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Show 352 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams WHEN THE EXPEDITION WAS READY TO SAIL On the bridge of the Peary, from left to right: Lieutenant Mienrod A. Schur, U. S. N., of San Diego, California; Mr. John Oliver LaGorce, Vice-President of the National Geographic Society, who accompanied the expedition to Wiscasset, Maine, to wish the party godspeed; Chief Boatswain Earl E. Reber, U. S. N., of Millville, New Jersey; and Commander Donald B. MacMillan, leader of the expedition. The Navy's personnel of eight is under the command of Lieutenant Commander Richard E. Byrd, Jr. characteristics, and figuring out the paths they probably will follow because of prevailing barometric pressures and temperatures ahead of them. The majority of what the weather forecasters call the "lows"-that is, the areas of subnormal barometric pressure-seem to originate over the warm sea south of the Aleutian Islands in the winter and over the interior of Alaska during the summer ; but some of the conditions which cause these "lows" to be "built up" in those places and create "highs" to the east have their birth farther north in the Polar regions, and a better knowledge of temperatures, pressure, and wind changes there will, it is hoped, facilitate weather forecasting. In the search for the beginnings of its weather, the United States is not concerned with the entire Polar area, but chiefly with the region north of Alaska. Most of the meteorological work has been done by Mr. Albert Francis, chief aerographer. Temperatures, pressures, and wind con- |