Off Princess Ragnhild Land

The Antarctic ice barrier on which Captain Hjalmar J. Riiser-Larsen was making a preliminary camp last week sundered with a terrific sound like giant bolts of canvas being torn. The Norwegian whalers which had with difficulty put him, two companions, 53 dogs, a wireless machine and a year's supply of food, fuel and equipment on the ice barrier, had all gone. His party was to travel 3,000 mi. along the Atlantic edge of the Antarctic, from Princess Ragnhild Land to Hearst Land.*

As the barrier crumpled, a 10-ft. crack opened three feet from the tent in which Captain Riiser-Larsen, Hallvard Devoid and Olaw Kjelbotn slept. Outdoors was pitch dark. They returned to their tent, anxiously waiting for daylight.

In the morning they watched precious sacks of coal drop down a crevice, hover a moment on the brash ice, then sink into the Antarctic.

They yelled to their dogs scattered on drifting floes. The dogs understood no Norwegian, the men knew no Eskimo except ilik (right) and iuh (left). Reversing Eliza, the men jumped from floe to floe, dragged the dogs by main force, assembled 53 animals. But as soon as unchained, the dogs leaped for the drifting floe on which rode the supply of whale meat. One dog, too stiff-legged to leap, was left.

The men struggled to save as much essential equipment as possible, dragging their sledges by hand. Every time they reached the main supply depot, they found that it had drifted outward faster than they could move the supplies in. "It was actual blood-taste-in-the-mouth," Captain Riiser-Larsen later radioed the Hearstpapers, whose publisher was one of his sponsors. They "could have taken sufficient emergency ration and rushed for safety on the barrier side. But with the wind off the land, the dog floe might drift out any time, and we decided to stay where we were, eventually drift out with the dogs, and thus get a chance to save them."

There was a chance that the wind would veer and drive them all back to shore. But when the floe with most of the dogs disappeared, together with three floes with stores, no matter what thereafter might happen, the expedition was ruined. Captain Riiser-Larsen rigged up his portable wireless, called for help.

Five small whalers turned to the rescue. After a cold night of bobbing on the cake of ice, the explorers radioed the rescuing boats not to run any risks in the pack ice. The rescuers were to send up rockets and smoke signals. Another night passed without sign of rescue.

The fourth night amid the drifting clutter of ice, the explorers were passing along an iceberg when another berg charged, passed, missing them by yards. The charging berg "ran up against the first berg with a heavy thud that would have squeezed us to powder. . . . We saw in the far distance the reflection of the moon on an iceberg to leeward."

The fifth day the whaler Globe 5 sighted Captain Riiser-Larsen, his two companions and his stiff-legged dog and picked them up as they were being blown seaward on a chip of ice 100 yd. long, 50 yd. wide.

* At Hearst Land next December they expected to see an airplane fly over their heads. The plane would be making a non-stop flight from Ross Sea to Weddell Sea and return. In it would be three famed flying explorers--Lincoln Ellsworth, Bernt Balchen and Sir George Hubert Wilkins, who discovered Hearst Land.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.