The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-08-19
ON AN ANTARCTIC GLACIER.
Eight of DIR. Mawson-s Expedition
Come Through Trying Experience.

land of the experiences of Frank Wild
and seven companions. all under thir-
" years of age. who. forming the sec
Ond base of DIR. Mawson's antarctic
expedition. with characteristic pluck
elected to be landed on a moving
/ antarctic glacier rather than return to
Australia A year later they were res
cued with great difficulty, by Captain
Davis of the Aurora The chief result
OF their exploration was the discovery
of great tract of land. with $50 miles
of coast line, probably extending to
the pole itself, which has been named
Queen Mary's land.
Speaking to Reuters representative
of his experiences, Mr.. Wild said:
we left Mawson at his base in
Adele land on January g of last year
with orders to- form a second base on
Saor1na Land or Knox Land The for
mer we soon aScertained did not eX-
ist, and impenetrable pack prevented
US from getting within sixty miles of
Knox Land, with the result that in
stead of two miles we cruiSed for 1. 800
miles and still found no chance of
landing On February II we sighted
glacier, which had probably been mis-
taken by Wilkes for Termination Land.
and on the 9Th found a landing. This
being ShackIeton Glacier, il looked an
impossible spot 1t was clearly a NOV
ing glacier, and its terrible cliffs a
hundred feet high were badly broken
and crevassed-
II fully realized the possibility of it
worth taking. However. L asked all
my people separately if they were
willing to land, and trusting in my
Judgment they cheerfully consented
We had thought of landing on a fast
floe five or six years old, which we
had seen some days previously, but
fortunately did not, or we should have
been lost Landing our hut, stores,
etc, and hosting them up tins danger
Gus cliff was long and difficult bust
ness, and our next care was TO move
them from the broken edge to a spot
$40 yards distant, where we erected
our hut
During these operations the whole
party worked fourteen hours a day,
and six days after the Aurora had de-
parted we We're able to leave our tents
and occupy the hut. During this period
the temperature varied 40 degrees,
dropping as low as minus Is Fahren-
heit. We covered 1S5 miles in drag
gfng our stores between the glacier
edge and the hut The next morning
we made preparations for sledging,
but were detained until the middle of
March by billiards. and snow drifts
Is feet in depth. In the meantime all
the sea ice blew away, leaving US with
a perpendicular glacier edge up viii ~
il was impossible for pengiuns or seals
to reach, and for five months we had
to depend entirely on timed foods
We soon found it impossible to go
on. and turned back for home. Carry
was so hard that we only covered
mile and a quarter in eight hours.
down hill and sinking three feet in
snow. When two miles from our hut
another blizzard held us up; one tent
cola psed. and its three occupants We're
unable TO move or get food for So
hours.
THE winter was very bad. with con-
slant gales, but we managed to keep
we'll and cheerful We had a regular
routine. meals at stated hours, work
in morning, and afternoon off, and
We amused ourselves with hockey,
football and skiing in fine weather,
and chess, draughts and cards when
unable to venture out. Every Sunday
1 conducted divine service in the
morning. and we did nothing except
essential camp work In August we
again made preparations for sledging.
one party of three going eastward and
another to the west The latter sur
veyed all the coast line to the point
reached by the German expedition of
1902. The western party did most of
its travelling on land.
''On one trip it did $40 miles at that
altitude. This party discovered the
largest emperor penguin rookery ever
recorded. This was on an island So
miles west of our glacier hut. and here
were congregated some seven thous-
and young emperor birds in addition
to innumerable ordinary penguins-
The eastern party surveyed as far as
101 east longitude. and went inland for
so miles. reaching an altitude of $500
feet. Billiards We're very severe; one
exceptionally bad one split tent and
caused the others to cola pse.
I'VE were thus without shelter in n
hundred miles an hour wind. For five
days we lay in a covered hole IL feet
by s feet by feet. At intervals
awful avalanches crashed down from
a 500 foot cliff 400 yards from us,
while giant boulders of ice, weighing
20 tons. came to within a hundred
yards of our hole. which three months
later was itself engulfed.
The ice we met on the expedition
was by far the worst 1 have ever seen
On our glacier this was partly the re-
suit of collisions between more quick
ly moving masses and our own
Asked for his worst experience. Mr..
Wild said: ION the whole. we enjoyed
good health. and there were no casual
ties Falling down crevasses was more
or less common, and we all got grazed
and bruised, while on one occasion
Watson was down a crevasse for 20
minutes before we hauled him out.
There was, too, the ever present pos
s:bility OF finding our hut gone, but
fortunately it did not get adrift- Our
worst experience was in October, when
the western party was laid up for
days in blizzard, the longest on rec
ord. Personally, l had never before
experienced one of more than nine
days 1t is difficult to imagine what
it meant for three men to be impris-
OneO IN d tent SIX Ieel dCEOSS' WHICH
got gradually smaller with the piled
up snow outside There was no room
to lie straight, nothing to read. and for
II days and nights we never under any
pretext whatever went outside. Six
teen hours of the "a we spent in sleep
At the end of the blizzard we were as
weak as kittens. but IL is extraordinary
how soon one picks up 1 have known
of cases where a man will gain five or
six pounds in weight after one meal
What Did He Mean to Say?