ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 November 1924, Page 14

ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

RETURN OF THE .OXFORD; PARTY GOOD WORK ACCOMPLISHED. LONDON, Sept; 24. Mr. G. Binney, leader of the Oxford University Arctic Expedition, which arrived back in the Tyne last week, has nothing but good to say of the expedition , and the health of its members. It is the third expedition with which he has been concerned. 1 . In an interview with a Morning Post representative lie confessed that lie had been rather troubled by a tendency in some quarters to make out that the expedition meant a great deal more than it really did. Reports that had appeared led people who really knew scientific .and geographical facts to think they were youthful exploiters, and not investigators. One thing they had demonstrated, he said, was that they had shown it was possible to be quite independent in movement by seaplane given a good ground engineer and plenty of spare parts. They had ‘the engineer in Captain Taylor, and they got within 600 miles of the Pole by seaplane. The results of the expedition he regarded as not unsatisfactory. Bad weather prevented them carving out their full programme, but they had crossed North Eastland by sledge, which had not been done before. They had also flown tlieir machine over North Eastland, and taken many aerial photographs, though there again they were hampered by the weather, which was often hazy. The equipment was admirable. Everything was supplied by British companies, and their food was also from British firriis, who were very, generous. Even then the cost of the expedition was £SOOO, provided by the twenty-one members who formed its personnel. The pilot of the seaplane was Mr G. Ellis, who once was nearly lost, being fifteen hours adrift. .

Mr. Binney said that living in the country, as had been suggested by a well-knowfi. explorer, was impossible so far as North Eastland was concerned. One might do so in, the summer if one fell in with bears. They made all sorts of minor biological discoveries, and shot a Bewick swan, which was obviously a stray. They mefc with a plague of yellow-flies, far larger than any other arctic fly, but of a species known in Archangel and Lapland.-These must have been blown to North Eastland, and suggested possibilities as to how life reached these latitudes. He wishes to emphasise the.fact that they did not desire to over-estimate the resists of the expedition in any way, but good scientific work had been accomplished. It had carried out all it had set out to do. The glaciology was very interesting, and had produced some results which would cast a- new light on the evolution of the ice.