A GREAT ADVENTURER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 112, 13 May 1926, Page 6

A GREAT ADVENTURER.

Adventures are to the adventurous, and certainly Raold Amundsen has had his full share of the thrills that come to the greatly daring. He has now crowned a life of crowded experience by flying across the North Pole in his dirigible, the Xorge, and by this time is well on his way to Alaska, completing his flight across the Polar Basin.

Amundsen was the first man to set foot on the South Pole, where he achieved a marvellous success on his first serious

attempt on tiie earth's uttermost stronghold. He had had much experience of Polar work before he made his wonderful dash, having done a vast amount of exploratory work in the high latitudes round Greenland, at the magnetic Pole, and in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from 1597 onwards. His preparations for the attack on the South Pole were very quietly made, and the world was greatly astonished when, in 1911, he announced his success, and the records of Captain Scott confirmed his claim. Amundsen was favoured by the gods on that journey across the Antarctic Continent. He met fine weather with comparative calm, while Captain Scott and his party, a few hundred miles away, were battling with storm and blizzard in a perfect "Hellhole of the winds."

Not satisfied with that success, Amundsen went to the north in his schooner Maud, attempting to drift across the Pole when the ship became wedged in the ice off Alaska. The anticipated drift did not materialise, however, and the expedition failed. But the dauntless Amundsen was not to be defeated. He tried again, this time discarding the slow and uncertain sledge for the aeroplane, and last year he again set out with high hopes. Forced down beyond hope of reaching his objective, the explorer won his way back, to his base after incredible difficulties and hardships, and at once he began plans

for another attempt, this time in a big dirigible. Success has attended upon persistence, and the hardy Norseman has reached and passed the goal of his desire. The expedition will have far greater results than the mere satisfying of the leader's craving for adventure. A million square miles is encompassed by the unknown Polar Basin, and the question of whether this was all ocean or included archipelagos or a minor continent has exercised the minds of explorers and scientists for many years. The flight should go far towards settling the question. Already we know that he found no land at the Pole itself, confirming the observations of Peary and this week's report hy Lieutenant-Commander Byrd. Whether land masses exist between the Pole and Alaska should be known tomorrow, if all goes well, for Amundsen anticipated landing in Alaska in 48 hours —at Nome if he can reach it, for that will mean salving the airship or at Point Barrow, where a landing will

mean the- abandonment of the Norge.

There are sixteen men aboard the airship, skilled observers and scientists all, and the calculations which they made daring the flight would be of such a nature as to leave no room for doubt as to the accuracy of their claims. The expedition has sufficient food to supply each memher for a month if by any mischance the craft should be compelled to descend upon the Arctic ice, while tents, skis and enowshoes are also carried.