SHACKLETON

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4577, 1 May 1922, Page 4

SHACKLETON

NANSEN'S FINE TRIBUTE, EXPLORATION AND ARCTIC PROBLEMS. Some time before Sir E. Shackleton thought of starting on his last great adventure in the Quest ho went to Norway to discuss with Dr. Nansen plans for a North Pole expedition. He was then, Dr. Nansen recalled in an interview with a representative of the Observer, negotiating for a ship, and was thinking of exploring at outset the unknown regions north of Canada. Dr, Nansen agreed with Sir Ernest that it".would bo a splendid thing to do, and would mo doubt yield results of the greatest value to\ science. i But it was not the North Pale that was to see the end of Sir Ernest's adventures. Something happened to interfere with those early plans. Sir Ernest returned from Norway, took a walk one morning in Portman Square, and met by the merest accident an old Dulwich schoolboy whom ho had not seen for 30 years. This was Mr Rowett, who greeted him with tho question "You're Shackleton, aren't] you?" and forthwith invited him'to his place in Sussex, and made everything posible for the expedition, which was to be his last, among the little known islands of the Atlantic and Pacific, and the unchartered seas of the South Pale.

"One of Shackleton's great gifts," Dr Nansen said, "was that of overcoming difficulties. In nothing was it shown more clearly than in tho expedition which had for its object the crossing of the South Polar Continent. When the expedition met with disaster and the Endurance was crushed in the ice, ho got his crew, after the most appalling difficulties, to Elephant Island and managed, after overcoming further hardships still, to get them back—a perfectly wonderful achievement." Recalling the incredible difficulties of that expedition and the heroic courage by which they were vanquished, one's thoughts turned (said Dr Nansen) to another great note in Shackleton's character—the incessant longing he had to return to these perilous wastes. No one, lie o'neo told his "friend, Commander Locker-Lampson, who has not visited Polar regions and como under their magic influence could justly appreciate their call. 'lt is the same with all explorers," Dr Nansen said; "the attraction of the unknown is enormous. And the call is not confined to explorers. We all feel tho attraction of the unknown and of unknown problems. Their solution is what we are all working for. The interest of the man of science in tackling his problem in the laboratory is as great as that of the explorer in unknown lands. No one knows what is ahead of him; but we all wish to know. To reach the goal of the unknown is our great desire.