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The Coldest Place on Earth
THE COLDEST PLACE ON EARTH
At the South Pole today there is a building called the Amundsen–Scott Station. Inside the building it is warm and people live and work there both in summer and in winter. Planes fly easily to and from the station, and the rest of the world is only a few hours away. But walk five hundred metres away from the station, and Antarctica is once again the coldest, emptiest place on earth.
In 1911 there were no planes and no buildings at the South Pole. There was nothing. Only snow and ice and wind. There was no British flag, and no Norwegian flag. But across the ice, men were moving slowly south. Scott’s men had ponies, and Amundsen’s men had dogs and skis. The temperatures were –30 °Centigrade and worse. The men were tired, hungry, cold … Who was going to be the first man at the South Pole?
Inside the Amundsen–Scott Station today, there are some words written on the wall – words that Captain Scott wrote in his diary in 1912:
‘Great God! This is an awful place.’Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis edition © Oxford University Press 2008 The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19922 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 478903 5A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of The Coldest Place on Earth is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 478838 0Typeset by OxuniprintThe publisher would like to thank the following for their permission to reproduce photographs:Alamy Images: page 32Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: page 20Corbis: pages 15, 17, 36Getty Images: pages 3, 7, 10, 14, 18, 19, 23, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35Mary Evans Picture Library: pages 12, 38Science Photo Library: page 2Word count (main text): 5500 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookworms e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478723 9e-Book first published 2012
