ROUND THE WORLD RECORD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 225, 20 September 1913, Page 17

ROUND THE WORLD RECORD.

21,066 MILES IN 32 DAYS. With the loss of only a toothbrush and a large fruit cake at Cleveland. Mr. John Henry Mears, of the New York "Evening Sun," on August 0 completed the fastest journey ever made round the world. His time, compared with the previous record of M. Andre Jager Schmidt in 1011, was: — Mears.—32 days 21 hrs. 3D mm. 4-ssec. Jager Schmidt.—39 days 19 hrs. 42 mln. 37 4-:3 sec. Some delay, Mr. Mears explained was due to the enthusiasm of his friends at the Grand Central Station, who prevented him from taking a flying leap into the motor car in which he completed the journey to the "Evening Sun" Office. "M. Jager Schmidt," he proceeded, "has told mc he will lower my record, but that will not be possible until aeroplanes can carry the intending record-breaker in safety from Fishguard to London, Dover, and Ostend, and thence to Berlin and Moscow, thus enabling the voyager to take a later steamer from New York, and until the Russians have accelerated the Siberian railway service." As it was, Mr Mears, after crossing the Pacific in Use fastest liner, availed himself of the service of a waterplane to cross Puget Sound, the only part of the journey of 21,066 miles that he traversed on .foot was half-a-nrile in Cleveland for the purpose of catching the Empire State express. It was in the course of that sprint that he lost his toothbrush and 1 cake. "I was delayed eight hours," he said, "when in the Mauretania *by fog, and lost eighteen hours through a wash-out on the Russian railway at Ekaterinburg. It was Mr Mikami, general passenger agent of the Japanese railways, who saved the record for mc by running a special train through Corea, landing rae at Shimonoseki in time to catch the Empress of India on Wednesday, July 23."