ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH 



fly out and search for them. He accompHshed their 

 rescue and two days later all were safe at their camp 

 in Little America. However, in spite of this loss of 

 one of their planes, the American expedition in 1928 

 observed from the air some forty thousand square miles 

 of new territory. 



The Flight to the South Pole 



During November, 1929, Byrd completed his plans 

 for flying to the Pole. A geological party under Gould 

 had already set out with sledges to the Queen 

 Maud Range, which Amundsen had discovered 450 

 miles south of Byrd's base at Little America in 78° 

 30' S. Before describing the flight we may well 

 consider some of the difficulties which faced Byrd in 

 the air. The Ross Ice Shelf along this route varies in 

 height from nine hundred feet near Byrd's headquar- 

 ters on its northern edge, to sixty-three feet just before 

 the mountain scarp is reached. In places crevassed 

 areas are encountered, especially near latitude 81° S. 

 It is, however, in surmounting the great mountain range 

 that aviators will always experience great difficulties 

 and dangers. Not many scarps are so pronounced as 

 that forming the eastern face of the great Antarctic 

 Horst. A number of the peaks reach fifteen thousand 

 feet and hang like the Himalayas over the plains be- 

 neath. The great glaciers which enabled Amundsen to 

 reach the plateau rise much higher than the Beard- 

 more used by Scott, for the ice divide at the top of 

 Liv Glacier and Axel Heiberg Glacier seems to be well 

 over ten thousand feet. Thereafter there is a descent 



78 



