HOPE ABANDONED

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 136, 5 March 1927, Page 8

HOPE ABANDONED

4 lee palmer still MISSING BELIEVED LOST IN VERY ROUGH COUNTRY by telegraph.—Press association. Blenheim, March 4. Practically all hope of finding Eric Lee Palmer, the young school teacher who has been missing in the Benmore countrv since Sunday last, has now been abandoned. The search was kept up all day yesterday, and a small party, including the unfortunate young man’s father, was out to-day. It is understood that unless the missing man is located by this evening the search will be relinquished. There seems to bt little doubt that Palmer, after leaving his companions, attempted to penetrate into the countrv know as “No Man’s Land,” at the back of Benmore. This is steep, precipitous countrv, characterised in manv places by sheer precipices 300 to 400 feet in height, containing many enormous shingle slips. Any attempt to cross some of® these slips is fatal, as the shingle, once set on the move, would almost inevitably bury the adventurer. It is feared that Palmer has probably been carried down in one of these slips. In any case, the country in the vicinity is so rugged and broken that it is almost impossible to traverse, and the searchers’ task would be superhuman and almost certainly foredoomed to failure, as it would be quite possible to be within feet of the missing man and never see him.