310 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



near the glacier, in the draw of the mountains, did he find the surfaces 

 exceedingly rough. 



The general description of the surfaces encountered by Sir Douglas 

 Mawson and the members of his parties was not so encouraging; but 

 then Sir Douglas was traveling in comparatively low latitudes, between 

 69° and 70°, and his route lay over the sloping ice-sheet not far from 

 where it meets the open water; a condition lilcely to induce high winds, 

 crevassed areas, and sastrugi. Mawson's Magnetic Pole party led by 

 Bago traveled farther from the continental edge, but was not more 

 than 120 miles from the sea. Bage mentions sastrugi only twice 

 during the first 75 miles of travel, and lists the snowy wind-drifts only 

 once as being 1 foot high; the others must have been lower. Later on 

 he remarks on sastrugi 6 inches high, then for 3 days very few. After 

 that they traveled for 5 days over fairly good surfaces, then he men- 

 tions "some old sastrugi", then "surface smoothly polished." 



Notwithstanding the difficulties which were actually encountered 

 by Mawson's sledging parties in the Adelie Land area, Bickerton did 

 use an air-screw tractor, in reality an airplane minus its wings, and 

 taxied it several times over a route 10 miles long. The surfaces on 

 any part of that route if suitable for taxiing must have been suitable 

 for an emergency forced landing. 



It is only logical to assume that conditions inland from the Adelie 

 Land coast would be somewhat similar to those found by Scott and 

 Amundsen farther south. Therefore, in spite of the general impres- 

 sion, and after a careful study of all conditions met by sledging parties, 

 it seemed that on a flight across Antarctica it would be possible to find 

 at least as many emergency landing fields as one would expect to find 

 on any transcontinental flight before the development of air routes. 



The question, then, resolved itself not into one of safe landing fields, 

 but whether one could distinguish a safe lauding field from the air. 

 There is no doubt about the difficulty of distinguishing the type of 

 snow surface when the sky is clouded or during snowdrift and blizzards, 

 but it is not difficult in sunshine. To avoid danger it would be neces- 

 sary to fly only in clear weather. So the weather problem was the 

 greatest to be faced in relation to the use of airplanes in the Antarctic. 

 It was, in fact, almost great enough to prohibit any attempt to make a 

 trans-Antarctic flight. Storms without warning had frequently^ over- 

 taken foot travelers, but it was obvious that when flying it would be 

 possible to see the approach of a storm at a greater distance than when 

 on the ground, and also possible to turn away from it if necessary. 

 The thing to do if a storm barred the way was to land and wait for 

 clear weather. 



But the high winds had wrecked tents and almost smothered polar 

 parties, and, even before my plans were made, had ripped one of 

 Admiral Byrd's planes from its iashiiigs and carried it half a mile 



