"Racing with Death in Antarctic Blizzards": illustrated narative by Sir Douglas Mawson

              RACING WITH DEATH IN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARDS

ILLUSTRATED NARRATIVE By SIR DOUGLAS MAWSON, K. B., D. Sc., B. E. MARVELOUS STILL AND MOTION PICTURES Story told by Dr. W. A. HUNSBERGER


Figure
Dr. X. MERTZ

One of Sir Douglas Mawson's comrades on the sledge journey, who lost his life from exposure and exhaustion.



Figure
SIR DOUGLAS MAWSON

The Leader of the Expedition and the sole survivor of the tragic sledging journey



Figure
LIEUT. B. E. S. NINNIS, ROYAL FUSILIERS

Sir Douglas Mawson's other comrade lost by falling into a Crevasse with his sledge and dogs.



Dr. Hunsberger tells the story of Sir Douglas Mawson's thrilling experience in the Antarctic regions, in the course of which both his companions lost their lives, and he himself, after perhaps the most terrific perils out of which any adventurer ever escaped alive, was just able to reach safety.  The story is illustrated with wonderful motion pictures of the greatest spectacle ever produced.




1,000,000 Penguin Actors—All Comedians—All Stars—appear on the screen simultaneously.  Pictures that will startle and amuse the World.




Exclusive Management of LEE KEEDICK, 437 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK CITY






Sir Ernest H. Shackleton, the Famous Explorer says:


I consider Mawson's pictures the best ever taken.




The Washington, D. C. Post, April 2, 1915:


The most thrilling and most unusual fact pictures ever thrown on the screen in Washington were shown at the Belasco Theatre yesterday afternoon when Sir Douglas Mawson supplemented his remarkable photographic record of his Antarctic explorations with a vivid lecture.



Not even the Scott pictures, the Rainey African hunt pictures or the Williamson submarine pictures can equal these astonishing photographic representations of marine and animal life and hardships endured by the intrepid explorers of the frozen South




From the standpoint of photographic art alone these pictures are unsurpassed.






Comments of the New York Newspapers



New York World
 Jan. 18, 1915.



If Capt. Scott had escaped death in the Antarctic blizzards and had come to New York to tell the story of his expedition and of the heroic death of his companions, his tale would have been comparable with that unfolded by Sir Douglas Mawson, chief of the Aurora expedition, to 1,000 people who braved the weather and went to Aeolian Hall to hear him last night.



But Sir Douglas Mawson's story, wonderful and thrilling as it was, was only half the tale of the evening, for he brought with him by all odds the most remarkable series of photographs and moving pictures of the Antarctic Continent, the animal life there, and the struggles and triumphs of himself and his men in the blizzards of the Antarctic ice.




Sir Douglas, who was knighted by King George in recognition of his achievements on this very expedition, was presented by Henry Fairfield Osborn, President of the American Museum of Natural History.




The pictures showing the weather encountered on the way, the landing on the desolate, lofty rocks of Macquarie Island and the flight of the ship through the pack ice, all taken by the expedition photographer, Frank Hurley, were applauded vigorously and deservedly.




The start of the expedition was illustrated by the most remarkable of the pictures, taken in the midst of the driving blizzards which prevail, even in summer, two days in three, and blow with such violence that at the camp, over a long stretch of time, the average wind velocity twenty-four hours in a day was fifty miles an hour, and on the high plateau fifty-eight miles an hour.





New York Press
 Jan. 18, 1915.



The story of his perilous journey over ice deserts in the Antarctic, the tragic death of his two companions and his own narrow escapes were told last night by Sir Douglas Mawson, explorer and scientist, in a lecture in Aeolian Hall.


Mawson's lecture was illustrated with remarkable motion and still pictures, many of them showing Antarctic animal life of which other explorers were not aware.  Struggles against wind and drifts, tedious climbs up hills of jagged ice and perilous journeys over plateaux filled with crevasses were depicted in the pictures.




The most vivid part of the explorer's talk was the description of his fall into a crevasse, in which one of his two companions had been killed.  A rope tied around his waist and attached to a dog sledge saved Mawson.  The rope caught on a jagged edge of ice, and up this rope, which was weighted on one end by the sledge, Mawson climbed to safety.




Another thrilling incident in the explorer's story was the death of his second companion, who sickened of dog meat and died of starvation.  With the clothing of his dead comrade converted into sails for his dogless sledge, Mawson told how he started back over a hundred-mile desert of ice to the nearest station.





New York Sun
 Jan. 18, 1915.



Sir Douglas Mawson, famous Antarctic explorer and leader of the Autralasian Antarctic expedition of 1911–14, gave a vivid description of his thrilling experiences last night at Aeolian Hall.  The lecture was under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History and the National Geographic Society and in the large audience were a number of prominent men.  The talk was illustrated with motion pictures of the life and adventures of the explorer during the Antarctic expedition.  They are considered to be the most accurate ever taken in the polar regions.



The explorer's statement as to the tameness of the birds and animals in the South Polar regions was borne out by the remarkable pictures he displayed.  The moving pictures of the thousands of penguins waddling along in an unconcerned manner greatly amused the audience.  Another picture of the birds surf bathing in droves was not unlike a scene on any warm summer afternoon at Coney Island.  Seals, sea lions, sea elephants, petrels, cormorants and other polar animals frolicking about in the snow and ice were also caught by the movie camera.





New York Herald
 Jan. 18, 1915.


Tales of daring and danger illustrated by photographs and moving pictures of the rarest kind and variety held a arge audience spellbound in Aeolian Hall last night when Sir Douglas Mawson lectured on 
Racing with Death in Antarctic Blizzards.
  The story of a mapping expedition, in which his two companions lost their lives was most graphically told, and a motion picture showing the men when they started behind their dog teams on the fatal trip added a touch to the story that was most gripping.


The pictures of the sea elephants, seals, penguins and rare specimens of birds and sea flora and fauna brought forth round after round of applause.




The penguin pictures were unusually amusing.  The quaint little amphibians were shown bathing in the surf by the thousands, the shore, except for the snow, reminding one of Atlantic City or Coney Island on a hot day.  Another interesting picture showed a bluff almost 1,000 feet high.





Morning Telegraph
 January 24, 1915.



What are perhaps the most remarkable pictures of the regions of eternal ice and snow which cap the poles were shown by Sir Douglas Mawson at Aeolian Hall last Sunday night.



Had Scott himself escaped death in the Far South and come back to tell his story he could hardly have related a more exciting tale.  But Dr. Mawson's lecture, interest-holding as it was, did not half relate the tale of the terrible hardships to which the members of the expedition were exposed.  The films which the explorer brought from the Antarctic portrayed their adventures as only good pictures can.



The first of the pictures thrown upon the canvas showed the departure of the expedition from Hobart, Tasmania, in 1911.  There followed some of the most exceptional sea scapes that have ever been filmed.  Tossed about on the crests of combers mountain high and driven before the hurricanes of the Antarctic Ocean, the ship finally struck the pack-ice and plowed her way south to Macquarie Island, a dot of land 600 miles from Australia.  Here the party disembarked and established a permanent advance base, erecting a hut and a wireless station, all of which was most realistically pictured.



Despite adverse weather conditions, however, Hurley's pictures of the country, the animal life, and even of the blizzards themselves, are exceptionally clear bits of photography.





Figure

ANIMAL LIFE IN ANTARCTICA




Following the recital of his fight for life, Sir Douglas showed his longest run of pictures.  These dealt chiefly with the animal life of the Antarctic, and proved perhaps the individual hit of the evening.




If anybody doubts the ability of the penguins and the baby sea-elephants to act before the camera, that person should see Dr. Mawson's pictures.  There are few things funnier and more appealing than the antics of these creatures.  The infant sea-elephants particularly are natural and unconscious comedians.  Like the penguins they are very tame, and the unaccustomed sight of a human being seems to fill them with a certain fearful awe and curiosity.




When awakened from a comfortable sleep on a bed of ice or a couch of rock by the insistent prodding of one of the genus homo, the subject at first merely waves his flipper—under the impression, perhaps that the annoyer is only one of his mates.  If the tickling process is continued the baby sea-elephant rolls over on his, back, supported by one flipper, while with the other he clumsily rubs his face with a circular motion.  Having cleared his eyes of any cobwebs which may have been there, the infant prodigy then takes stock of his surroundings, his large, carplike gaze finally coming to rest on his tormentor, or mayhap on the person of the cameraman.




At this particular moment he looks like nothing so much as the Mock Turtle immortalized by Lewis Carroll.  Large, slow tears roll down his baby face, and he again passes his flipper across his eyes.  Surprise is one of the least of the expressions which is now dawning on his rugged countenance.  His face seems to express a sort of combination of emotions which might best be described by the joint phrases:  
Oh, look who's here,
 and 
Why was I born.
  Then the youngster, finding tears and an inquisitive look of no avail in solving the problem of this being's identity, gives the whole matter up as a question which is beyond his power, and goes back to sleep.




No less interesting, though possibly less human, are the penguins.  These birds, particularly the Royal and Emperor Penguins, present a most distinguished appearance.  Their feathers are black behind with a white shirt-front effect before, giving them the appearance of having just dressed for dinner.  the pictures of these creatures, which show them leaping high out of the water onto a cake of ice, and then toddling off toward their rookeries, which show them eating, and fighting, and making love, give a realistic idea of the life and manners of the penguin.  One picture, by the way, gives the impression that not all of them lead a sober and proper existence.  The view in question shows three of them just after they had been caught out in a big blizard.  Their black and white clothes are badly awry, their whole appearance wholly disheveled, and if they had realized the impression that they were going to give, they would hardly have posed before the camera at that particular moment.




Sir Douglas' pictures also show some scenes taken at the only petrel rookery ever discovered in the Antarctic, besides views of various kinds of sea-leopards, sea-lions, etc., and the austerely beautiful scenery of the ice-bound land.





New York American Magazine
 Jan. 31, 1915



The most wonderful photographs ever taken of the Antarctic regions have just been brought to this country by Sir Douglas Mawson, the noted Australian explorer.  They were taken during the Australasian Antarctic expedition, which he organized and led from 1911 to 1914.


He is now in this country on an extensive lecture tour, in which he relates the thrilling story of his experiences and shows the photographs which his party secured.





Brooklyn Eagle
 January 30, 1915.


Accompanied by a series of remarkable still and motion pictures Sir Douglas Mawson companion of Shackleton and leader of the Australiasian Antarctic expedition last evening delivered his lecture 
Racing with Death in Antarctic Blizzards
.


At the close of the lecture, the audience expressed the hope that Sir Douglas will lecture here again before he leaves the country.




The most daring work ever accomplished.



While the discovery of the two terrestrial poles appeals to the romantic sense as the most thrilling episodes in the history of exploration, the exploration of a part of the Antarctic Continent in a region where hurricanes are almost constant and where blizzards of violence unknown in other parts of the world are of almost daily occurrence at certain seasons of the year must stand as the most daring work of its kind ever accomplished.




Sir Douglas Mawson, headed the Australiasian Antarctic expedition which from 1911 to 1914 worked in that quadrant of Antarctica which lies under Australisia.




The story of the expedition is one of the most wonderful ever related.  Imagine working day after day in the land of ice, where there was no cessation of the violent gales from March to November; where the wind averaged in velocity 50 or 60 miles an hour, but where there were frequent maximums of 116 miles an hour; where strongly-built structures were thrown down by the force of the winds, and even weights of as great as 300 pounds were taken up and tossed by the hurricanes as though they were pasteboard boxes.—Philadelphia Ledger.




Dr. Cyrus C. Adams,
 Editor of the 
Bulletin of the American Geographical Society
 says:




Sir Douglas Mawson's lecture is a very great success.  It is intended for a popular audience and is a popular exposition of scientific work.  His moving pictures are wonderful.  Geographers will hail such moving pictures as Mawson shows as a revelation of the possibilities of using such views in geographical education.






MAWSON'S STORY OF HIS ESCAPE FROM DEATH



Cables The Times of Terrible March in Which His Two Companions Perished.




TRAGIC FATE OF NINNIS




Vanished with His Dog Team and Food Supplies in an Unfathomable Abyss.




MERTZ DIED OF EXHAUSTION




Struggling On, with Skin, Hair, and Nails Dropping Off, Mawson Stumbled on Food Cache.




EXPEDITION A BIG SUCCESS




New Lands and Islands Rich in Coal and Copper Discovered and Explored.




ODD SEA CREATURES CAUGHT




The Continental Shelf Indicated by Soundings Through 55 Degrees of Longitude.




By Dr. DOUGLAS MAWSON. Copyright, 1914, by The New York Times Company
Special Cable to The New York Times


ADELAIDE, Australia, Feb. 26.—The Antarctic Expedition ship 
Aurora,
 under Captain Davis, second in command of our expedition, arrived here to-day, successfully terminating my undertaking without further loss of life.  Last year our Western Antarctic base, in charg of Frank Wild, and also some members of the main base returned.




It will be remembered that owing to the deaths of Lieut.  Ninnis of the Royal Fusiliers and Dr. Mertz while on a sledging journey, I arrived at our Winter quarters too late to return that year.  The Sub-Antarctic base also has been kept in commission this second year.




My escape was almost miraculous.  I was in the last stages of starvation when I discovered a food cache left by a search party.  It was thirty days after the death of my last companion before I reached the expedition's hut, and traveling was for the most part in falling and drifting snow.




The expedition has been most successful.  It was organized to complete the knowledge of the salient features of the Australian quadrant of the Anarctic regions, and it operated in the great unknown expanse to the west of the much-frequented Ross Sea area. * * * * * *




Figure
A Bull Sea Elephant



SHACKLETON LAUDS MAWSON



Says Science has Everything to be Grateful for in His Achievement (By Marconi Trans-Atlantic Wireless Telegraph to the 
New York Times
)




London, Friday, February 27.—Sir Ernest Shackleton, in an article on Dr. Mawson in this morning's 
Daily Mail,
 says:




The discovery of the ledges of the continental shelf will throw light on many oceanographic mysteries.  Indeed, science has everything to be grateful for in Dr. Mawson's achievement and nothing in which to find disappointment.




From the scientific side the expedition has been eminently successful.  From its sentimental side—I use the word advisedly and not in the meaning to which it has been debased to-day—it is equally remarkable.  Sentiment and science so far have gone hand in hand.  It will be a sorry day when they are divorced.




The outstanding feature of Dr. Mawson's inland journey has been that tragic march in which two lives were lost.  It has been a march that has shown once more to the world that men are capable of enduring and working against desperate odds without thought of surrender.




Shackleton regards Mawson's wireless installation and constant communication with the Government Meteorological Office in Australia as of immense importance from the economic point of view.  He foresees that it will result eventually in wireless stations being installed on both sides of the Antarctic for the benefit of Australian stock breeders and agriculturists, enabling them to take precautions when complete forecasts are available of the strong Southerly blizzards and storms that sweep up suddenly to Australia.




The wireless stations also will be useful to mariners, the Antarctic being the breeding place of the great world storms.





National Geographical Society WASHINGTON, D. C.



My Dear Mr. Keedick:




I am taking this first opportunity to write you a line to express my appreciation of the remarkable pictures of the Antarctic shown by Sir Douglas Mawson for the first time before the National Geographic Society.  The wonderful story they tell of conditions in that region has never been surpassed in scientific and dramatic interest.  For geographic and historic value they are unequalled.




I hope that every American will have an opportnnity to see Mawson's beautiful motion photos of the penguins and their rookeries, where 10,000 are seen, of elephant seals and whales, of the great floating ice barrier and enormous icebergs, of the snowy petrel and ice-clad mountains.




Our two capacity audiences were held spellbound by the pictures and by the marvelous story which Sir Douglas had to tell—a story that was told in a simple, straightforward style, in which there was as much unaffected modesty as there was bravery, courage and devotion to duty in the man who lived through the things Sir Douglas encountered.




Sincerely yours,
(Signed) GILBERT H. GROSVENOR Director and Editor


Jan. 19, 1915.




The American Geographical Society of New York



My Dear Sir Douglas:




Allow me to congratulate you upon the success of your lecture last night, I reflect the universal comment by your auditors that they seem to have been transported to the heart of the Antarctic and to a participation in its scenes and sensations by the views and the moving pictures which gave such a vivid impression.  I have witnessed many similar exhibitions but for impressive environment, judicious selection, and artistic execution, the views which you displayed last night surpass any which I have seen.  I realy feel that no one should miss the opportunity to attend upon your lecture.




Believe me,




Very truly yours,
(Signed) JOHN GREENOUGH, Chairman of the Council.


Jan. 18, 1915.