ANTARCTIC VISIT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 516, 27 April 1933, Page 7

ANTARCTIC VISIT

ARRANGEMENTS FOR ADMIRAL BYRD'S SECOND TRIP. NEXT SUMMER'S EXPLORATION, Tn September next Rear-Admiral Richard E. Byrd will leave America on his second vdsit to the Antarctic regions. He will again make his headquarters at Dunedin, and already arranigements are being made there on behalf of the expedition. On this occasion Bjrrd will be entirely dependent on gifts, and he has been assured of all -the necessary food supplies, including meats, all the required coal, petrol, kerosene, and oil. It is his intention to establish a subbase in the interior of the continent, at the foo-t .of the Queen Maud mountain range, and to spend the. Polar winter there, making scientific observations. A wooden ship, the Bear of Oakland, has been obtained for the expedition, and, according to advices received by the New Zealand agents, tabout 500 tons of coal will be. shipped ahead to Dunedin, together with one or two airplanes, 15,000 gallons of petrol, 40 tons of food, .and about 50 tons of other supplies. The chief objectives of the expedi-

tion are to deterimne whether there is a channel between .th'e Ross Sea and. the Weddell Sea, and to explore by air the unknown area to the east of his previous investiigations. Byrd will also determine. the commercial poss-i-bilities -of the Polar regions he claimed for the United States. He will ieistablish his base 500 miles south of Little America, and he hopes to drive through the vicinity of the Pole itself before he pitches camp. The Queen Maud Range is a mass of enormous mountains buttressing the polar plateau, .and it is over this hump and to the westward of the Axel Heiberg Glacier that Byrd made his famous South Pole flight in December, 1929. On the flight to the eastward from the Bay of Whales, his base on the edge of the 'Ross Sea, and previously Amundsen'is- base in 1912, Byrd discovered a smaller chain of mountains runnirqg from the Quieen Maud Range to the east. Before he went to the Antarctic the east was a land of mystery. Beyond the Nunataks, 200 miles away, which was first reaehed by Scott in 1902, no one had gone, except three members of Amundsen's expedition, who fought their way to a lonely spur in 1911, a little distance beyond the Nunataks. Bryd travelled) by .airplane, hut a storm ■drove him back, and the mist closed once again over the myisteries of that great area. Only 10 more minutes' flying would have enabled the American to discover whether or not King Edward Land wa;s an island cut off from the land to the eastward, or even a peninsula. Bryd was convinced that there was unelaimed land to the east of th'e 150th meridian, the eastern boundary of the Ross Dependency, which is claimed hy Great Britain. From there right across to Graham Land and directly below South America an enormous land is open to exploration. Should Bryd decide to 'enter this territory from the Weddell Sea, his la.st base of c-ivilisation would be either South Shetland Island or Cape Town, hut his most probable route will make New Zealand his jumping-off place. He will enter the Antarctic at the Bay of Whales and make for his base in the foot of the Queen Maud Mountains, and from there he will travel over a known route. Byrd has already said that the Queen Maud Mountains) are one of the most important plaees left in the world to inevstigate geologically.