ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

Evening Star, Issue 19023, 19 August 1925, Page 5

ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION

THE WILKINS EXPEDITION AM UN DSEN’S A ERORL ANB BOUGHT. Press Association—By Telegraph —Copyright. I.ONDON, August 18. (Received August 19, at 10.5 a.m.) Captain Wilkins has bought Amundsen’s famous aeroplane, lie sets out from New Zealand in October, 1926, for the Antarctic.—A. and N.Z. Cable. Captain Wilkins proposes the establishment of seven fully-equipped observatories on the edge of tho Antarctic Continent, and five sub-Antarctic stations on islands that arc suitably placed. Each observatory would bo in daily communication with the neighboring observatories, and with one of three collecting stations at Melbourne, Capo Town, or Buenos Aires. These stations, if maintained simultaneously and continuously for a period of ten years, would give a great deal of information that may prove of inestimable value. The collecting stations at Melbourne, Cape Town, and Buenos Aires would each have four observatories under their control, and by means of wireless they would communicate their deduced information to tho British Meteorological Office, London, whore it would be collated with meteorological information from other parts of the world. Throe ships would bo required, and, working from the three collecting stations, they would carry supplies and changes of staff to tho. Antarctic observatories, and at the some time collect biological information of importance to the .whaling and fishing industry. Captain Wilkins also proposes that observing aeroplanes should he attached to the Antarctic stations. “ Each of the points, except one, at which observations might bo suitably placed in the Antarctic, has been visited by explorers, and the other point is somewhere along the base of the Pacific Ocean,” lie says. “As a. preliminary to tho international scheme, I propose to explore tho coastline from King Edward Land, south of New Zealand, to Graham’s Land, south of Cape Horn, and by using aeroplanes demonstrate their usefulness in the Antarctic. I have planned to start from the Bay of Whales, in the Ross Sea, and one aeroplane will carry a pilotj myself, and a survey camera, with which we will take a continuous strip of overlapping pictures allowing tho coastline. At two or three suitable points wo will descend and fix our position by means of astronomical observations. A second machine will carry a pilot and a supply of fuel, and, if it is necessary, the fuel from this machine will replenish the supply of tho other machine, which will in this ease carry both, pilots, leaving one aeroplane behind. At the end of the journey, near Graham’s Land, I expect to locate one of the forty odd whaling ships that visit this neighborhood during the summer, and with whose captains I spent some considerable time on my two previous trips to the Antarctic.

“ I hope to leave the Ross Sea in January of next year, and in return with the winders from Graham’s Land the following March.”