QUEST OF WHALES IN SOUTH

Hokitika Guardian, 28 July 1931, Page 5

QUEST OF WHALES IN SOUTH

CANNIBAL KILLERS. RETURN OF DISCOVERY II TO , LONDON. LONDON, June 6. Home again! Lying at anchor in the calm waters of one of the Thaineside basins alongside Tower Bridge, the Royal Research ship Discovery If. is back in London with the secrets of eighteen months’ quest among wnales in the ice-logged waters of the Antarctic ! Dawn was just breaking when Discovery 11. slipped quietly along the winding waterway, past the ships and cargo boats at anchor beside wharves and quays, to St. Katherine’s Dock. The ten-tou head of a humped-back whale was lying across the fo’cnstle, and the enormous jawbones of a killer whale—the cannibal of the Antarctic—were strapped to her rigging—and that is how Discovery 11. came out of the darkness of the night to London yesterday. A few hours later T went on board, and heard for the first time the roman, tic story of this wonder-cruise in search of adventure and scientific knowledge in the South Polar regions—the epicjourney along 2600 miles of the ice edge of the Great Beyond. I talked with men who told me, in the simple, jerky language of sailors, stories of wonderful spectacles that that had seen—-sights which no human eye hud’gassed upon in the lonely South’ 'Sandwich Islands since Cuptnin Cook explored these regions a century ago; of long quests in the lone Antarctic regions - for islands which have disappeared ; and trips to islands in Bouvet Sound, a thousand miles' or more from the mainland. Secrets of the Deep. It was whales that Discovery IT. went out to these- lone regions io study, and she has brought back to London books full of information about these sea monsters. Sealed bottles lined one side of the science room below deck, bottles which hold the secrets of the Antarctic deep. There were glass jars of penguins-in-tbe-making—just like tadpoles—in am-ber-coloured fluid. I was shown a large bottle of shrimps —pink shrimps which the whales of the Antarctic eat by the hundred thousands every day for lunch. The whale’s menu is called “Euphausin superba,” and luckily for the whales there is no shortage of “Euphausia superha” in the Polar regions, according to the observations of the scientific staff which went out with Discovery IT. The whale eats enough “Euphausia superba” at one meal to fill a suburban drawingroom ! Any one of the-sailors who manned Discovery IT. could have kept the most unruly class of schoolboys tonguetied for hours with the yarns he has brought hack from the ice regions—stories of wlmle-diunting and sharkcut clung, nnd fogs thicker than the thickest London “special,” of summertime in South Georgia, when if is ton times colder than England’s winterj and long clays and longer nights when it was impossible to move the 9bip for fear of dashing it to pieces on the: icebergs. A Wizard Cook, Elephant meat was what the ship's crew lived on chiefly in) the lonely stretches of the Antarctic* The cook described it as “quite tasty”—once you acquired the taste. The cook on Discovery IT. was a’ perfect wizard at serving.' up elephant ‘ meat in disguise, and as he put on '4st on the voyage his word that elephant meat i*> good to eat ought to go unquestioned. • , Life on Discovery 11, was not so lonely as you might think. The crew took a gramaphone and 300 records with them, -and out in the- bleak Antarctic wastes they danced fox-trots and two-steps. There is even a cinema on South Georgia Island. The films are pre-war but the crew enjoyed them. Charlie Chaplin in one of his oldest films is one of the latest attractions at this little cinema. The giant carcase of a right whale in a hundred packing cases, is one of the souvenirs of the expedition. That whale never would have been killed had it not been so curious about Discovery If. The whale got mixed op in the vessel’s bows, and was shot by accident. Whales are not nearly so plentiful in the Antarctic as they were, and right whales are preserved. An apology to the resident magistrate of South Georgia put matters right, and soon the carcase of a right whale will l>e added to the wonders of the British Museum. After the Shrimps. Whales follow the shrimps! Shrimphunting is the Antarctic whale’s only pleasure in life. Whenever the shrimps got scarce the whales went on tour — and so did the Discovery 11. on its ceaseless, bloodless train in the interests of science and industry. Dr. Kemp, the leader of the scientific staff, would make no rash pronouncements about file result of the expedition. “There are many discoveries of a technical nature which 1 believe and hope we have made,” he said —and that was all he would say about this latest voyage- of discovery to the Antarctic, the voyage that came to an end where it began, in the placid waters of St. . Katherine’s Dock.