Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-01-17
Stars, Men and Atoms
Mountain Range Sought
Under GreenIund's Ice
French Scientists Also Are Tryinx
To Locate Storm Center
By Thomas r. Henry

To Locate Storm Center
By Thomas r. Henry
Search for North Americas storm-b breeding
area and for mountain ranges buried for mill
leniums under mile Of ice will be the primary
objective OF French Greenland expedition
this summer commanded by Paul Emile Victor
under the auspices Of the French Acadamy Of
Sciences
Victor, who has just spent few days In
Washington in preparation for the expedition
which will leave for Greenland this spring.
last summer landed most of the equipment
which will be required on the edge Of the ice
sheet which covers the worlds largest island.
1t long has been assumed he explained that
there must exist somewhere over Greenland an
enormous permanent anti-cyclone, an area Of
high pressure covering thousands Of square
miles where are built up the great masses Of
heavy, cold air which spill over and sweep
across this continent as winter storms.
This could only be located however by O
long period of daily observations. Previous ex-
petitions have found no trace of it. In 1881,
a German expedition occupied for year q
base almost in the center Of the ice sheet
where Victor plans to establish his own
station.
The great advantage will be that he will
have the benefit of the published German OBJ
servations. These did not indicate any great
high pressure area. 1t may however. have
moved northward or southwark during the
year the German scientists occupied the site.
May Move Camp.
IF we don't find 1t next summer" Victor
says, I'VE will move our camp the next year
to some point where it might have moved If
we don't find it then the evidence will be fairly
strong that it doesn't exist and that all the
theories are wrong
If the great high-pressure area, presumably
the largest on earth, could be located a perma-
nent weather observatory could be set up to
follow the daily building up of pressures during
the winter months. The reports would give
fair indication of when to expect storms to
start southwark
Vctor's party also will be equipped to make
soundings through the ice which is known to
range between 5000 and 5000 feet in thick
ness the result of an accumulation for at
least 900 years The surface of the ice
over the entire island is essentially fiat. No
mountain peaks protrude above 1t, as Is the
case with other Arctic islands and, to some
extent, the Antarctic continent
Yet it can hardly be believed, Victor says,
that this great mass of ice has been built
on fiat underlying surface 1t is almost
certain that there are great mountains and
valleys underneath. These can be located
by two methods. The first is by seismic sound
ing. Explosions will be set off on the surface
of the ice and the time required for their
echoes to return measured to some minute
fraction of a second
Sound Gives Measurements
Sound moves at a different speed through ice
than through the underlying rock This tech
nique has been enormously improved since the
1881 German expedition OF Alfred Wegener.
Then it was possible to measure the depth Of
the ice with an error of a few thousand feet
The French scientists expect to be accurate
within only few feet at the worst
The second method of locating buried noun
tains will be by extremely delicate measures
ments Of variations in the force Of gravity
over the surface Of the Ice sheet. There are
minute but measurable changes in the vicin-
ity of great mass, such as mountain
Victors present plans call for maintaining
a party at the ice sheet camp for two years,
with the personnel changed during the summer
of 1880 The site selected Is almost In the
middle of the island at latitude II north and
longitude 40 West-almOst precisely the To-
cation of the Germans.
Last summers work, Victor said, was
necessary preliminary All the camp equip
ice cliff at the head Of deep Atu Ford The
problem of getting more than 80 tons OF
equipment over the cliff was solved IN an
unusual manner. The possibility had been
foreseen. Victor had taken with him the
cables and pulleys necessary for building
cable way" such as is widely used in the
Alps.
Difficult Feat
Such a construction however Is a difficult
engineering feat requiring specialists. Before
leaving France an agreement was reached
with the worlds foremost cable-road engineer.
whose home was in ChamoniX in the French
Alps If it became necessary to build the
galloway, it was agreed, the explorers would
get in touch with him by voice radio and he
would direct the work step by step over
distance of approximately 5000 miles.
This is exactly what happened. The con-
struction proved entirely adequate
ut was Just as if M. Monnet was standing
over us every moment of the operation" Dr.
Victor said whenever we ran into bug OF
some kind we would tell him about it in an
ordinary tone of voice. In a few minutes
back would come his voice, giving minute oil
rections on what to do. 1t couldn't have oper-
ated more smoothly if he had been there IN
person."
Once over the cliff however the explorers
ran into unexpected difficulties which stopped
further progress for the rest of the summer.
It was already late in the season. The edge
of the ice sheet was wild chaos of raging
river roaring and spuming through channels
as much as 10 feet deep. Progress across this
would have been unthinkable.
BY returning early in the season, however.
the party will have solid Ice surface over
which to move It's equipment
Questions and Answers