SOUTHWARD HO!

Evening Star, Issue 21193, 29 August 1932, Page 8

SOUTHWARD HO!

Pebsistence, not less than hardihood, is a characteristic of Sir Hubert Wilkins as an explorer. One would have thought that his record, both in the North and South, gave him a claim to rest, and that adventure by this time would have lost its appeal to him. Fame he can hardly have more than he has already achieved. But the restless spirit of the explorer, joined to the zeal of the scientist, makes an irresistible goad. For eleven years Sir Hubert has been pushed by the desire of obtaining data for the establishment of permanent meteorological stations in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, by which the greatest gap in our knowledge for weather forecasting will be made good. That work has not been completed by him yet, and he is not tho man to rest while it is unfinished. So next year Sir Hubert will make another trip to the, Antarctic, and we are glad to see that he will make it from Dunedin. The heartiest welcome will be given him when he arrives at this port in the vessel which is to carry him to the Ross Sea, whence it is hoped to fly to the Weddell Sea, where ho was exploring four years ago. In the flights which he made on that occasion Sir Hubert discovered fourteen islands in an area formerly thought to be part of the main Antarctic continent. He was unable to determine, however, how far islands extended and where the main continent began. Three questions were posed by him, before his previous journey, which were not entirely settled by his own and Byrd’s explorations. They arc as follow:—(1) Is there an Antarctic continent as largo as the whole of the United States, or is this continent divided by ocean streams connecting the Ross Sea with the Weddell Sea, leaving Graham Land an archipelago of islands? (2) Does the hugo mountain system' which includes the Rockies and tho Andes, and the great dividing range of Australia, continue across the Antarctic Continent, and so form a continuous mountain circuit about the Pacific Ocean? (3) Does the great mountain fringe of tho 10,000 ft plateau on which the South Pole is situated connect with the high mountain peaks on Graham Land? It is a party of veterans whom Sir Hubert Wilkins will take to the Antarctic, and nothing will be lacking on their part to make new additions to knowledge. It was recently announced that, on account of duties which he has found at home, made by tho economic crisis, Rear-Admiral Byrd is postponing his next expedition to tho frozen South for a year. The two explorers were working simultaneously the last time that they were in the Antarctic; it seems unlikely that their efforts, to bo made by each party in the sphere that previously was the other’s, will synchronise again. Later on, in an efficient submarine, Sir Hubert Wilkins plans to perform his cruise under the Arctic ioc, which, as the cable report reads, “did not accomplish all that he intended” last year. It accomplished very little, according to the second engineer on the Nautilus, who participated iri it. “ For four weeks before the day of which the plunge under tho ice was made,” this authority‘has said, “tho men aboard knew that Sir Hubert Wilkins did not intend to make a serious attempt to reach his objective. Every man on the vessel was scared. We all knew of the poor condition of the submarine. We had lost the stern diving rudder, but regardless of this Sir Hubert Wilkins ordered us to dive. We made the dive successfully, but stayed under the ice only ten minutes. That was the only time that the ship was a submarine from the time it left America.” But the ship obviously was quite unsuited to its task. To have attempted more with it would have been suicidal.