MOTORS AND MOTORING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13095, 7 February 1906, Page 7

MOTORS AND MOTORING.

TO THE SOUTH POLL BY MOTOR CAR.

M. Henry Arctowski, the. Antarctic explorer, of Brussels, give an English paper some, further details of his daring plan to reach the mysterious regions of the South Pole. Ho proposes to do it by motor car. From the natural landing places of the Southern Haas there extends a vast field of smooth ice, which is supposed to cover the polar region without breakages or crevices —a flat field of ice as smooth as a frozen pond. Other explorers have been on that field, but they could not go fast enough to complete their explorations. Captain Scott travelled over the ice for five months, but his dogs could only make ten miles a day, and in the end he was driven back by the fear of starvation. Mr. Arctowski's solution of the difficulty is simple. Travel ten times &s fast and the Pole is reached before there is any danger of the food giving out. He proposes to do this by using motor-cars, and the idea is approved as possible both by Captain Scott and by Mr. Shackloton, who accompanied him on his long journey over the ice-field. The motor-car designed for Polar exploration will, of course, be very different from that used in towns. The wheels, for instance, are to be a foot wide, tired with leather, and studded with long protruding nails to give them a hold on the frozen snow. Under the car will run a blade shaped like a runner of a Canadian sledge, and the weight of the car will rest on that blade, and not on the wheels. The idea is (approved by the Belgian Motor Club, and experts are now designing the build of the car, and deliberating on the character and arrangement of its fuel. M. Arctowski is confident that the project will result in a notable success.