CAPT. SCOTT'S AMBITION

Evening Star, Issue 14318, 17 March 1910, Page 4

CAPT. SCOTT'S AMBITION

TO REACH SOUTH POLE ON DECEMBER 22, 1911. PLANS OUTLINED. [From Ouu Special Correspondent.! LONDON, February 4. It is now possible to give a fuller outlino of Captain Scott’s plans for tho conquest of tho South Pole. He hopes to start in June with twenty-five men. Another twenty-eight will ‘bo picked up in New Zealand to form tlie landing parlies. When they get to the South they will use the quarters built by Sir Ernest Sliackleton, where twenty-two men will bo landed. Six more will bo landed at King Edward’s Land, to take meteorological observations and study the geography of that locality. Captain Scott hopes to reach the barrier ice in December of .the present year. Only half the summer will then remain, and the time will bo occupied until tho winter begins in the end of April in laying out depots of provisions to the southward so as to facilitate the journey to the Polo in tho following summer. He is taking with him twenty ponies, twenty-five dojis, and some motor sledges, which will be employed in this work and in the attempt to reach the Pole. That will entail a march over the ice of 800 miles, and he hopes to reach the Pole on. or before December 22, 1911. Captain Scott is anxious to get to the Pole on that date, because at the summer solstice observations will bo taken which will enable the situatior of the Pole to be very accurately deter, mined. If all goes well they should gel back to the landing place about April* 1912, and bo able to return to EngKtnd it the same year. The main journey for the Pole, said Captain Scott this week, would probably start in October, 1911. They’had to travel over 800 miles, mid the probability was that they could not do more than ten or fifteen* miles a day. With the various means of traction he hoped they would be able to carry a great quantity of food 200 or 300 miles' to the south over the great ice barrier and make a big depot there, and from that place he hoped not only to send, or go, with a party to the South Pole, but also to send other parties in various directions to do a deal of exploring. He hoped great things of the motor sledges. If he could not get to the Polo at the first attempt he hoped to do it the next year, and if they failed then he hoped the young men who were going with him would want to try a third lime. When they got their base established, the party would not leave that place until the thing was done. He did not say it in .any boastful spirit, he did not say he would do it, but the main thing was to lay down plans so that some British subject should be tho first to reach the South Pole.