A MAN OF MARK.

Evening Star, Issue 20996, 9 January 1932, Page 12

A MAN OF MARK.

To Sir Hubert Wilkins the humdrum life of cities has no appeal. The call to this great Australian comes from the vast solitary places of the globe, especially the Arctic and Antarctic areas, for there opportunities are still to be found of adding to the sum of human knowledge. Wilkins is only forty-five years of age, but into his life he has crowded an astonishing record of accomplishment. He began his adventures in 1913 as a photographic correspondent in the Balkan War. Next he did exploring work in Central Australia. His first experience of the Arctic snows followed as a member of Stefannson’s party. Returning in 1917, he was plunged into the war, in which he did distinguished service in the Air Force. Since then polar exploration has engrossed him, and he has taken part altogether in eight expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. Now we are told that he is planning another venture. Evidently he means to come south, for in an interview this week he declared: “ The interior of the Antarctic Continent is virtually untouched. We can only guess at the secrets that are locked in the forbidding ranges. An attempt to disclose them is certainly worth while.’’ If his plans materialise we shall have another period of activity down there, for Admiral Byrd intends to return to his base in Little America to supplement the work which he carried out so successfully on the last occasion. There has been a certain amount of rivalry between Wilkins and Byrd, but it has always been of a friendly and ungrudging nature. At the time that Byrd made his flight over the South Pole Wiikins was also flying in the Antarctic, hut he showed no chagrin over the American explorer’s accomplishment. His mind has a scientific bent, and he regards observations in the field of science as being of more importance than mere stunt flying. Sir Hubert Wilkins was the first person to fly an aeroplane in Antartica. This he did in November of 1928, when he made a flight from Deception Island. By means of his plane, to which was attached a camera, he outlined in two seasons practically the whole of the hitherto unknown portion of the Antarctic Archipelago and the coast of Hearst Land of 400 miles. If these two explorers are operating simultaneously in the near future they will, as in the past, work from different points, Byrd breaking with civilisation in New Zealand and Wilkins in South America, In that vast southern space there are ample opportunities for both parties. Though polar exploration will always be attended by danger and difficulty, especially in the Antarctic, the developments which have taken place during the last seventeen years have made the lot of the explorer infinitely more comfortable. Byrd’s last expedition was a case in point, in which the members of this well-equipped party had most of the comforts of modern civilisation, even down to a radio equipment. Inevitably comparisons arise, and thoughts go back to the hardships and privations of the earlier explorers, in which the limits of human endurance and courage were tested in the long, toilsome marches on foot, with inadequate food supplies. The question of the value of these expeditions is often raised. Are they worth all the trouble and risk and expense involved? Sir Hubert Wilkins thinks they are- He believes that the meteorological observations in the Antarctic have already resulted in a more accurate determination of the weather conditions in Australia and New Zealand, and that only the fringe of that work has been touched. Our knowledge of the Antarctic is so limited that the mind is inti igued with the great possibilities that are involved from the scientific point of view. Till these are determined the work will go on, and as the years pass it will be rendered easier by the developments in the air and otherwise that are proceeding so rapidly. The glamour and romance of polar exploration are getting less, but the opportunities for increasing knowledge in the scientific field are infinitely greater.