WILKINS' EXPEDITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 135, 9 June 1926, Page 7

WILKINS' EXPEDITION.

A SHORT POSTPONEMENT. NOT A FAILURE. NEW YORK, June 8. The "New York Times" gays the Board i of Control of the Detroit Arctic Expedi- i tion (Captain G. H. Wilkins) will meet J to-morrow to decide the future plans of j the expedition which has been tern-1 porarily checked. ! Captain Wilkins and Major Lanphier i were ordered to return to Fairbanks, Alaska, from Point Barrow. Persistently foggy weather, and the failure of the engines of the aeroplane, Detroiter, to function satisfactorily made this more advisable. The board may decide to request Captain Wilkins to return to Detroit for an extensive consultation regarding a continuance of the expedition, possibly next spring. The board is said to have no intention of setting aside the original objective of the expedition, which it considers has justified itself by the meteorological data it has obtained and the charting it has, accomplished. Neither the flights of Captain Amundsen nor Commander Byrd, heroic as they were, have in any sense impaired the plans of the Detroit expeditions. The board compliments Captain Wilkins on having already flown a total distance of 5200 miles over trackless country. He has thus equalled the entire mileage flown by Byrd and Amundsen together.

The achievements of Captain Wilkins from the public's point of view have been unfortunately less spectacular than those of his rivals and there is a tendency to feel that he has failed. This is not the case. The expedition may even be resumed next autumn if special equipment suitable to autumn flyine can be constructed.— (A. and N.Z. )