BEATEN BY FORTUNE.

Evening Star, Issue 21631, 29 January 1934, Page 8

BEATEN BY FORTUNE.

The cheers of a great crowd given to Mr Lincoln Ellsworth on the return of the Wyatt Earp to Dunedin last evening -were the measure of_ the people’s sympathy with explorers who had been hard hit by fortune. The reproach of ‘ Dear Brutus ’ had no application to their failure/ It was not their fault that the aeroplane, which for flight purposes bad been tested most exhaustively in America, was disabled by the breaking of the ice beneath it before it could commence its flight. It was the perversity, if not of their “ stars,” of forces equally uncontrollable by man. Mr Ellsworth thinks that, only a vast subterranean disturbance in the South Polar regions could have accounted for the suddenness with which the ice broke up, and support is lent to that conclusion when he describes how, in fifteen minutes, five miles of the barrier had crumpled. The Indian carthquake'had nothing to do with the convulsion. That did not happen till two days afterwards. What caused the ice to “ break suddenly with a roar, as if something underneath were bumping the whole barrier,” may be understood some day when wo know more of* these southern latitudes. For the present it is only possible to accept phenomena as they happen. Mr Ellsworth speaks of the crumpling from which he suffered as “a thing that has no precedent in the history of Antarctic exploration,” but man still is only an infrequent visitor to the Antarctic, confined to short stays when he is most enamoured of its charms. ■ It is well known that great difficulties can be attendant on landing places in those unstable regions, and one of the three motor tractors taken by Captain/Scott on his last expedition was lost at the same early stage. It had been slung overboard from the yardarm, and a dozen pairs of arms had begun to haul it well away from the ship before starting up the engine, when (to quote Mr H. G. Pouting), “to the consternation of all, the ice sank under its weight and the machine disappeared. Frantic efforts were made to save it, but as the sinking motor broke the ice back to those who were hanging on to the ropes they had to let go.” The accident was regarded as a grave calamity when it happened, but, after gaining experience of the other two tractors and their ways, there were members of the expedition who thought it a greater misfortune that those did not go with it. And a worse experience may have been saved to Mr Ellsworth and Mr Balchen by the mishap which prevented them from starting on a flight which, to the ordinary man, would seem like placing an extreme trust in their “ stars.” The public would find it more easy to view the reverse in that consolatory fashion because it does not, at this stage, attach great importance to results to ho gained from all these investigations in the Antarctic—except, perhaps, from Sir Hubert Wilkins’s idea of weather stations. At the same time it can sympathise with explorers who' seek adventures and get them—of the wrong kind—too soon. The conviction it will feel that enough has been done for honour cannot so easily satisfy Mr Ellsworth and his companions. The leader does not know yet what ho will do, except that, with Mr Balchcu, he is going to America, where 1 ho plane will also go to bo repaired.

Tho ship, with Sir Hubert Wilkins, will remain hero till the new plans arc decided upon. Tho Antarctic will have cast a stronger spoil over Mr Ellsworth than stay-at-homes will bo able to understand if ho acts on ono idea that has occurred to him—that of dying his aeroplane, after it has been repaired, right down the coast of North and South America to tho Strait of Magellan, where it could be picked up by tho Wyatt Karp for a flight from Graham .Land to Weddell Sea, and from there across Antarctica to tho Ross Sea, about October or November. Hotspur might have shrunk from that adventure, but, given tho means for attempting it, he might have shrank also from Sir Hubert Wilkins’s still cherished desire of “ diving into tho bottom of the deep ” and reaching the North Pole in a submarine. No one would reproach Sir Hubert if he had had enough of submarines in the Arctic. Meanwhile Admiral Byrd is having more than his share of troubles caused by a bad season in the southern wilds, and all his resources may be tested in overcoming them.