THE MAWSON EXPEDITION.

Evening Star, Issue 20310, 19 October 1929, Page 14

THE MAWSON EXPEDITION.

To-day still another expedition leaves for the Antarctic. t . Despite ~ fifteen years that have elapsed, making him an older man since his last travail with the solitudes, Sir Douglas Mawson Inis yielded again to the call of. the South, and he leaves to-day from Capo Town on what has been planned as a two-years exploration. His ship is the .most famous of British Polar vessels, the Discovery, which- carried Scott on his first voyage. ' Once again we are hearing of the benefits to science and even to., the. world’s material wealth that may be expected to accrue from greater knowledge of the frozen fastnesses—the advantages for meteorology, the new lures for fishermen, the mineral deposits. All these, except tho first, the layman will receive with a smile of incredulity. His natural conclusion will bo .that the matter is most reasonably summed up in tho general and more or less theoretic claim which has been advanced by Sir Douglas Mawson in ‘ The Homo of the Blizzard,’ the account of his last expedition: “ On the face of it, Polar research may seem to ho specific and discriminating, but it must bo remembered that an advance in any one of the departments info, which, lor convenience, science is aitificially divided conduces to the advantage of all. Science is a homogeneous wlmle. If we ignore the facts contained in one part of the world, surely we aio hampering scientific advance. It is obvious to everyone that, given, only a fraction of the pieces, it is a much moio difficult task to put together a jigsaw puzzle and obtain an idea of the finished pattern than were,, all the pieces at hand. The, pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are the data of science. The expedition has the prospect of being as useful as any of tho others that- arc working, or in recent years have been working, in the South Polar seas, and it is ono that has a special interest for this country. Two New Zealanders are included in its scientific complement, and it would appear that some assistance is being, given to it by the New Zealand Government. Admiration must be felt also lor its leader, an Australian, the story of whose lonely trek for a hundred miles on his last expedition, after one of his two companions had been lost in a crevasse and the other had succumbed to the privations of their journey, must rank always as one of the epics of Polar exploration. Mawson was ill himself, so ill that he felt -he might collapse at any moment, when bo woke to find his last companion lying dead by his side and a hundred miles between him and the expedition’s base. The last dog had been killed lor food, and he had to drag his own aleclgo. The two men had been making sixteen miles a day, but Mawson, in bis now circumstances, found himself able to cover only five or six when be could proceed at all. The soles almost literally had parted from his feet, and had to be hound in place. Hunger was a torment. At times he would slip into crevasses, from which, with his enfeebled strength, it was almost too much for him to extricate himself. Yet for twenty-one days he toiled on, til! the unexpected discovery of a cairn at which food had been left by a search party gave him renewed strength, and he was able to complete his journey. The moral qualities, Mawson has written, in an Antarctic explorer are more important than tho physical. • The leader who is now forty-seven years old will not lack ■tho first on his new expedition. It is to be expected, however, that that will ho much-less, hazardous than tho previous one. The plans apparently provide that shore parties, when they arc landed, will not go far from tho ship. A Moth aeroplane is being carried, but that, it would appear, is chiefly for assistance in the coastal surveys. Tho expedition may bo working for two years, broken by ono return trip to Australia. The best wishes of all. New Zealanders will : go with it.