Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-13
UNNATURAL LIGHTS
SWEEP ANTARCTIC
Floating Crystals Descend on
Byrd Party in Little
America.
BY RUSSELL OVEN.
(Copyright, 1929

Louis Post DISPATCH; All rishts for pub
Nv wireless to the New York Times
LITTLE AMERICA, Antarctica. Oc-
tober 1O.-For days we have been liv-
ing in a land of mist and cloud where
outlines are vague and uncertain and
Gi1e white surface under foot cannot
be seen. One may stumble over a
lump of snow on the edges OF saS-
trugi or step suddenly down de-
cline. No shadows, only a diffused
although dimly one may see in the
distance the forms of ice pushed up
In great uneven ridges or the nebulous
line of the barrier cliff.
The last two days have been warm,
bringing in moist air from the sea
and lifting the temperature higher
than 1t has been in weeks. Yester-
day afternoon 1t was 4 below zero.
Then the wind shifted TO the South
and in a few minutes the whole cam
opy of cloud began to disappear. The
thermometer dropped suddenly and
the air was filled with ice crystals
which battered against the face like
rain.
Panoply of Splendor in the Sky.
The clouds we're torn into feathery
solved, drifted northward to the dark
band of fog over the sea, and light
from the sun shown through crevices
which widened into clear pools of pale
green sky overhead and to the South.
The golden glow in the West began
to deepen and the disc of the sun
shine through the thin curtain of
scudding clouds, clouds that vanished
as one watched them. All along the
northern horizon was a band of pearly
vapor and above it a few goSSa-
mer-like steamers floated touched with
shifting color like opals.
As the sky to the south cleared a
wide band like the end of rainbow
stretched upward and then the sun
broke through its curtain and one of
those beautiful phenomenon of the polar
regions. almost perfect in its complex
form, was spread across the Western
sky.
The sun, a luminous golden mass
of fame, rather than a disc, was
crossed by two great bands of dazzling
light, so that 1t rested in the center
of a cross.
Mock Sun Throws Myriad of Hues.
on either side were shining mock
suns, each in its pillar of multicolored
light, curving up and inward. and out
side of these two other portions of
the upper tangent arc, like a huge
arrowhead, pointed downward at the
sun.
The crystals which caused these
pillars and bands of light so filled the
air that they could be seen sparkling
against the sun as eyes, half closed
against its brilliance watched the
majestic display, changing every mo-
ment.
The colors deepened and pulsated
like living fire, rainbows turned to
bands of gold, great tails of flame swept
outward along the horizon from the
mock suns.
Opposite the sun in the east was that
even rarer phenomenon, the anthelion,
luminous pearly light stretching upward
from the Barrier, the reflection of the
upright pillar of the golden cross.
Half an hour or more this play of
light continued and then as the cold
increased and the moisture condensed
more rapidly, the crystals became an
ohscuring veil themselves and the sun
and its brilliant high priests disap-
psared.
The sky was overcast and the
whistling wind out of the cold south
played again over the gray monotone
of our snowscape We went indoors
deeply affected by the beauty and the
grandeur Of this great vision.