Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-08-04
THE NOISY NORTH POLE.
Remarkable Experiences in the Arctic
Regions, Described BY Explorers.

Peary, the Arctic explorer. has put
it on record that when in winter
quarters at Melville Island he was
able to talk to a companion mile
away without 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 Arc
tic and Antarctic regions are the very
reverse of quiet, and even in the
depths of the sunless winter you sell
dom 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
Arctic and Antarctic oceans, and these
life and lower the huge ice fields,
causing low screaking, grooming noises.
Even as late as November the pack
will wake up without warning and pile
itself in huge heaps with indescriba =
BILE crashings, groanings and roarlngs.
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 We're terribly
frightened, and set up weird howlings
mi. hor
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 colliding around the ship with
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 II men,
were ordered out onto the ice.
They spent 1876 days on 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
to a harbor, where they built house
and spent the rest of the winter.
Spring is the noisiest time in the
polar seas. When the ice breaks up
the sound, to use a trite phrase, beg
CARS description. Captain Mcclure OF
the Investigator, compared it to heavy
thunder or the sound of great guns
and another writer's says that the
movements of the breaking foe re-
semble the upheavals OF volcanic
eruption.
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. Dur
ing the winter which he spent aboard
the Roosevelt before his last success
full dash for the pole he experienced
series of terrific storms
In the cabins the sound resembled
that of some gigantic power plant,
everything vibrating to the pulsation
of the machinery. The whole atmos-
phere was full of the deep, sullen roar
OF the wind and so thick was the
cloud of snow picked up and swept
ft rward on the wings of the gale that
powerful lamps were invisible 10 feet
away.
On high ground. such as inner
Greenland, the wind is never still.
hansen tells of the constant sibilant
hiss of the breeze laden with tiny
speckles of ice, which flowed along
knee high like shining white river
glitterng in the pale Arctic sunlight.
oil o.
nomenon in his southwark dash in No
vember next.
In the Antarctic the storms are, II
possible more terrible than in the
Arctic.
The Antarctic expedition expert
enced a gale from the southwest which
blew heavy boat distance of over
so feet and smashed it to match
wood. 1t also shifted a heavy bag of
fossils. The astonishing velocity of
IS miles an hour was registered, and
then the wind gauge was carried bod
lily away.
During such storms everything be-
came charged with electricity. The
tips of mems fingers glowed in the
dark, and there was a swapping and
cracking as they touch any metal op-
ject.
All along Arctic coasts huge rivers
of ice extend into the sea- When
these glaciers "calve"-that is, when
bergs break off-the sound which en-
sues is quite indescribable. 1t beg
gars thunder or great guns. The
very air trembles, and the sea is flung
up into waves which resemble those
formed by submarine earthquakes
Nor is there lack of sounds caused
by animal life. In the Arctic may
often be heard the baying of wolves
and the barking cry of seals, while in
the summer the harsh cry of sea birds
echoes along the face of the cliffs.
In the south there are penguins by
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