A FLOATING UTOPIA

Hokitika Guardian, 23 November 1928, Page 5

A FLOATING UTOPIA

BYRD ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION DUNEDiN, November 20.

For 12 cents (or 6d) a year 33 men are taking the Eleanor Boling, a little ship of under 500 tons, through the ice harrier to the more or less unknown Antarctic Continent. Experts in their scientific branches are working as able seamen, and automobile engineers are toiling in the engine room, while young men of culture are shovelling coal. The Eleanor Boling is a floating utopia of socialisation. Men are working contentedly and willingly for less than the price of a packet of cigarettes a year. From the captain down to the mess hoy every man has hut one ambition—to do liis share towards making the Byrd Antarctic expedition a success.

From the fully loaded holds of the Eleanor Boling tons of material were transhipped to the wharf sheds this morning, ienluding portable huts, skis and sledges.

Captain Brown left his home when 13 years of age to travel the seas for years. He has sailed in windjammers and steamers, and, now still a young man, he is commander of the base ship of the Antarctic expedition. MAPPING UNKNOWN CONTINENT. “ Really it. is hard to say what we are going to do,” said Captain A. C. McKinlay, of the U.S. Army Service, who is aerial surveyor working with Professor Gould. They intended to map as much of the unknown continent as was possible from a height of about 10,000 feet. From overlapping pictures taken from a plant piloted by Captain McKinlay, who served in France, maps will be prepared when the party returns from flights. Dressed in brown dungarees, Professor Gould, the geologist, looked far from the dignified head of the faculty of a leading American University, hut conversation revealed Professor Gould as a highly cultured, and, moreover, a young man who has packed into his years of study a tremendous amount of adventure on hoard ship. He is carrying out very unprofessorial duties but his heart is right in his present work, and the great task of geological exploration in the Far South. At the University of Michigan Professor Gould is in charge. of economic or mining geology, but the professor is already determined that when the expedition returns from the Antarctic lie will not hurry back to the States, even if lie has to miss a trip by the Eleanor Doling. GEOLOGY-AND GEYSERS. “I plan,” he said, “when I come hack from the Antarctic, to spend quite a little time in this country. I would not miss for all the world the opportunity of seeing so much that will interest me. I want to study geology and particularly geysers. There are only three great geyser countries in the world, and the one in the North Island is classed among the greatest.” He was more than interested to discuss the culture of the Maoris. He had seen a party of Maoris from the Kai' at Quarantine Island yesterday, and they seemed wonderfully intelligent people. Professor Gould, who is a man of strapping physique, was second in command of the University of Michigan’s expedition to Greenland, where he made a special study of the ice. When he reaches the Antarctic, ice conditions will he of special interest to him, and he intends to study glaciers and’ their effect on climate, but the professor has no theories to offer yet based on his Greenland observations. In all, over 5000 applications were received for passages with the Antarctic expedition, and quite a number of applications were willing to pay for the privilege of joining the party, said Professor Gould.. All his students wanted to join and assist him.