Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-10-04
THE NOISY NORTH POLE.
Remarkable Experiences In the Arctic
Regions, Described BY Explorers.

he9ioHs, DeSCTIpeu ny Explorers.
Peary, the Arctic explorer. has put
| 1t on record that when i'm winter quar-
| ters at Melville Island he was able to
! talk to a companion a mile away with
out shouting.
No doubt it is from incidents like
| these, and from the fact that in this
country the air during severe frost is
usually very still. that the idea has
| grown up that there broOds over the
/ polar regions an everlasting, death
like stiffness.
AS Captain Peary pointed out In a
recent speech, greater mistake could
hardly be made. Both the Arctic and
| Antarctic regions are the very reverse
Of quiet, and even in the depths of the
sunless winter you very seldom get the
soundless calm recorded by Peary.
On polar seas the ice, though thick
and solid as granite rocks, is hardly
ever still. There are tides in the Arc
tic and Antarctic oceans, and these lift
and lower the huge ice fields, causing
low, creaking, groaning noises.
Even as late as November the pack
will wake up without warning and pile
itself in huge heaps with indescribable
crashngs, groanings and roarings.
| During his last successful journey
Captain Peary's ship was in terrible
danger from a sudden movement of
the foe. He speaks Of the "rabid roar
of the "tumbling chaos of ice blocks.
| His EskimOs were terribly frightened,
and set up weird howlings. The dogs
whined and barked, and the noise was
| terrific.
| Every Arctic explorer gives similar
accounts. Captain Hall. who led the
Polaris expedition, had an appalling
experience. He speaks of masses OF
ice collding around the ship with a
series of terrific crashes. The POlaris
herself was "nipped," and there fol-
lowed such a terrible rending and
| groaning that every one aboard was
convinced that she was going to the
| bottom, and the crew, all but twelve
men. were ordered out onto the ice.
| They spent 1876 days on a drifting
| foe, which carried them 1900 miles
The amazing part Of the adventure is
that the Polaris did not sink, and the
men left aboard managed to get her tc
a harbor, where they built house and
| spent the rest Of the winter.
| Spring is the noisest time in the
| polar seas. When the ice breaks up
the sound, to use a trite phrase, beg
gars description. Captain Mcclure, OF
the Investigator, compared it to heavy
thunder or the sound of great guns,
and another writer says that the move
ments Of the breaking foe resemble
| Whether in the Arctic or Antarctic
regions the air Is seldom still and
gales are frequent. The winter winds
of the far north, says Peary, blow with
almost unimaginable fury. During the
winter which he spent aboard the
Roosevelt before his last successful
dash for the pole he experienced Sc
ries of terrific storms.
In the cabins the sound resembled
that of some gigantic power plant, ev-
erything vibrating to the pulsation OF
the machinery The whole atmosphere
was full of the deep, sullen roar of the
wind, and so thick was the cloud of
snow picked up and swept forward on
the wings Of the gale that powerful
lamps were invisible ten feet away.
On high ground, such as inner
Greenland, the wind is never still
Nansen tells of the constant sibilant
hiss of the breeze laden with tiny
speckles of ice, which flowed along
knee high like a shining white river
glttering in the pale Arctic sunlight
Captain Scott will find similar