ARCTIC EXPLORATION

Grey River Argus, 1 April 1932, Page 5

ARCTIC EXPLORATION

FIRST JUBILEE 1932 Expeditions (Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn). (Received March 31 at 5.5 p.m.) LONDON. March 30. The jubilee of the first international Polar expediton will be celebrated in 1932. Many of the original partici-, pants, including Britain. Canada. France, America, Holland, Sweden and Russia are organising a r'ng of observation posts about the North Pole, and are maintaining them for several months to make meteorological, and an.oral observations. One possible result will be more accurate weather forecasts.

Britain is organising- two expedit’ons, one to Tromsoe under the leadership of Professor Appleton. and the other to Fort Rue. in Northern Can ada, where a British expedition went in 1882, and which is one of the coldest places on earth. It is even colder than the North Pole. Both expeditions are giving attention to the Heaviside Layer.

Mr J. M. Stagg is leader of the Fort Rae Party. He says he is specially in-

vestigating the supposition that the Aurora Borealis is supported sixty miles above the earth by the Heavi-

side Layer. They will attempt to establish the height of the Aurora by simultaneous photographs taken twentyfive miles apart, linked telephonically by a wire laid on the ice over th-3 Great Slave Lake.

It is interesting, in connection with the investigations, to recall the theory that the Aurora causes the fading of the beam wireless.

The Fort Rap Expedition will also be releasing p lot balloons filled with hydrogen, which will burst at a given height, and which will contain instruments for recording the details of the upper atmosphere. The instruments will later be retrieved. Across Antarctica A NEW EXPEDITION. SYDNEY, March 17. Among the recent arrivals in Australia is Mr J. Rymill, who is recuperating after a strenuous season in the icy wastes of Greenland with the British Arctic Air Route Expedition. He announced that he had been selected as a member of the new All-British Expedition which would leave in October in that famous ship, the Discovery, for the Antarctic regions. The object would be to land a little party of six. who would attempt to cross the frozen continent from on e side to the other—a feat which Shackleton failed to accomplish when he tackled it 18 years ago Shackleton and his party were not even able to set foot on the coast, for their ship was caught in the ice and crushed and sunk and th e party escaped with their lives after appalling hardships. The new expedition plans a march of 1500 miles on the ice-bound coast in the hope that they wil clear up some of the last great mysteries of this vast unknown land.

The leader of the expedition will be Mi- H. G. Watkins, the most youthful leader of any Polar party. He is not yet 25, and has already led expeditions to Spitzbergen. Labrador, and Greenland. His object now is to march across the Antarctic continent from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, thus se-_ curing for the British flag the honour of being the first to accomplish the journey. The march will be conducted in the good old-fashioned style with dog sledges, the young explorers having rejected the idea of a flight of 16 hours on the ground that such a venture would not add to the world’s knowledge. It is expected that the journey will occupy 16 weeks at an average of about 90 miles a week. It is hoped to make a thorough examination of this inhospitable country in which no living thing exists. It is believed that the whole interior is so cold that it never rains and very seldom thaws. Blizzards, which have no equal elsewhere, sweep across the void. It will be necessary for the party to take food not only for themselves, but for their 150 dogs. The first task will be to push the old Discovery into the ice and force her dow n into the head of the Weddell Sea, where, by some means or other, the party should be able to make a landing on Luitpold Land. If they are able to got a footing on the coast, the dog teams, sledges, and supplies, together with a hut, will be hurriedly taken off the ship which will then hasten to the open water before she is caught in the pack ice. The Discovery will then be taken right round the continent to the Ross Sea, there to pick up the party when it concludes its hazardous trans-continental march.

Once the party has landed it will set out to lay down depots and food on the route before the winter sets in. Thi s completed, the men will return to the coast for the long, dark winter night. In the laying down of the depots the ’expedition will experiment with motor sledges, and a n aeroplane will be used for reconnaisance work. It is not intended to approach the Polo but to explore entirely new country about which practically nothing is known. A portable wireless may be carried, but this will be of little use •'n communicating with the outer world.