100 Years Ago: October 1925

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: October 1925

 

This is my 129^th rewrite of a one-hundred-year-old National Geographic Magazine

 

 

The first article in this month’s issue is entitled “The Romance of Science in Polynesia” and was written by Robert Cushman Murphy, author of “South Georgia, an Outpost of the Antarctic,” and “The Most Valuable Bird in the World,” in the National Geographic Magazine.  It has the internal subtitle: “An Account of Five Years of Cruising Among the South Sea Islands.”  The article contains sixty-four black-and-white photographs taken by Rollo H. Beck.  Seven of those photos are full-page in size.  The article contains five additional illustrations: A sketch map of the South Pacific on page 358:

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

A sketch map of French Polynesia on page 366:

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

Two sketches showing a profile and diagram of a coral island on page 369:

Sketches courtesy of Philip Riviere

And a full-page profile map of Tahiti on page 362.

Most people romanticized the southern Pacific as a Garden of Eden.  Looking at the subject with a historic eye, however, noted that the land and people of Polynesia had periodically claimed the attention of civilized mankind.  The present tide [in 1925] was only the latest recurrence which had taken place about once every generation since 1760 or earlier.  In the beginning, the narratives of the great voyagers of the eighteenth century were read by practically all educated men of their day.  The profound effect they exerted was reflected in the prose, the poetry, the religious zeal, the wanderlust, and even the social customs of the time.  In the 1820s, British missionaries in the Society Islands, as described in Willian Ellis’s “Polynesian Researches,” once again focused the eyes of the world on the South Seas.  One of his books, on Polynesian history, traits, and culture, passed through several editions.  In 1846, the original “cannibal island thriller,” “Typee” by Herman Melville, was written.  It was a Yankee whaleman’s account of four months’ captivity among the savages of the Marquesas Islands.  “Typee” made Melville a literary lion the world over.  It was a tale one could scarcely lay aside unfinished.  Melville followed "Typee" with a sequel entitled “Omoo,” dealing with the Society Group.  His success led to other, lesser works by a host of authors.  It remained for Robert Lewis Stevenson to place once more the stamp of genius upon Pacific literature.  “In the South Seas” and other essays were beguiling and informative.  In more recent exploitation and advertisement of Polynesia, writers had to share the honors with painters.  The artistry of John La Farge and Paul Gauguin had had its part in the popular flare.  This brief sketch showed that in regular intervals someone had had the talent to “rediscover” Polynesia, and put the region in the mindset of the masses.  Most of the great tales of the South Seas were written before the author’s lifetime. To know Polynesia in its days of barbaric splendor, he must read Cook’s “Voyages.”

In the author’s consideration of Polynesia, New Zealand was excluded because of its nearness to Australia.  Hawaii was also omitted, since President Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society had published his study of Hawaii in an entire number of The Magazine.  [See: “The Hawaiian Islands: America’s Strongest Outpost of Defense – the Volcanic Floral Wonderland of the World,” February 1924, National Geographic Magazine.]  Some South Seas islands stood alone, but most were clustered in sizable groups, including such important groups as the Society, Tuamotu, Marquesas, Austral, Samoa, Ellice, Phoenix, Union, Manihiki, and Tonga Islands.  In general, they lied within a rectangle bounded by the longitudes 105 and 165 degrees east, and latitudes 10 degrees north and 30 degrees south.  The total number of islands could not be estimated.  Brigham’s “Index to the Islands of the Pacific” lists about 2,650 main bodies of land.  The land area was in the neighborhood of 3,500 square miles, excluding New Zealand and Hawaii.  The Societies comprised about 637 square miles; the Marquesas, 490; and the Tuamotus, 364.  Politically, the Society, Marquesas, Tuamotu, and Austral islands had been French since the mid-1800s.  Many others were British colonies or under New Zealand mandate. The U.S. had control over part of Samoa and certain other islets.  Easter Island and Sala-y-Gomez were Chilean.  For a clear record of post-war sovereignty see the December 1921 National Geographic Magazine.  In the western South Pacific, volcanism was still in active progress, but in the area under discussion, the earth-building fires had long been extinguished.  Disintegrating rock and erecting coral, separately or combined, made up the structure of the innumerable dots in the wide sea.  The limits of the range of reef-forming corals were roughly between 28 degrees north and 30 degrees south.  But steep shores and the absence of shallow coastal shelves prevented the growth of coral.  The Marquesas, with all but strand-less shorelines, were without a gridle of reefs.

At Tahiti, a composite island, which attained the peak of Polynesian diversity and beauty, the core worn and carpeted volcanic hills was surrounded by a coastal plain which reached a width of a mile in the mouths of the river valleys.  That encircling strand was a strip of great fertility, and was the only zone of such cultural plants as the coconut, sugar cane, banana, coffee, and vanilla.  It was also the sole belt of permanent human habitation, even when, in the late 18^th century, it supported 150,000 aboriginal people.  The strand overlies an ancient lava beach and a buried fringing reef.  The topsoil, from the crumbling uplands was 20 feet in some places.  Around the strand-belt were the fringing reefs.  Those extended, just awash or slightly submerged in of the atoll’s area.to the lagoon moat.  It was, in turn, protected by the barrier reef, which was broken by numerous passes, especially opposite the river outlets where the flow of fresh water prohibited the growth of coral.  At most points, the moat was broad and navigable, but at places it narrowed to where the fringing and barrier reefs practically coalesced.  The main body of Tahiti comprised of two high land masses connected by a low isthmus.  The larger mass culminated in several sharp peaks, one with an altitude of 7,321 feet.  Both Tahiti proper and its peninsula had undergone tremendous erosion producing many valleys with vertical walls.  Those valleys isolated plant and animal species creating many variations.  Turning to the atolls, or coral rings without a central pile of hills, there were several large Pacific groups which included no other type.  Atolls were rarely perfectly symmetrical rings.  Most of them were highly irregular.  The land which projected above the water was more often a chain of disconnected islets.

The principal entrance to the lagoon was usually at the northwesterly or leeward end, for coral thrived best on the windward shores where trade winds heaped up water which bore their sustenance.  Hau Island, of the vast Tuamotu archipelago, was a characteristic example of the low islands.  It was thirty miles in length, seven in breath across the widest part of the lagoon, with the long axis parallel to the trade winds.  The only entrance was at the leeward end.  The long thread of reef was elsewhere unbroken, but the “dry land” was made up of over a hundred distinct units.  Since the greatest width of the islets was less than a mile, the lagoon made up 99% of the atoll’s area.  Vessels sailed int the lagoons of certain coral-rings and anchored out of sight of land on the glassy and sheltered waters.  In such friendly lagoons, the primitive atoll-dweller plied his paddle, and on the quiet inner beaches he built his villages.  The jagged spit behind his home was often a desolate waste, while the outer stretches were toward the booming sea.  There, the rollers crashed, but the greater their volume and power, the more luxuriant the coral became.  The scientific controversy regarding the origin of atolls was an old one, and not yet fully settled in [1925].  Darwin held that they were the result of the wearing away of a central land mass accompanied by an upgrowth of the gridling reef.  Either the atoll was a barrier reef of an island which had vanished. Or of a submarine mound which approached the surface.  Sir John Murray, the botanist Guppy, and Professor Alexander Agassiz combatted that theory, and showed the reefs existed in parts of the Pacific, where there was no evidence of subsistence, but where there had been uplift.  Borings made at Funafuti revealed the presence of coral rock 1,114 feet deep, below where coral grew.  That confirmed Darwin.

The final type of island to be mentioned was the secondarily upraised or tilted atoll, which presented cliffs and hills of considerable altitude and of misleading superficial appearance.  The greater number of the Polynesian islands lied within the zone of the southeast trade wind, and enjoyed a mild, equitable climate, although many groups near the Equator were subject to hurricanes.  Rainfall was most copious on the windward slopes of the high islands.  The high islands often produced a “rain shadow” which deprived the leeward side of moisture.  The Polynesian flora was pronouncedly Asiatic.  The vegetation of the volcanic islands was relatively rich; that of the coral islands scanty.  Among the latter the coconut, pandanus, and mangrove were the only conspicuous native trees.  In the high islands the more interesting forms of plant life began at 1,000 feet or more above sea level.  Orchids and ferns were abundant, the latter constituting fully 15% of the total flora.  At the Society Islands and elsewhere, the indigenous valley forest was largely made up of tree ferns which descended to near sea level in moist valleys, but not much below 1,500 feet on the drier coast.  The hillsides between 3,000 and 5,000 feet were covered with thickets of fei, or Polynesian wild banana.  Another widely distributed staple, which grew in the lowlands, was the taro.  It was intensively cultivated.  Both root and leave were edible.  Still another important starchy food was supplied by the famous breadfruit, of which a score of varieties flourished among the Pacific Islands.  At such a long-settled island as Tahiti, enormous changes in the vegetation had occurred since the discovery.  The transformation was most evident in the coastal plain, but even on the higher slopes many native plants had been driven out or upward by interlopers like the guava and the lantana.

The rapid dissemination of the thorny lantana was due to the introduction of form of life – the Indian starling.  The lantana was cultivated in gardens in gardens on Hawaii, but showed no tendency to spread until the bird was introduced.  The berry became its favorite food, and in indigestible seed was scattered everywhere.  It was the introduced plant-pests, rather than native flora, which were responsible for much of the impenetrable “jungle” found in 1925.  The absence of poisonous plant on most of the islands and the paucity of native edible fruits were further characteristics of the Polynesian flora.  All the fruits which abounded in the gardens had been introduced since the time of the early discoverers.  Throughout the easterly Polynesian groups, rats and mice were the only native land mammals, and they may have been brought by early human migrants.  One must go as far west as Samoa before even bats were added to the list.  Reptiles had only slightly better representation.  Except for sea-snakes, there were no serpents between the Galapagos and Samoa.  There were eight genera of the clinging-footed geckos, and four of the small lizards known as skinks.  Amphibians were practically wanting.  A single species of toad inhabited Hawaii, but none were found until beyond the western limit of the region – to the Fiji and Solomon Islands – before we encountered frogs, salamanders, and another toad.  The birds of the South Sea Islands, both indigenous species and migrants, exemplified a wide variety of marine and terrestrial forms and warranted special consideration in some future number of this magazine.  [See “Bird Life among Lava Rock and Coral Sand,” July 1925, National Geographic Magazine.]  The number and variety of insects decreased as one progressed in an easterly direction from islands close to Australia and Malaysia.

Biting flies were an annoyance at certain of the Marquesas Islands and elsewhere, while mosquitoes were among the curses charged against the invading white man.  The domestic animals which the early Polynesians carried included only poultry, dogs, and pigs.  They had been constantly augmented so it was difficult to tell what the original types were like.  Chickens, feral on all the wooded islands, show characteristics of many domestic strains.  While the original Polynesian breed was still found, even on small islands remote from trade routes, many rounded, short-legged pigs were found.  The early travelers recorded amusing incidents of the amazement of the islanders when they first saw such monsters as horses, goats, and oxen.  Most of the islands of Polynesia were, or formerly were, inhabited by a tall and handsome aboriginal people, very distinct from the dark-skinned and frizzy-haired Australasian natives.  Knowledge concerning the origin, relationships, and migrations of the people was obscured by uncertainty and confusion.  It was believed that their entrance into the oceanic islands occurred about the first century A. D.  The Marquesas may have been settled in the tenth century.  Their racial status was even more complex.  Early students not only emphasized their uniformity in culture and language, but also pointed to their uniformity of physical type, extending from Hawaii to New Zealand and from Samoa to Easter Island.  Most of the writings on this subject was sheer speculation and nonsense.  It was undeniable that temperamentally as well as physically the Polynesians seemed to share several traits with people of European stock.  As regards to the famed attractiveness of the Polynesian women, it was almost entirely subjective.  The island women would naturally seem paragons of beauty by sailor on long voyages.

The relative leisure in which most of the women spent their lives, their distinct “feminine” natures, and their locally broad and independent views concerning the distribution of their favors, all had effect in creating an impression which had grown into a fetish.  Native ideas of sexual morality were by no means uniform.  The freedom observed at certain groups of islands was balanced by rigid ideas of chastity at others.  From Tahiti and the Marquesas, the tradition of beauty coupled with almost total lack of restriction seemed to have pervaded the world.  This view dated back to Quiros and was carried on by Cook and other travelers, as well as missionaries.  The whalemen who visited the Marquesas mainly to take part in debauchery, returned home filled with pious condemnation.  The depravity of young Marquesas women was due in part to the men of their family, who sought to obtain iron and other materials from the white men.  Stevenson regarded the misdeeds he recorded as a new development resulting from recent degeneration of the inhabitants.  It remained for modern ethnologists, working without mental bias among the sad remnant of the Marquesas, to demonstrate that the native customs could not justly be summed up and dismissed as mere depravity.  Marriage among the Marquesas was characterized by as much loyalty and affection as among any other primitive people, even though the wedding came after the couple became intimate.  The manner of life was eminently practical during the period of isolation.  With the coming of the white man, however, a Pandora’s box of predatory and destructive influence was opened, and the Marquesas were wiped out before they had received much encouragement to alter their ways.  Readers were recommended “The Native Culture in the Marquesas” by Dr. Handy.

In 1925, the inhabitants of the once populous Marquesas numbered about 1,800, including a handful of whites and many Chinese mixed-bloods.  [See: “A Vanishing People of the South Seas: The Tragic Fate of the Marquesan Cannibals, Noted for Their Warlike Courage and Physical Beauty,” October 1919, National Geographic Magazine.]  The story was characteristic, for, while the Samoans and certain other islanders had fared better, occasional pestilence still carried away large portions of the population.  From the days of discovery, the Polynesians had been subjected to every disintegrating evil.  The altruism of a few pioneering missionaries was unable permanently to stay them.  One of the most successful evangelical ventures in the South Seas was that of the early British mission at the Society Islands.  After the tumbling of the pagan regime, whole families, communities, and tribes at Tahiti and the neighboring islands suddenly expresses a desire to become Christian.  Within a matter of weeks, the old order toppled like a house of cards.  The temperament of the Polynesians seemed to be well adapted to acceptance of a literal. Primitive type of Christianity.  With profound changes still taking place [in 1925], further scientific investigation was needed.  That was the reason that the Bishop Museum of Honolulu and the American Museum of Natural History were engaged in intensive activity.  In 1920, the American Museum launched the Whitney South Seas Expedition.  The leader, Mr. Rollo H. Beck, after a reconnaissance of Tahiti and of several adjacent parts of Polynesia, purchased the auxiliary schooner France, a step which made the expedition independent of sailing schedules and trade routes.  The France had visited more than 100 islands of the Society, Marquesas, Tuamotu, Austral, Cook, Samoan, and Fiji groups.

Collection and study of the birds of the South Seas was the primary objectives, but many other animal and plant specimens were also obtained.  Photographs illustrating the environment, the animal life, and the appearance and customs of the human inhabitants, had been taken.  Some idea of the extraordinary industrial activity occasionally undertaken in even the most remote out-of-the-way islands might be gained from a description of a pearl-diving season.  The opening of that event in the French colonies came in July.  Since diving was not permitted during successive years at the same island, all gear was taken to a new island in annual rotation.  A coral atoll which normally supported 200 persons, became, during diving season, the abode of thousands.  The average native diver earned a good sum from the bottom of the lagoon, and much of it went to silk dresses for his wife and daughters, on the canned goods of the white man, and on movies.  The effects of such concentration upon the breeding birds and other forms of indigenous life were easy to imagine.  After the preliminary field work at Tahiti in 1920-21, Mr. Beck and his companions sailed northward to Christmas Island.  Then the France made the first of three visits to the romantic Marquesas.  Then far southward among the Austral Islands, and on to lonely Rapa, renowned for peerless sailors and interminable hospitality.  Next, eastward to isolated Pitcairn, where the descendants of the Bounty mutiny were found happy, law-abiding, and devout.  After reaching her easternmost goal at Ducie Island, the France turned again toward Tahiti by way of the Tuamotus, sending ashore her boats at every rock or palm-green strand.  While the author could not cover that expedition’s results in this brief article, he could draw upon the notes of Mr. Beck and his companions and compare them to those of the earlier pioneers.

Upon landing on Tahiti, the members of the expedition arranged with two native guides for a trip into the interior.  On the morning of October 11, the left Papeete by motor, a pleasant ten-mile ride along the western coast of the islands, to the mouth of the Punarruu River, where the guides joined them.  When the car reached the Punaruu River, the luggage was transferred into four sacks which were swung on poles bourn on the shoulders of the islanders, who led the way along the trail into the gorge.  At its mouth the canyon was half a mile wide but narrowed rapidly to 100 yards, with steep walls on either side.  They waded back and forth across the stream to the smoothest trail, and after three hours, turned out of the main gorge and picked their way along a rivulet.  Stopping at a shady pool, the head guide pointed up the left cliff to indicate the route.  A faint trail led skyward.  After lunch, they began the thousand-foot climb, finally surmounting the precipice near a group of coconut palms.  After a few minutes rest, they started forward through a gloomy forest, emerging at a grassy depression where a few golden plovers were resting about the border of a small pond.  A mile beyond the pond they halted beside a brook for the night.  The scarcity of birds during the first day was attributed to the rain which had fallen in frequent showers.  The next morning was bright and hot, so they decided to hunt for the day.  An occasional cooing dove or chittering kingfisher was heard but seldom seen in the tall trees.  Game seemed scarce, but while the naturalists were enjoying some oranges, their guide was attracting a wild pig with fallen fruit.  Mr. Beck added the unluck porker to the larder.  The guide built a fire covered it with lava stone and scraped the pig over it.  The skin slowly peeled away, and the cleaned carcass was taken back to camp.

The native was instructed to cook the animal in the ancestral Tahitian manner.  The meat was cut into convenient pieces and thoroughly washed in the brook.  Then it was placed on a thick layer of green leaves above a pile of rocks which had been heating for some time.  Another layer of leaves was laid over the meat, and the whole covered with stones.  When time came, the appetizing food was removed.  After the choicest parts had been eaten, the remainder was stuffed into three large bamboo segments.  Those were laid on the hot stones and again covered with leaves.  They were removed the next morning to furnish all with meat rations for three days.  The next camp, built against a great overhang and roofed with leaves, was not proof against the tropical downpours that night.  A sunny morning dried the moisture on the foliage, but the search for birds was again disappointing.  Two or three Tahitian crag-swallows flying back and forth in the shadows, a pair of noisy kingfishers, and companies of boisterous minas comprised the species seen.  The lack of native birds in so favorable environment was new in Mr. Beck’s experience.  Maybe it was due to cats, which had been on the island for a century.  The guides assured them that there were shearwater nests under the cliffs of the highest peaks, so the journey continued inland and upward.  The trail led past well laden orange and lemon trees.  The ground was thick with tracks of wild hogs.  Camp was made near the famous Diadem at 2,700 feet altitude.  The roof was shingled with the great leaves of the fei.  Few ripe clusters of those wild banana were seen, for the native carriers had recently visited the grove.  A two days’ hunt in nearly unscalable mountain country revealed only a few deserted burrows of the hoped-for ocean birds.

Leaving the camp near the Diadem, they hiked down a sharp ridge into a canyon which opened into the main watercourse from Mont Orohena.  Following the stream, they soon reached a waterfall.  The scrambled over the spur that descended between converging rivers.  Atop the spur was a vast square platform of hewn rock, formerly the scene of pagan rites.  A few more days of camping and hunting among the thick ferns and bamboo brakes and the party returned to the mouth of the Punaruu.  In January, 1921, Messrs. Beck and Quayle made the voyage to Christmas Island, north of the Equator, where, in sharp contrast with the Tahitian field work, they conducted their hunting in a Ford.  The France moored at the same spot where Captain Cook had first dropped anchor on Christmas day, 1777.  They rowed ashore the next morning.  The Ford had neither roof nor front windshield.  A short stretch of elevated coral rock near the copra workers’ settlement required paving with coconut fronds.  It proved good going for 20 or more miles.  For the first few miles, they wound through endless series of coconut groves.  At the approach of their machine, the land crabs would scurry.  In low bushes along the way, man-o-war birds were occupying loosely built nests.  Three or four of the red-pouched males were seen sitting together on a shrub.  Their distended throat sacs looked like toy balloons.  Male birds seemed to greatly outnumber the females.  At many of the islets in the great lagoon of Christmas Island, large breeding colonies of petrels, tropic birds, seen species of terns, and other rare water birds were found.  The only land bird of the island, a little gray warbler found nowhere else in the world was also collected.  The sooty terns of the island ranged regularly 150 miles out to sea from their nesting colonies.

At several members of the Marquesas Group and at the majority of the 51 islets of the Tuamotu Archipelago visited, the members of the expedition were the first naturalists to make zoological observations of any description.  The Gambier cluster of the Tuamotus, including Mangareva, had a population of 500.  Formerly it was inhabited by 1,900 natives.  Crumbling stone houses lined the shores of Mangareva.  The cathedral of the island was decorated about the alter with thousands of pearl shells, telling of a congregation that was no more.  Anaa, in the western part of the archipelago, had but a handful of people.  It had a population of 5,000 in 1839.  There was a motion-picture theater at the island of Takoume with nobody [in 1925] living within five miles of the building.  Of the Austral or Tubuai Group, far south of the Societies, the most fascinating island was Rapa, which lied detached from the others, well beyond the Tropic of Capricorn.  Rapa was discovered by Vancouver in 1791.  The natives began to be Christianized by Tahitian missionaries in 1825.  In later years, Rapa was a favorite port for whalers; the men of the island were peerless boatsmen.  With the decline in whaling, Rapa was again isolated.  It was visited only two or three times a year.  Twice during the expedition, weeks were spent at Rapa.  On the first visit, Mr. Beck tramped across the Taro field and through the coffee groves toward one of the ancient forts that topped the ridge of the island.  Climbing through ferns knee-deep, he soon reached the crest.  Four levels of the ridge had been protected by built-up rockwork.  At the highest point, a massive wall had been constructed as a last stronghold.  On a level terrace just below was a rainwater cistern.  Upon returning to the shore, Mr. Beck found the party enjoying the garden of the French Administrator.

While they were lingering in the garden, the native chief’s son arrived to lead the visiting guests to a Sunday feast.  The party was warned to eat lightly, for they would be expected to dine at several more homes.  They sat on mats and ate fish, pork, and taro root.  When the fish gave way to the pork, the serving maids brought in the poipoi, the Polynesian staff of life, a sticky dough, wrapped in broad green leaves.  While they were still eating, the son of the chief appeared again and told them to hurry, as dinner was awaiting them at his home.  They left the meal unfinished and went to the son’s home.  They walked into a similar repast.  Besides the fish, there was a lobster and two taro roots at each place.  Before proceeding to far into his lobster, the captain leaned back, and following his example, the guests first slackened their pace and then ceased.  They next passed along the lane to a small thatched cottage and again had a meal set up for them, this time with chicken replacing the pork.  They were reminded again to eat sparingly, as a hearty appetite should be reserved for the chief’s home, to be visited next.  When the party finally arrived at the chief’s home, his wife and girls greeted them in the open yard.  In that house lobster, chicken and pork were in readiness.  The taro had been increased to three big roots.  Besides the staples, the chief had supplied coconut milk in which to dip the meat and roots, a rare beverage in Rapa, since coconuts were shipped from more northerly islands.  The poipoi was served with molasses made from the roots of the rauti.  At the conclusion of what, fortunately, proved to be the last meal, bananas were passed around.  On another day, a few hardy native fishermen made a trip to the lobster beds at the entrance of Ahurei Bay, and brought back 100 lobsters for the visitors.

Practically every house in the village entertained one or more of schooner’s crew during the entire stay.  At the captain’s suggestion a case of kerosene was presented to the church, the light of which showed up brightly as vessels entered the harbor.  The inhabitants showed their appreciation for the gift on the day of departure by giving the crew many presents including: 5 sacks of taro, 18 packages of poipoi wrapped in rauti leaves, 19 boxes of taro and poipoi, 15 bunches of bananas, 22 rabbits, and 14 goats.  The girls and younger women at Rapi do most of the labor in the taro fields, while the older women attend to the housekeeping.  The exemption of men from agriculture labor allowed them more time fishing, and, because of their sea experience, they were much sought by captains of sailing vessels at Papeete.  The constant demand for Rapa men during a period of a century had led to a preponderance of women in the island population.  Upon the second visit of the expedition, when the France was four miles from shore, a boat came out to meet the schooner.  The men did not realize the schooner’s engine was aiding the sails and overshot by 100 yards.  The schooner progressed at six miles an hour, but the boat was rowed twice as fast and overtook her.  On another occasion, a Rapa crew rowed five miles to an islet on which certain seabirds were nesting.  The girls of Rapa were scarcely less skillful using their outrigger canoes.  From babyhood these people became familiar with the sea.  Children could be seen playing in the water or paddling tiny canoes alongshore. The whole population, save for a few lepers in another valley, was living near Ahurei Bay.  Five or six other valleys were now uninhabited.  Only the lofty, stone forts still stood as monuments to them on the hilltops and could be seen from far at sea.

 

 

The second item listed on the cover of this month’s issue is entitled “Iridescent Isles of the South Seas” and has no byline.  It is not an article but “Sixteen Pages of Illustrations in Full Color” headlining the cover.  The sixteen color plates, embedded within the first article, contain twelve full-page color photographs taken by Rollo H. Beck and four full-page color paintings drawn by Hashime Murayama.  They are numbered I through XVI in Roman numerals and represent pages 403 through 418 of the issue.

• “A Maiden of Rapa, Austral Islands”
• “A Sea-Beaten Glen of the Maquesas”
• “Taiohae Bay, Nukuhiva Island”
• “A Haven in Distant Rapa”
• “Les Isles Dangereuses”
• “Wash Day After a Long Voyage”
• “The “Giraffe of Vegetables”: Huapu, Marquesas”
• “Household Labor in Rimitara”
• “The Chief’s Home in Rapa”
• “Fruit Pigeons of the South Seas”
• “Beautiful Varieties of Fruit Pigeons”
• “Land and Sea Birds of Polynesia”
• “Brush-Tongued Parakeets”
• “A Garden of Eden in the Australs”
• “A Well on Kaukura Island”
• “Lads of Rapa”

 

 

The second article this month is entitled “Collarin’ Cape Cod” and was written by Lt. H. R. Thurber, U. S. N.   It has the internal subtitle: “Experiences on Board a Navy Destroyer in a Wild Winter Storm.”  The article contains forty-six black-and-white photographs, of which fourteen are full-page in size.  [Note: This is the first article I have seen with the names of ships redacted.]

On both sides of the dock at the Yard flurries of activity told that the other ships of Squadron Nine were getting ready to shove out into the stream.  Sharply at two the K * * *‘s whistle tooted, the icy lines were haul aboard, and they slid gracefully out into the stream.  Heeling down the river, they whipped up their wake and proceeded toward President Roads.  The bite of the cold wind drove those not needed to seek shelter below.  It was the authors position, as “make learn,” to stay on the bridge.  After observing the ease with which Page got the ship under way from the dock, the author sought the lee wing of the bridge, watching with keen interest the waterfront and shipping.  Looking back, two flags were hoisted at the Navy Yard – a red flag with a black center over a red pennant – a Southeast storm warning.  A few hundred yards ahead of them the squadron flagship, the S * * *, was showing her heels to the ships astern.  Close to their port quarter the foremast of the L * * *, came into view, then her bridge and four stacks were visible.  Soon, she went racing past to assume her position in the column.  Down toward President Roads, where the North and South channels forked out to seaward, was anchored a fleet of barges, low in the water, waiting settled weather and a tow through Cape Cod Canal.  The prolonged snowfall, lasting through the Christmas holidays, had whitened the muddy banks of the channel, covering the roofs and docks of warehouses along the river front.  Overhead the sky was leaden and the wind was tumbling clouds hurriedly out of the southeast.  The ship had picked up her speed and the raw air nipped their faces blue.  The captain glanced now and then at the chart by which he was conning the K * * 8 down harbor.  They were in position by that time, three ships between them and the flagship.

The Exec kept them smartly at their proper 300 yards’ distance astern of the L * * *; trailing them, well closed up, were their eleven other squadron mates.  In a short time, they were sliding past buoys close-anchored in the strong current of the North Channel.  As the course was changed eastward, they began to pitch lazily.  In the distance, the gray-green expanse of the open water was spread with whitecaps.  The bearings in the starboard turbine were running hot.  On orders, a signalman hoisted the call pennant for the squadron flagship.  The S * * * answered, and the semaphore flags began to snap their message.  The starboard engine was inspected and found that repairs were needed.  The port engine was stopped and the port anchor was dropped.  It was then 3:30. Left as Officer-of-the-Deck, the author busied himself looking over charts laid out for the voyage to Norfolk, glancing occasionally around the horizon.  The sea began to “kick up” a little and the K * * * rose and fell gently.  The wind was growing stronger, bringing a fine sifting of snow.  By four bells, a driving snowstorm had set in around them.  Only once during his watch did the author stop pacing.  That was when the C * * *, the last of the squadron to complete repairs at the Yard, roared past.  It was not until 8:15 that repairs were completed.  The skipper received a radio from the Squadron Commander to prepare for heavy weather.  At 8:30, the K * * *’s anchor was weighed and they were underway, heading southeast toward Boston Light Vessel.  The author remained on the bridge after being relieved.  Twenty minutes passed; the captain slowed speed.  It was nearly impossible to see the light ship through the heavy snow.  The author watched the Exec. As he laid the course on the chart for Peaked Hill Bar gas and whistling buoy.

The author was ordered to go down and turn in.  He started down the ladder and had reached the bottom tread when the K * * *, lifted high by a long, green wave, dropped into the trough following it and left him hanging by his hands to the ladder rail.  Then the bow was tossed up, his feet hit the steel deck, and the jar shocked him to the topmost hairs.  The bow nosed under the next comber; the author was caught by the sea which poured aft through a doorway to the forecastle, the water-tight door having been carelessly left open.  It took all his strength to hold on, as the sea slid over the side, leaving him soaked.  Sleep was not easy, as the author found after reaching his stateroom.  He stripped off his wet clothes, dried with a towel, put on woolen pajamas, and crawled into his bunk.  The rising and dropping of the ship made sleep impossible.  It was sickening.  During the night, he damned the steward more than once for serving a dinner of greasy pork chops and creamed asparagus.  It was hours before he found a posture for reclining, and in that attitude, he drifted off to weary, uneasy slumber.  It seemed as if he had not slept more than a few minutes before rude hands were shaking him.  Dressing was a slow process, for it was necessary to grip something stable with one hand and brace hard with at least one leg to keep from sliding and hitting the furniture.  By eight bells he was on the bridge.  It was dark and he could barely see.  As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he made out the wing railing of the bridge and gained it.  Long curlers, with 30-foot depth of trough, went whistling past.  At one moment the K * * * was in the trough, and the next was tossed high on a combing mass of seething sea.  Then she was sliding rapidly into the next valley, and the shock, as she crashed into the mass of water that followed.

Shielding his eyes from the spray, the author tried in vain to see ahead.  A heavy form pressed against him; it was Page.  They pushed their heads and shoulders up through the canvas flap of the enclosed chart board.  They were heading of Nantucket Shoals – course, 145 true, 162 per compass.  The author relieved the watch.  He turned out the light over the chart and braced himself, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.  Seas were breaking regularly over the forecastle.  Spray flew aft in stinging sheets, and the salt froze on the author’s face.  On the bridge, the helmsman and quartermaster were able to stand their watch; the messenger and two lookouts were dizzily holding on, too sick to be of use.  The night lightened slowly to a leaden, freezing dawn.  The author looked out over the gray expanse of water.  At 8, as Atkins came up to relieve the author, the K ** * drove into a hurtling, massive sea.  The long hull quivered and trembled.  A cross-sea caught the bow.  Under the impact, it seemed that the bridge was rolling under the authors feet.  From below deck, there was a crash of broken crockery and a sliding shock of some heavy weight cast loose.  Slowly, the ship stopped her roll, and then whipped back to vertical.  To opposite roll was not as great, and the author fought his way to the wheel.  The ship’s heading had been thrown forty degrees to the right of the course, and the K * * * was rolling heavily, with her beam now to sea.  In a quick leap, the author reached the annunciators and rang up one-third speed, and directed the helmsman to put on full left rudder.  The author went to inform the captain but he was not in the emergency captain.  The author sent the scared and seasick messenger to tell him, then turned the watch over to Atkins.

The heavy weight he had heard below was the safe which had broken away from its lashings.  Anxiously, the author hurried below.  To have that ton-and-a-half juggernaut sliding and crashing was threatening, serious.  In the passageway to the wardroom a big form crowded past him.  It was Page.  On his arm was a coil of heavy line.  As he stepped into the doorway, the ship rolled heavily; a warning yell rang out; and Page disappeared.  A groan, a splintering of wood, glass, and metal, and then a rush of men.  The author gained the doorway and saw the men straining at the safe, hauling it away from the metal sideboard into which it had crashed.  Struggling and gasping, the men lashed it between the stanchions in the middle of the wardroom.  The author jumped in to help and found the captain and Page shoulder to shoulder with him.  The line which Page had brought with him soon enclosed the safe, the mass of broken chairs, the twisted metal dining table, and the splintered victrola cabinet.  The safe had nearly gone through the starboard transom.  The author gazed at the buckled and splintered transom and shuddered.  The men completed their work.  The author wandered to his stateroom.  Tugging and pulling at his wet clothing, he finally threw himself upon his bunk, drifting off to exhausted slumber.  When the author awoke it was almost 1 o’clock.  He decided to get on deck, fill up with air, and pay a visit to the galley.  The sea and wind were from almost dead astern, picking them up and lifting them along viciously.  At times the seas romped up and swarming over the after decks.  After reinforcements of a hot beef sandwich and a cup of “Java,” the author clambered up to the bridge.  Johnston was o watch and greeted him with a feeble wave.  The author returned the salute.

The captain, bending over the chart desk, looked up and proposed something to Page.  The latter agreed and the captain stepped out of the cabin.  They changed course to west.  That brought the sea to their bow.  By dusk they hoped to see Nantucket Shoals Lightship.  As the K * * * headed west, the author stepped aft and into the emergency cabin.  As we approached their new course, the K * * *’s laboring increased.  By the time they were west by compass, they were alternately lifted high and rolled over by each crest, and then dropped like a pile driver into the following canyon.  When they struck, the hull quivered and strained to rise under the weight of water which flooded the forecastle.  On the third crash, their radio aerials snapped and fell to the upper decks.  The author stepped out on the bridge and saw the radioman who had been on watch strip away the broken spreaders and twisted antennae.  It was snowing again, and over toward the west, the sky was black.  A rumble of thunder was heard, and off to the southwest, a thin fork of lightning shot down the horizon.  The author sought his bunk for a possible nap before his four-to-eight watch.  When he came up on the bridge at eight bells, the snowstorm was being driven by a vigorous northwest wind.  The captain was on the bridge.  They had not seen a thing of Nantucket, so they started taking soundings every half hour starting at 5:00, in case they did not see the lightship.  They were walled in almost completely, careening under the intensified rush of the sea.  By two bells it was dark.  Nothing had been sighted, so the author sent for Stearn.  Soundings began to come up regularly.  The light in the emergency cabin was suddenly switched on.  The Exec. Was bracing himself and checking over the soundings.

Page laid down the soundings, distance made good, and course steered, on a strip of transparent paper and slide it over the chart.  At last, he found chart soundings that corresponded with those taken.  It put them 15 miles south of Nantucket Shoals Lightship.  They should be off Cape Henry in 24 hours if they steered 236 true at 15 knots.  The captain was called, checked the chart, and ordered the changes in course and speed.  Then he went below again to his cabin.  They were buffeted by seas which, because of their increased speed, seemed to rush at them with anger.  It was not until dawn of their third day slowly unveiled the sky that the gale had lightened its intensity.  The author was on deck again with the four-to-eight watch.  It had stopped snowing before daylight, but the skies were heavily overcast and the seas were rolling high, even to the horizon.  Even though the wind was relaxing its vigor, the sea was still relentlessly rushing at them, but from a different direction, having hauled back around to nearly astern, pushing them along.  The air was penetrating to the marrow.  It continued in that way throughout the daylight hours.  About noon, they spotted an eastbound tramp to the south, her cumbersome bulk tossing back walls of foaming white.  As dusk began to settle in, the author came up to relieve Johnston.  They were taking soundings every half hour; they were getting in touch with the bottom again.  The captain was inside the emergency cabin plotting the last batch of soundings.  The author braced himself against the compass and tried to see ahead.  The K * * * was slashing and swishing along doggedly.  When the 7 o’clock sounding taken showed 56 fathoms, gray sand, the author hurried to the emergency cabin.  Page was plotting the sounding.  The captain was sitting on the transom watching the results.

As soon as Atkins had relieved him at eight bells, the author wrote his log for the watch and then went into the emergency cabin.  They had not seen any lights, and were unsure of their exact location.  The captain thought they were an hour behind and ordered a doubling of the lookouts.  The author volunteered to go aloft, and was handed a pair of binoculars.  He started his ascent; the steel ladder rungs were glazed with ice.  The rungs were treacherous to grip; it was all he could do to hang on.  He wrapped his arms around the uprights and braced his legs as he went up slowly, step by step.  As he went higher, the swaying of the ship caused him to look down.  Thirty feet below he could see the light from the emergency cabin.  Climbing on, his arms chilling and stiffening, the author pushed head and shoulders through the trapdoor in the crow’s nest and in another moment was inside.  Closing the door underfoot, he began searching with his naked eyes all around were he imagined the horizon should be.  He could not see the dividing line between the sea and the heavens.  The weaving of the mast annoyed him when the ship pitched and lurched.  He could see nothing for a time.  He was chilled almost to tears.  He looked over the edge to see the ship’s lights beneath.  As he looked up again, a tiny light flashed somewhere, close on the starboard bow.  He focused his eyes on the exact bearing.  It came back, but was lost in the fog-like haze.  The author alerted the captain through the voice tube.  A query shot back, “A flashing light?”  That was all he heard.  He tried repeatedly but got no reply.  If that light were Cape Henry, they were headed for the shoals of Virginia Beach!  He looked again for the light and located it; it seemed nearer, brighter.  Two short flashes and then a long flash – Cape Henry!

The author tore open the trapdoor and, half sliding, half falling, started down the slippery descent.  As he reached the masthead light, clouds of white smoke began rolling from the fireroom stack.  The acrid fumes gagged and blinded him, but he reached the flying bridge.  Down on the bridge, all was in darkness; men were scrambling around – they had lost oil suction in the fireroom.  The oil barge must have had some water in the lot she gave them.  The author slid down to the bridge and, in the darkness, found the captain.  The author pointed; the Cape Henry Light was plainly visible.  The captain immediately ordered anchor.  The author struck out for the bridge ladder, spilling over two of the scared watch.  He called for Reilly, and the two of them went to the anchor.  As the K * * * rolled and staggered, they cast off the lashings, drove out the stopper, released the compressor, and the starboard anchor jumped off the billboard, the chain rattling as it ran.  As the chain took the strain, the ship hauled around, headed to sea, pulling and heaving mightily on the thin links of steel.  Treacherously, the anchor slipped, caught for a few seconds, only to yank clear by the surging strain of the ship.  The author secured the chain and returned to the bridge.  The engineer stated that the engines would be ready in about ten minutes.  They were to the beach. The captain ordered all men on deck, to close all watertight doors, and to drop the other anchor.  The author reached the forecastle, Reilly faithfully at his heels.    In a trice, the port anchor was over, and the strain was taken off the dragging starboard anchor.  The port anchor seemed to grip and hold at the 30-fathom mark.  The ship swung off on its new lead of anchor chain, and the author eased the port chain slowly out of the hawsepipe.

Desperately, they clung on, as the bow was pitched high then crashed down.  As the strain took on both chains, the forecastle dug into the huge waves, carrying them under.  The tearing force of the green water wrenched and twisted their arms.  After what seemed like an eternity, they again drew in free air.  They dashed aft, holding grimly to the lee lifeline.  Abaft the break of the forecastle, they stopped for breath.  Farther aft, the men not on watch were standing ready in life jackets around the big life rafts.  On the fantail, Stearn was manually taking a sounding.  The results were transmitted to the bridge by voice tube.  Down in the steaming fireroom, men were fighting to get the life-giving oil to the boilers.  Johnston hammered the gratings with a monkey wrench.  He ordered all burners and all tanks cut in.  A roar of flame rushed through the burners of both boiler furnaces.  Oil was coming – oil mixed with water – for the roar was punctuated with fizzes, and the white smoke from the mixture backed out from the boilers, gagging and choking the men frantically trying to manipulate the burners.  Suddenly, amid that melee, the ship shook from end to end, straining at every rivet, quivering under a terrific shock.  The men kept working.  The oil sputtered and fizzed, but the fires swept under and over the boiler tubes.  Steam gauges began rushing up.  Forced draft blowers commenced humming.  As the steam gauges registered 150 pounds, the engine rooms cut in on the generators and the ship was once more aglow with light.  On the bridge the shock had turned their faces white under the cover of darkness.  The author had returned there, feeling a strange sense of unreality.  Suddenly, the boilers were torching red flames high above the top of the stacks – that due to the sudden heat applied to the accumulated oil in the bottom of the furnace.

A moment later, the ship was shaken from stem to stern, as the boilers started “panting.”  Stearn clambered up the ladder and reported that they were dragging again and the last sounding was eight fathoms.  They were near the bottom.  All at once, the lights came on.  The captain decided to drag the anchors, under power, until they were in deeper water.  He sent the author to see that the anchor chains were secured as tightly as they could be.  The author was on the forecastle in a moment.  Reilly was with him.  As they started to put double stoppers on the chain, Reilly reported that the port chain was gone.  She had snapped her links at the 45-fathom shot.  That what the big crash was!  The chain surged and cracked under the strain, and when she went, the whole ship jarred like she had hit the bottom.  The author reported all was secure.  As the ship forged ahead the starboard chain taunted, then surged.  Slowly, the ship dragged out to deeper water, where the lone remaining anchor was weighed and catted, and they picked their way carefully on past Buoy 2CB, and shortly after four bells the Tail of the Shoe Buoy.  Inside the Capes the haze was lighter.  The anchor lights of their squadron and those of Squadron Fourteen danced dimly over Lynnhaven Roads.  It was but a matter of minutes before they were threading their way among their mates, signaling the flagship for instructions.  They were told to anchor 300 yards bearing 90 degrees from the S * * *.  The fleet was to sail at 0200 tomorrow for Guantanamo.  The captain was ordered to report to the flagship immediately.  Three hours and they, worn and somewhat crippled after a 600-mile battle, were to sail to Cuba.  They did all they could to prep the ship.  The captain called a conference of officers on the bridge; then went below to shift into a clean uniform for his call on the Squadron Commander.

At 2 they were under way.  A handful of men and officers moved the K * * * into her position in column, and, with their bodies aching and eyes stained, they slipped along out the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay.  Ships were proceeding out of harbor in a night sortie.  Ahead of them somewhere, minesweepers had cleared a narrow channel for their exit.  Destroyers of Squadrons Nine and Fourteen followed out astern of submarines, and were followed by battleships and supply ships of the Scouting Fleet.  Once outside the Capes, their division separated, taking up an assigned position in scouting line ahead of the main body of battleships and ships of the train.  By 4 o’clock, when the author stumbled below, the K * * * was steaming south at 15 knots on the rim of a huge circle, in advance of the fleet main body, which formed the center.  The author was awakened before noon.  The weather was warmed and the sea was getting flat as glass.  The were approaching Hatteras, which had a reputation of being the Stormy Cape.  When the author went up to the bridge, Johnston greeted him.  The engineer looked exhausted but smiling; he had gotten all the repairs done before sailing.  After taking over the watch, the author looked out across the waters.  The crow’s nest of the S * * * was barely visible through binoculars slightly abaft the port beam.  That of the L * * *, as well as the tops of her stacks, he could see on the starboard beam without the aid of his glasses.  Nothing else was visible from the ship but for the sea and sky.  Astern of them some 12 miles were the battleships.  They were dead ahead of the fleet, on their part of the surrounding circular screen.  Page started to go down the bridge ladder, but stopped when he saw a messenger running up with a radio blank in his hand.

They were ordered to assemble on the Squadron Commander for a drill, a smoke-screen attack on the battleships.  In a moment after the captain’s arrival on the bridge they had increased speed and changed course to intercept the S * * *.  There was an air of eager anticipation evident, not only on the bridge, but also about the decks.  It was not long before the squadron was formed.  The ships farthest away had lit extra boilers, and now came up with roaring blowers.  A flag hoist from the S * * *, and the ships slid like well-drilled troops into a boxlike formation, with one side open.  Circling and maintaining the same relative position, the squadron changed course and sped at 20 knots toward the approaching battleships.  Gongs for general quarters began sounding throughout the squadron.  Desks were alive with men donning gas masks.  Guns and torpedo tubes were manned; engine rooms and firerooms were being manned to battle complement.  Signal flags raced to the yardarm of the flagship.  As the order was executed for the van divisions to make smoke screen, heavy, black billows began rolling from the stacks of their two van divisions nearest the path of the approaching battleships.  They were engulfed in the smoke of the ships ahead of them.  The gas masks they wore for protection against aerial gas attack afforded them relief from the gagging smoke clouds.  A messenger dashed past the author.  The radio signal to execute the torpedo attack had come!  The captain motioned the quartermaster at the wheel to give hard left rudder, and himself rang up full speed ahead to the engine rooms.  In a second, they were clear of the smoke screen with their mates of the attack division, dashing in column and baring their teeth to the line of battleships, there on their starboard bow, distance 8,000 yards.

Their leader dipped a signal flag.  Instantly the division “fired” its broadside.  As airplanes from the fleet swooped at them, the division turned sharply around.  The leader’s flag again dipped, their other broadside was “fired,” and they darted back into the smoke screen.  The Fleet Commander radioed cease present exercise, and, as the squadron ceased smoke and assembled on the S * * *, a “Squadron Nine, Well Done,” was seen flying at the yardarm of the fleet flagship.  “Well done” had been passed down on deck by the captain, and as the ship “secured” from general quarters, a lighter spirit was evident.  All of them on the bridge were feeling the wholesome effects of that signal.  The captain, actually grinning, stopped in front of them.  “Well, boys, after collerin’ Cape Cod, I didn’t feel as though we had done well.  But,” and he looked behind at the vanishing flagship of the fleet, “we’ll make a good ship of her yet!”

 

At the bottom of the last page of the second article in this issue (Page 472) there is a notice regarding change of address.  If a member wanted the magazine to be mailed somewhere else, the Society needed a month’s notice in advance, starting on the first of the month.  If a member wanted the December issue redirected, the Society needed to know by November first.

 

The third and final article in this month’s issue is entitled “MacMillan in the Field” and has no byline.  This editorial contains three black-and-white photographs, one of which is full-page in size.  It has an italicized introductory paragraph stating that Commander Donald B. MacMillan was preparing his complete report of the MacMillan Arctic Expedition.  It will appear in an upcoming issue of the National Geographic Magazine and will be illustrated with photographs taken by The Society’s staff photographers who were members of the Expedition.  With that article, a large new map of the Arctic Regions, in six colors, will be issued as a special supplement.

The safe return of the MacMillan Arctic Expedition would be the source of gratification to every member of the National Geographic Society who had followed the day-by-day news, received by radio, of the work of exploration and scientific research which had been carried on during the summer under the auspices of The Society.  The achievements of the U. S. Navy flyers in the face of seemingly insuperable obstacles was, in itself, an epic of Arctic Aviation.  Lt. Cmd. Byrd, at the request of The Society, had given a bare outline of the work which he and the members of his command in the air had accomplished, but behind each sentence of that matter-of-fact account lied a story of initiative, skill, and daring worthy of the best traditions of the service to which they belonged.  An unprecedentedly severe season on this side of the Pole, with almost continuous fogs and snowstorms, and with an unexpected assault by icebergs on the anchored amphibian planes in the ordinarily safe harbor of Etah, had prevented the fulfillment of the expedition’s plan to establish bases on the edge of the Polar Sea, from which the great “blind spot” on the map, aggregating an area of some million square miles, might be explored.  Much had been accomplished for science, however, and it was believed that the knowledge and experienced gained by the Navy airmen would fortify the succeeding expeditions with data which would result in the eventual elimination from all maps the word “unexplored” which disfigured that large region lying between Alaska and the North Pole.  Commander Byrd’s statement was transmitted by radio to The Society.  His records showed that the planes had a total of 75 hours, 50 minutes flying time; total miles flown were 5,286 – 2,506 by NA-1, 1,073 by NA-2, and 1,713 by NA-3.

Only one forced landing occurred – NA-3 at about half mile from Etah harbor.  Approximately 30,000 square miles were seen from the planes on those flights.  There were mountain ranges and peaks, some 7,500 feet high, not shown on any chary Byrd had seen.  There was a frozen lake about two miles long between Sawyer Bay and Cannon Fjord.  The Greenland ice-cap reached at least 10,000 feet altitude in a direction 100 degrees from Robertson Bay.  All the fjords of Ellesmere Island were filled with ice in the summer period.  Bay Fjord and Eureka Sound east of Axel Heilberg Island were filled with drifting ice.  Ellesmere Island was too rugged to afford a landing.  In all territory flown over Greenland, a stratum of warm air was found at 7,000 feet, and a bitter cold one at 11,000 feet.  While the Navy flyers were making airplane history in the Arctic, other members of the expedition were taking a series of remarkable photographs, the tints and hues of the Frozen North – north Greenland’s surprising flower vales, the bizarre costumes of the Eskimos, the animal, bird, and plant life rarely seen.  Dr. Walter N. Koelz, chief naturalist of the expedition, had collected data on fish life of the north and winged snails in the waters at Etah harbor.  He obtained juvenile plumage from birds that wintered in the South, but bred within the Arctic Circle, and were consequently little known.  Specimens of birds poorly represented in U. S. museums, such as the Greenland Redpoll and the Purple Sandpiper, had been collected.  Commander MacMillan, an authority on early Norse history, had pursued his studies of Norse ruins in Greenland.  A unique feature of the MacMillan Arctic Expedition was the daily contact maintained with civilization by means of short-wave radio, and the cooperation throughout the U. S. of some 1,200 amateur radio operators.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, those radio amateurs, who accepted no pay for their services, had worked long hours in the night receiving messages of many thousand words, addressed to the National Geographic Society and the Navy Department, and given by them to the newspapers and press associations.  Thus, news of the expedition was published daily.  The wavelengths used by the radio equipment ranged from 16 to 40 meters.  Those were advantageous because they can be used in the daytime, and the expedition was working under 24 hours of daylight, also because it did not require extremely high power for their sending.  So successful was the radio communications that the expedition was not out of touch with the National Geographic Society or the Navy Department for a single day during the entire summer.  Messages were picked up all over the U. S., also in England, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.  Not until the complete report of Commander MacMillan is given to The Society for publication in the National Geographic Magazine, along with the pictures from the air and color photographs of the Far North, would the full results of the expedition be known.  Preliminary reports, however, from the various members of the party showed tangible results in the fields of topography, meteorology, zoology, ornithology, and ichthyology which fully justified the labor, the hardships, and the sacrifices entailed.  Above all, every member of the National Geographic Society rejoiced in the safe return of every member of the expedition.

 

 

Tom Wilson