WHEN THE CURTAIN of security behind which American plans in
the Antarctic are concealed is lifted, an intriguing situation may be disclosed. The Americans, I understand, intend to establish, and to keep open for one year, a meteorological station at the South Pole; this project has behind it a budget of many million dollars, the resources of the US Navy and a new process for making airstrips in the snow. It is at present planned to open the station in January, 1956; the operation, and all subsequent maintenance, will be on an air- borne basis. Meanwhile. a British Commonwealth expedition hopes to set out, towards the end of this year, on an attempt to cross the surface of the Antarctic Continent via the Pole, a feat never before performed. Its resources will be limited, its methods basically old-fashioned, and for air supply it may not be able to rely on anything more up-to-date than Austers. It will be a dramatic moment when, from the electrically heated snuggeries of Fort Monroe (or whatever the Americans decide to call their South Pole station), the small British column with its depleted dog teams is sighted, plodding painfully forward across the plateau towards the useful landmark of the Stars and Stripes. What a whiping of self-starters, in the weasel park as the garrison turns out to welcome these eccentric visitors! How the Coca-Cola will flow that night on the 'spot where Scott and Amundsen brewed up their pemmi- can Or will the Americans take these strange, hunched ambu- lents for intruders from another planet? It will—if it ever happens—be an interesting occasion.
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