Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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The Center ofthe World Madeira sits on a hummock of ice, gazing bleakly away from the slight wind. Atavistically, for she has not seen another dog since she was weaned, she adopts the pose of the husky at the end of Flaherty's film Nanooh ofthe North. The altitude makes the slow walk to the station exhausting. Four men are engaged in 'coutside Peggyf, as Shackleton referred to chores. They are shoveling snow for the snow-melter, the meth- od of getting water today as 50 years ago, and among them is a scientist who has spent the morning mapping the upper atmosphere. Madeira trots ahead and plunges down steep, narrow, wood- en steps covered with snow - the main entrance to the station at the South Pole. As soon as the sun is left behind, there is a dank- ness like the inside of a walk-in icebox. Through corridors lined with cases of canned food is an enormous room built of steel arches, containing three 25,000-gallon fuel bladders. Opposite is the mess hall, a rickety but well-insulated wooden building, self- contained, -its door kept closed by heavy latches that drop into place on a steel shim. The mess is like a small cafeteria, but it might as well be a European cafe. There are arguments on every subject and experts of every nationality. Discussion never stops, since even in the middle of the night Cbroad daylightj a couple of scientists may finish their observations and drop in for a cup of coffee. The surface snow into this tunnel, and the conveyor belt in the foreground takes it to the snow-melter at the station. Every man at the station takes his turn at this work. The snow mine at Byrd Station. A tractor outside pushes

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: The Antarctic oceans are richer-in life than any similar waters in the world. At left, reading down: a rather small octopus, with a total leg span of about four inches. A gate-legged sea spider, abundant in polar waters, which feeds on the sea anemone and other fleshy crea- tures. The legs of this one are about four inches long. A fancy-colored fish, collected at a depth of 830 meters, off McMurdo. A sea fan or sea lily, related to the star- fish. It extended, its diameter would be about eight in- ches. All are in the Biolab at McMurdo, in salt water tanks, ata temperature slightly below freezing. Eventual- ly salt water will be pumped to the aquarium from under the ice of McMurdo Sound. 1,1

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Above: Ramp for vehicles at the South Pole, showing the Wonder Arch that has made it possible to protect several stations far out on the ice from drifting snow. At right: The storage tunnel at Byrd. Note ice crystals on the overhead. small, brooding man with gray hair is Dr. Edgar Picciotto, who will lead the 1,000-mile overland traverse from the Pole of Imac. cessibility to Plateau Station. Although heis Italian and represents Ohio State University, his base is the Free University of Brussels and he is talking to the Honorable Alfred van der Essen, Director of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has just landed in the Herc. This is supposed to be the most isolated place on earth, but the most wretched Arab insists, Where I stand is the center of the world. Sir Charles Wright says, 'iThe upper atmosphere is a much livelier and more interesting place in the region of the poles. The magnetic lines of force extend straight outward here, and they act as funnels for charged particles from the sun. Also the pole is remote from large centers of man-made and natural radio disturbances, and it has the advantage of being stationary in space. There are now 45 people here, double the winter popu- lation. The number will drop as soon as the traverse party leaves, rising again when men arrive to get used to the altitude before going out to build the new Plateau Station. A tall blond young man hands alarge carton to Lcdr Brabec, the plane commander. Ronnie Stephen, meteorologist in charge at the Pole, is sending three Eppley pyrheliometers back to McMurdo for calibration. They are on the order of 150-watt light bulbs but more delicate, and they measure the amount of radiation that comes directly from the sun. He notes any changes in what he calls Hnormal incidence, such as dust from the 1962 eruption of Mount Teal in the Philippines, which reached the Pole in about a year. When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, it threw off five cubic miles of volcanic ash, and Stephen says a mysterious cloud of '6Agung dustn remains near the Equator. Olav Orheim, a Norwegian glaciologist who is going on the traverse, sits across the table from a big man with a black beard. This is Major Jorge Raul Munoz of the Argentine Air Force, who piloted one of the tiny Beavers that flew here from the Argentine, against all sane advice. They landed first at their own General Belgrano base on the Filchner Ice Shelf and were supposed to re- turn there after three days. The DC-3 that accompanied them - with an auxiliary jet engine installed in its tail - is now being repaired at McMurdo. Munoz looks like a brigand. He speaks a little English and, with his flashing eyes and wicked smile, could be a character 'actor in the movies. Today is his anniversary, and he has telephoned a friend in Buenos Aires on the ham radio to send flowers to his wife, with a card he has previously signed: '4Love, George. He got up at six oiclock this morning to call her. She say, 'Where are you P' I say the South Pole. She say, 'HOW you send flowers P' On the left are several long tables and on the right is the gal- ley, separated from the mess by a counter on which food is piled in what seems unnecessary quantity. Yet, at these temperatures, the body needs half again as many calories. The early eXpl0ICTS ate 50035, 21 pemmican stew, although it is too rich and fatty to be eaten in a normal climate. 66