Louis Post Dispatch. All rights for publication reserved throughout the world. Wire Css to New York Times.).

15AY OF •WHALES, April 22

Friday’s blizzard blew itsoll out and to-day is clear and cold, 32 .below. There was no wind, however, and Byrd and a dozen others walked down the Bay of Ice along a grey line of jagged pressure ridges, trying to get exercise. We are oil our winter schedule, rising at B.3o’for breakfast and with dinner at 4.30. two meals daily, and coffee between. Bedtime is ten and a few hardy souls read, a short time by candle lantern until their bands are too cold to hold the hook, and that isn’t long! Doctor Comaii. who Ims been studying the effects of low temperatures'bn tile body, took the opinirtunitv of a cold day and the prospect of a hath to test his own resistance to the cold.

Much to our amusement lie ran out-j floors without clothes and two hundiedj Yards to the other house. He ran as tast. as he could' and was hitting a ;} rood pace 'at the end. In order to keep 'from slipping-he had caribou slippers on his ledt. ; The steam rose from liim as if from a locomotive going up grade, and his breath rolled out in cfoods. He raised at least a twenty liiile wind in his run and it burned his body like lire. The hacks of his fin- ! gets and hands were white irom being I nipped when’ he dashed into the othei | house and up to the stove, but the rest ! of his body was untouched. When he j came hack he walked, and as there was no wind felt no had effects at all. He even stopped at the thermometei shelter and opened it to see what the temperature was, and then strolled in nonchalantly as if lie had been clothed. Tlic-n he had his bath. We had a most enjoyable broadcast from Byrd’s New York friends. It ended, however, in an echo of tragedy, winch deeply affects every one of us. After the talks, messages from home were read. One of them was to one of the best of our company, a fine fellow, who had listened to his mother speak a short time before and who had been moved by her evident emotion, as we had all been in sympathy. He was smiling again at the many messages, some, of them amusing, which were re- ' reived, when there came one to him j 'announcing the death of his brother. The impersonal sound of it coming * from the loud s; eaker was a great : Shock to bin, and : t affected us all 1 Another man received word fflt the . death of two favourite relatives, so it ! can be 'seen at times we watch with dread the’ box Iron, which word comes j from home

THE CHANGING SCENE

MAY OF WHALES. April 252

i The whole aspect of our existence here is changing with the going of the sun. In the place of the clear white light, we were so long accustomed to. the landscape is overlaid in the brief daytime with dull grey streaks and crimson ; and orange on the horizon. At nielit there is a grim diadow light from the stars and the aurora reflected mi the snow, and the moon comes up a monstrous distorted ball ol ied. It ias if the world were dying. It is danc now long before we go to supper and last night on the way back, a tiny j spec of light flared up on the hillside ! f) f the Barrier north of our camp. A second alter it went out a bright green glow burst forth and the whole section of the Barrier flamed as if with I an internal green light. 1 Byrd, Joe Bucket and Yenderveer had gone up to look at a crevasse with i n magnesium flare fo see il it loukl ! he photographed. 'They held the Hare down in the crack and could see far : down in it. its crystal sides gh.uniiii-, I with green gems, glowing darker emeri aid towards the bottom, until they ! faded into blackness. The most asionj isliing effect was the glow through the ice itself for the light so penetrated tin, Barrier that one appeared to he standing on a translucent surlare, luminous below, with the fires of hell as Byrd said. The glowing green surface seemed to become delicate and fragile until they j had a feeling that they would tail i through, and stepped gingerly, although reason told them, the snow jind ice were as solid as before- and up through the shining crack came green wisps of smoke, as if an inferno, blazing with a coal fire, were waiting to consume them. It was a weird and unforgettable sight. Ihe ilaics h>'d died away and our eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness again, when a barely perceptible red glow appeared on the horizon to the north. “ What in the world is that? ” said someone. “It can’t be an Aurora so far down.” As it rose, a faint streak of red readied up toward the sky, like a light from a burning house away in the country where there are grass and trees and cows.

After the hellish light this new mirror of conflagration came with an all sinister aspect of the prophet of evil. The light spread as it rose, colouring the edge of the Barrier and the top of the bronze disk of the moon appeared. But what a moon, bulbous, misshapen, spotted, leprosy, by retraction. a pillar of fire hissing above it toward its zenith.