A BRITISH ACHIEVEMENT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 181, 3 July 1931, Page 6

A BRITISH ACHIEVEMENT.

While in the past week American aviators have been spanning- oceans and flying across vast continents, it must thrill the British race to learn that Mr F. S. Smytlie and other members of his small Himalayan Expedition have reached the highest summit conquered by man. This is Mount Kamet, 25,447 feet, and more than a thousand feet higher than Mount Jonsong, which was climbed last year by six members of the Dylirenfurth Expedition, whose objective was Kanclienjunga, acknowledged to be the most difficult peak in the world. This has well been described as the age of the machine. Having adapted it to his use,' man has records to his achievement which, even in a century remarkable for its tremendous scientific advance, can still thrill a world which has had a bewildering succession of victories over Nature. A few weeks ago a Belgian sicentist soared very nearly ten miles above the earth into rarefied regions unknown hitherto to man, yet to most people his remarkably daring and wholly successful flight—it has been officially recognised—is but a memory awakened when somebody recalls it to mind. So it is with most achievements. But, notwithstanding the twentieth century preference for the machine, it is pleasing to know there are men prepared to undergo extreme physical hardships in one of the most fascinating branches of exploration, and m an area where Nature hurls its defiance —the Himalayan Mountains. An experienced mountaineer, Mr Smytlie was a member of the Kanclienjunga party, and his present expedition is the first British one since the Mount Everest Expedition of 1924. Mount Kamet has nine times resisted the attempt of men to stand on its summit, but at the tenth mountaineering skill and physical endurance have won their reward. Men have climbed higher on the slopes of Mount Everest, both by the use of artificial oxygen and by their own personal effort, but never before, in two successive years, have summits of_ the height of Jonsong and Kamet been reached.