ARCTIC WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 16, 20 January 1933, Page 12

ARCTIC WORK.

SOVIET EXPLORATION. PAST YEAR'S RECORD. :FROZEN SEAS CLAIM VICTIM. Last year was a rich year for Soviet Arctic exploration, with the long expedition of the Siberiakov and shorter expeditions of other ships, not to mention the development of two-way radio communication between Moscow and Franz Josef Land.

The return of the leaders of the Siberiakov expedition, Professor Otto J Schmidt, Ivan Voronin and Profess3l Vladimir J. Weise, together with othei members of the party, on TransSiberian Express was a triumphal journey, like the return of a victorious Roman general. . i In every town across the Soviet Union the inhabitants turned out in force and gave vociferous ovations tc the explorers. Their arrival in Moscow wa6 delayed more than twenty-four hours find disappointed Moscovites, who had organised a mass reception committee.

Press Hails Explorers. The newspapers had devoted columns to the exploit ever since the ship arrived at Tokyo from Archangel over the Arcth seas, and when the explorers in Moscow the papers burst forth with banner headlines, pictures and pages full of "hot Bolshevist congratulations to the heroes of the polar expedition." The other expeditions, too, got their share of praise, mostly for establishing routes to the northernmost islands and relieving the personnel who had spent the winter there making polar observations and sending meteorological reports by wireless. The ship Perseus sailed from Murmansk up to the top of Spitzbergen, then back around the northern tip of Nova Zembla to Murmansk. The icebreaker Rusanoff sailed fromArcliangei lo North Severnaya Zembla, where she picked up four men who had spent two lonely years there. The icebreaker Maleegin made a trip around Franz Josef Land, and so did the ship Knipovitch. These trips were all successful and were unmarred by tragedy, but the picture has a sombre side.

Ship Aground in Storm. In October the email vessel Albatross left Point Dickson carrying back_ to civilisation men who had been establishing a hunting outpost there. The Albatross encountered storms and heavy fog% and ran aground on White Island. She was without radio, so six members of the crew rowed 400 miles in an open boat to the new port of Gel to get help for their comrades and remove the danger of their starving or freezing. Icebreaker 8 left Archangel to go to the rescue, but she lost a propeller and wirelessed for help. Icebreaker 9 immediately weighed anchor and has not been heard from since. The only clue to her fate is the discovery of one of her lifeboats with eight frozen bodies on the beach near Archangel. The Arctic seas were combed but no trace of the missing men was discovered. Further search has been abandoned until spring on account of the heavy ice. Meanwhile, the crew of the Albatross is piecing out life with scanty food and fuel until other ships sent to aid the men,arrive.