WITH BYRD AT SOUTH POLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1065, 1 September 1930, Page 15

WITH BYRD AT SOUTH POLE

COMING TO CIVIC There are no polar bears or Eskimos below the Antarctic circle. ‘•The ‘North Polar cap of the globe is crowded when compared with Antarctica,” says Willard Vander Veer, Paramount cameraman, who, with his partner, Joseph Rucker, brought back a complete film record of Rear-Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s South Pole expedition. This picture, ‘‘With Byrd at the South Pole,” will be the feature at the Civic Theatre on Friday. ‘‘When I was with .Byrd near the North Pole,” says Vander Veer, “we were meeting Eskimos or running across bears, caribou and musk oxen. The Arctic seemed Quite populated. ••But despite the fact that the North Pole is located on an ice field while the South Pole is in the centre of a continent, conditions are altogether dif- . ferent at the latter extremity of the j globe. During the 20 months we j spent at Little America, our nearest neighbour was 2,300 miles away. This is due to the lower temperatures experienced at the South Pole. That pole is loca'ted on a great plateau, 10,000 feet above sea level. In winter, the thermometer often registers 75 degrees below zero and winds reach the j greatest velocity on earth, 150 miles ; an hour. “In the summer whales and seals come down to the edge of the ice to; live on crustaceans, while schoolgulls i fly over the Bay of Whales from Patagonia. , . “But, in winter, the only living things below the circle are the silly penguins, who can’t go away, and explorers, who don’t want to.”