FIRST CROSSING OF ANTARCTICA— ELLSWORTH 309 



In spite of the general impression created by the books on Antarctic 

 travel, which are filled with descriptions of bad sledging trails, hazy- 

 outlines, sudden blizzards, and hard-lipped sastrugi, I found that even 

 the written accounts of previous expeditions really encouraged the 

 belief that machines might be landed safely on most of the surfaces 

 encountered in the past, A thorough search through the diaries of 

 Scott, Shackleton, Mawson, and Amundsen revealed that the surfaces 

 they found on their sledge journeys, both on the Koss Barrier and on 

 the polar plateau, would afford reasonably good landing fields for 

 modern airplanes, provided of course that the weather was such that 

 these surfaces could be seen. 



For instance, in Scott's published diary of his journey to the Pole 

 he mentions soft snow, heavy and rough surfaces, and some surfaces 

 distinctly good, but he actually mentions sastrugi on 5 days only 

 during the 30 days it took him to travel from the edge of the Barrier 

 to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, which leads up to the polar 

 plateau. Only on one occasion did he mention sastrugi 12 inches high, 

 and then they were "widely dispersed," The other sastrugi seen 

 must have been lower and probably would not have interfered with 

 the safe landing of an airplane. From this it w\as clear that only a 

 small percentage of the actual Barrier surface would be unsuitable 

 for forced landings. 



On the way up the glacier, Scott mentions sastrugi "not more than 

 3 inches high." There were crevasses and undulations and soft spots 

 of course ; one would expect to find these in the fairly steep-sloped area 

 leading up to an altitude of 9,000 feet. But it was hardly necessary 

 to consider the glacier surface in relation to Antarctic flight, for any 

 airplane flying over them would, in case of engine failure and a forced 

 landing, be able to glide above the glacier surface to the lower level 

 of the Barrier. 



When once over the plateau and beyond the "third degree" camp, 

 Scott found the surface difficult for sledging, but not until after 5 days* 

 marching did he come to sastrugi which were rough and confused — it 

 was so rough, in fact, that Scott decided to abandon his skis, which 

 he had used up to that time. But the rough condition was limited in 

 area — a cross-section of probably less than 5 miles; for when they 

 came to the end of the sastrugi, Scott says they went back for the 

 skis, a trip which resulted in a delay of only 1 hour and 30 minutes. 

 Onward to the Pole, and between the dates January 7 and 17, sastrugi 

 are mentioned only four times, and then only in relation to the general 

 direction of the winds. He refers to rough surfaces only once, on the 

 15th, near the Pole, and there the sledges "bumped over the ridges." 



In Amundsen's account of his journey from the Bay of Whales to 

 the Pole, he mentions sastrugi only five times, and only when on and 



