SOUTH POLE RESEARCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15548, 4 March 1914, Page 9

SOUTH POLE RESEARCH.

CLAIM BY AN AUSTRIAN.

SHACKLETON'S EXPEDITION.

By Telegraph.—Press Associations-Copyright.

Vienna, March 2. Replying on a claim of priority of plans, Dr. Felix Koenig, the Austrian explorer, considers that Sir Ernest Shackleton is not justified in selecting the same landing-place in the Weddell Sea as has been chosen by the Austrian party. He emphasises the danger of a collision in connection with the depots.

TASK BEFORE EXPLORERS. Koenig's expedition will specially explore the country round the Weddell Sea and Enderby Land. The party will sail on the steamer Oesterreich in June. A wireless station will be established on the island of South Georgia, and three sleighing parties will ' be sent out towards the Queen Maud Mountains (seen and. named by Captain Amundsen), Graham Land, and Enderby Land. The Oesterreich will remain in the bay which was found in the Ice Barrier by the German party of 1911, while the headquarters of the party will be six miles inland. The expedition will make a stay of .two years, its main object being to discover the mutual relations of the eastern and western sections of the Antarctic. Sir Ernest Shackleton's party of explorers will leave Buenos Aires in October next. Th» intention is to cross the South Polar Continent from sea to —from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. The first part of the journey—that from the Weddell Sea to the South Pole—will take the expedition over a tract of frozen country on which no man has ever' looked. By the time the distance of 1700 statute miles has been covered, and the travellers emerge once more into the familiar world, they will have acquired a great deal of fresh knowledge. In order that this may be of the fullest ahd most exact character, Sir Ernest Shackleton is taking with him trained biologists, geologists, and physicists. The ships are to be equipped for sounding and dredging, and it is hoped to bring back live penguins and seals, which have not hitherto been taken from the Antarctic Tegions.