NEW YORK TO PARIS BY MOTOR-CAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 70, 21 March 1908, Page 9

NEW YORK TO PARIS BY MOTOR-CAR.

Oa February Bth, nine motor-cars, witti three people in each, started on the 17,000 miles' race from New York to Paris b-7 wav of Alaska and the Behring Straits—a stupendous undertaking which, if successful, -arill he a veritable romance. ' The race has heen organised fey the Paris " Matin." The competitors represent France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. The reward of the winner will "be a cup.

is such a journey possible? Theoretically, yes; but it must be borne in mind , that the motor-car is. after woman, the most fragile and the most capricious thing on earth. Furthermore, there are the conditions and the difficulties of the race. The first part of the colossal route offers no great obstacles, but let us sup- : pose the competitors have safely arrived !at "Frisco, that they have embarked for I Skagway. and are now in Alaska. To the majorit%- of people this name is suggestive of a desolate, terrible, I frozen land. Yet it is by no means an icy 'desert, except on the northern coast, by 1 the Arctic Ocean. The Oriental '" gulf . stream" reaches the scores of Alaska and softens the temperature. The discovery of goldfields brought to Alaska an overwhelming tide of human- | ity. so that the country changed altogether in a few years. In five years Dawson. St. Michael. Tanana. Xome City. Circle City, which were mere settlements .of Eskimos and miners, became regular j American citie- with broad thoroush- | fares, comfortable h6uses. electric tramways, large stores, "cafe-ehantants." and daily papers. j The competitors, consequently, will ! meet with no insurmountable obstacles from New York to the Behring Strait. I ilt will be like L'oin;z in winter from, say, Paris to Stockholm or Moscow. But when they reach the strait they will be face to face with gigantic difficulties. This channel separating Asia from! America is fifty-four miles across from' Cape Prince of Wales to Cape East, in \ Liberia. . AWE-IXSPIRECG 60LITTDE. j The depth in the middle is about forty ; j fathoms. Half-way across are the little I Diomede Islands. From December until' ! May the Strait is frozen; but the iceI way is not complete, because the Polar I currents and the terrible hurricanes j break up and sweep the surface. The ico i≤ rugged and unsafe, and where the competitors can use boats the water is tumultuous, and huge blocks of ice always make the passage dangerous and i sometimes impossible. Let us imagine, however, that they reach Cape Kast —a terrible change of j scenery and conditions awaits them. For the first time they are within the awe-inspiring solitudes of the Polar world. Before them. the boundless desert of ice; the night, the peculiar translucent aud permanent Polar nijrht. wraps, them in freezing and sombre clouds. I No life, no trees, no human beings to ( speak of: only the clash and scream o! ! devastating winds among the terrific I masses of ice—and the inconceivable cold. The. distance from Cape East to Iri kutsk. the Siberian capital, is about 6,250 ! miles: and while they cover it—or at-j • tempt to cover it—the motorists will i i live in that inferno of ice and gloom. They will race along the frozen Arctic j Sea. until they reach Xijni-Kolirnsk. | i This first stretch, which is about I 040 miles in length, shows no trace oi civilization whatever. The whole of that ! distance i> only interrupted by small : agglomerations of Tchutkis huts, a dozen j iin number! '"THE WORST OF TORTURES." ; j The men will have to rely entirely on ! themselves, live on whatever stores "they ! I may have with them, or on the game tney may shoot, for they will meet bear, wolf, i , several species of fox, lynx, and all other types, of Arctic animal life. If a car has a breakdown they will receive no assistance, but will have to re-1 pair it under the most trying conditions ' And co. on to Verkhoiansk and Yakutsk. !

Hundreds and hundreds of miles in the severest cold! The cold! One must have experienced these low temperatures to reali-e what they mean. The usual winter condition* at Yakutsk, lying south of the Arctic Circle, show a winter or -HO to -75. and ! at the penal settlement of Verkhoiansk an extreme of -92 has several times been reported. In the region of Yakutsk the soil ap-1 pears to be permanently frozen from a ; few feet below the surface to several \ hundreds of feet. The mercury of the i thermometers and the nicotin" or the ' pipes become frozen. The breatli forma a mask of solid ice on the faff, and it is one of the worst tortures a human being can have to endure. Will the competitors be ab!e to travel j those polar reuiors? The few dogs, tile rare Tchutkis might lend will lie of no i mortal use: dogs could never pull the ' heavy motor-car- on the terrible track which has been called by travellers the "" Arctic hell, the " cruel land, the""land i of desolation."' And at Nijni-Kolim-k. what will the ' travellers find? Merely :i village, it" some : thirty odd wooden huts, inhabited by some fifty human derelicr-. Yakuts and Tunguses, vegetating in the most abject misery, can be called a villas?. \o assistance to bo found here. A turn of the gearing v. hei-1. ant! now for a .'V7o miles journey alon™ or on the Kolima. and Sredni-Kolirnsk is reai-hed. This is but an enlarged copy of Nijni-Kolim-U; :JQO squalid beings liv.> here in sheds of wood with windows made of ice; there is a chapel in ruins and a <mall construction of a somewhat hetter appea ranee, the residence of the chiet ot police. HIDDEN" DANGERS OF TTfK ROAD. At this point the dogs are replaced by reindeers for the sleijrhs. \W leave In": River Kolima and make a sharp turn for the .south-west. From Sredni-Kolimsk to Verkhoian-k is 11 i> miles. Bet.veen the two point.- ther are eiirht " stantsas " and a score of refuses (povarnia). The stant-as are used for changing reindeer, and the povarnias arc mere sheds where the traveller can shi Iter during snowstorms. In the stautsas lira one or two Yakuts: the povarnias are not inhabited. Towards Verkhoiansk the ground, which so far has been more or less flat, becomes mountainous.,, ami small forests break the monotony oh the dreury landscape. The difficulties for the motorists increase with the unevenness of the laud; there are dangerous crevices, huge holes

filled with ;now. and not easily detected. Tlie road for sleighs and reindeer is quite difficult, and what can it be for motove weighing several tons? At Yakutsk, only 4000 miles from the Mfhring Strait, will the daring competitors find tobacco, real heds. real food, real human being-?, and the comforts of hospitality. This Paris of Siberia, as it is called, is a small city of r>ooo inhabitant-. The Yakutskuins. thanks to the sold mine?, are wealthy, and not knowing how to kill the long winter. spend life eating and drinking. Here the herculean part or the voyage cemos to an end. and the travel over the 2J.30 miles which separate that town from Irkutsk will seem an enchanting pleasure trip to the motorists; but they must manage to reach Yakutsk first! Can the motor cars make the journey from the Be bring Strait to Yakutsk? " it j-ectas highly improbable. To succeed they must cover the dangerous and well-nigh impraeiteabie Bi-h ring- Yakutsk journey before May or the middle of April, when the thaw begins and the !

wnole region become* a terrible morass where no one can venture. The organisers and the " commifsairegeneral " of the race. M. Bourcier SaintChnffray, .-ire convinced that the racers will bo successful. They have an answer for every objection raided. " As as we leave hard ground tor ice." said one of the competitors. " we take the tyres off our back wheels and replace them by metallic bandages bristling with large rivets; our front wheels will be fitted with eight-feet-long skates. So much for th.- ice. "To travel in thick snow, we fasten small paddles to the rim of our whpels, I and in order to distribute the weight of our car on a larger surface and prevent it sinking we fix a huge wickfr work frame under it. In 1-4-r of a strong uinrt. we :-ha!l n>o our tent a- a sail, la-U'ning it j to a hamliMu ;, 1 u-1. A -1--.1 with stores j and an oil rc.-crvc will iv fastened to our j car. J "For light v> c take with us a small j

oynamo. which -we shall turn by hand— an excellent exercise. We have a com pa-s to steer with, and we have guns foi the white bear*. " if we meet ir:iek> we shall use the skates ot our car as bridges. ■" in each cur two men will sleep in the day-time, an.l one will drive. At nijiht one will drive, one -leep. and fie other operate the electric seari-hlijjht. Kor rlothrs «f -hiill wear hiiire -kin 'envelopes. ' with under-garmevits of flannel and seal's intestines—softened with Poiar bear'- grea-e or seal blubber —the very latest in Arctic outfit. And we shall drink champagne to cheer us up !" The word " impossible " has no meaning for the.-c men. They are fearless and re.-olute men. with iron nerves and sinews of steel.