TO THE POLE AGAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 152, 29 June 1935, Page 9

TO THE POLE AGAIN

_* ATTEMPT BY SUBMARINE SIR HUBERT WILKINS'S PLANS ("Times" Cable,) LONDON, June 28. The Oslo correspondent of "The Times" says that Sir Hubert and Lady Wilkins have arrived there en route for England. Sir Hubert, who is recruiting for the Wyatt Earp expedition next winter, will further discuss his polar submarine, for which he witt undertake a trial trip in 1936. The actual voyage, with Lady Wil kins as cook, will take place in 1937 The submarine would travel 16 hour: a day under water. It would star from Spitzbergen or Bearing Straii and attempt to arrive at America vie the Pole. ,Sir Hubert Wiikins made his last Polar journey by submarine in 1931, when he took the recommissioned Nautilus, formerly a unit of the United States fleet, to .the Antarctic. The effort proved to be a fiasco,, the submarine, named after a Jules Verne creation and christened by a member of the Verne family, becoming disabled and tossing in. heavy seas 1000 miles off the coast of France, with battleships standing by to give her a tow. When the Polar voyage proper began it lasted a short time, and accounts given later differed as to the period that the submarine stayed under the ice." One member of the expedition was reported to have said that Sir Hubert Wrlkins was thoroughly aware of the unfitaess of the vessel for her task, and thaf he was afraid to use her in the under-ice work beyond one dive. Since that time Sir Hubert Wilkins has more than once talked of another attempt with a properlyequipped and specially-built submarine The Nautilus, according to her commander, went down 500 feet and travelled under ice fifteen _feet thick. ' The party found sea valleys north of Spitzbergen that were 12,000 feet deep, ridges that were 'only 2400 feet from the surface, and varying water temperatures. Mud from the bottom was also investigated. A good deal of work had been done in study of the ocean, Sir Hubert said.