Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 31 text:

Emperors are nomads - hard to track, said a biologist who was investigating their movements. So he put tele- metric transmitters on them and, even a mile away, received the information he wanted. They mate in the middle of winter, in darkness. The scientist, privately, thought they were stupid to pick such a bad time. They are able to go three months without tood, although the incubation period is only sixty days. The chicks gain weight rapidly, and one we called Peter was twice as big as he had been the day before. ln contrast to the Adelie penguins, an Emperor lays a single egg on sheer ice and hatches it by cradling it on its feet. Unlike Ade- lies, the Emperor will not attack a man, and unlike them, he has eyes that seem to be square.

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From the tail of 319 a ramp has been let down onto the room for a whole nuclear power plant - in sections. The nuclear i snow, another ramp has been hoisted inside the plane, leaving Some ofthe Alaskan huskies kept by the New Zealanders at Scott Base, which is out of sight to the right. Dogs usually last about five seasons. Then they start getting a bit stroppy, says John Murphy. There was one at Hallett that went woot lwolfl. By special permission, under the Antarctic Treaty, they are fed seal meat. plant at McMurdo was prefabricated in a series of c'modules weighing no more than 30,000 pounds each and measuring no more than 878 X 8,87' X 30', so that if necessary they could be shipped in Hercules LC-1305. Under the soaring tail of the Herc comes a tractor that looks, head-on, like a modern sort of owl. It is towing a sled with drums of DFA. The pallets are slid aboard with the help of a winch in the forward part of the cargo space, and secured by W. H. Tam- plet, the plane's loadmaster. In spite of a slight wind, everyone is in high spirits. The optimism of just going somewhere is enough for the '6deadheads,', or passengers, and even the men who work on the ground are enjoying the air after a spell of bad weather. The Antarctic is said to be odorless, but the smell of a fine morning is as real as the Mice blinka' at sea that glances off the clouds from the invisible ice pack. It is the smell of purity. The air, which has been silent, is filled with the sound of engines, the heartbeat of the Continent. To the north, a plume of steam comes from 13,000-foot Mount Erebusg far to the right is Mount Terror - both named for the ships of james Clark Ross who was the first to see this coast, in 1841. Farther still but out of sight, at the eastern end of Ross Island, is Cape Crozier. In 1911, three men from Scott's expedi- tion went there on foot, in absolute darkness, to test their gear and to have a look at the Emperor penguin, the only bird or ani- mal that remains on the Continent in winter. One of the party, Apsley Cherry-Carrard, later called this trip, a mere 50 miles from McMurdo in a straight line, 'fthe worst journey in the worldf' i '!n i,,NXN M N N, Lyff' -A ' ,. ., .V VZ ff .Av .if gf-fq'-5?', ' -lilf f W . . ff ' V, ' ,- 'f 'W-ZYWQK WT A W ' ,jf ,A V fr. rw if V. 5- I A CW .Wea I ' 'rf . - t . . . . . ' 't'i 1 T' 2 5 M, , 3- saga...-a...4,-Y.-4,,,.,v--s.f-.sf-- f' L 'ws ........ nf I-.H

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Y. gn-we-J: E ..., 1 1 L l I I g. l E l l The eerie quality of the Antarctic, the basic loneliness, is ap- parent in spite of the exuberance of the men. History iS 11616, but it is short, meager, and generally grim. Admiral Bakutis is fond of paraphrasing an old polar motto: alt is not especially difficult, but it is mercilessly unforgiving of human error. One may dT0P through the ice at any moment. Although the Ross Ice Shelf, today, is hospitable to half a dozen glaciologists from Grand Valley State College in Michigan, recently their radio Went out and they lost contact with MclVlurdo for a Week. Another little party in the Taylor Dry Valley hopes the helicopter that set them down there will pick them up. Yet, in five minutes, a White-out may de- velop, or a blizzard that could delay the helo for days. 30