PLIGHT TO NORTH POLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18158, 2 August 1922, Page 7

PLIGHT TO NORTH POLE.

AMUNDSEN'S VENTURE. POSTPONEMENT FOR YEAR. United Sorrico. LONDON, July 31. The following wireless message was received from Captain Raold Amundsen at Nome, on Saturday : "Ju6t returned to our position from Point Lay, where v?e found the ice broken up. In order so eave time the Maud will proceed from Point Hope to her drift across the Polar Basin, while Lieutenant Omdal, Lieutenant Lund, and mysielf are <joing aboard an American steamer whither the big aeroplane has already been transferred, to Point Barrow. On account of the advanced season and unfavourable conditions our flight across the Polar Basin may bo postponed until next Jane, in which case Lund and myself will winter at Point Barrow, and ask the Spitzbergen authorities to keep in touch with the Maud. All well."

Captain Raold Amundsen is making hia second attempt to drift across the Polar 'basin in the vicinity of the North Pole. In July, 1918, financed by the Norwegian Government and King Haakon, he left ! Christiania and entered the Arctic through [ Behring Strait in the fall of the sa.me | year, intending to freeze in with the ice- . pack and drift across the Polar Sea. However, the vagrant ice floes moved to the west then eastward, instead of to the north, and the Maud lost its propeller near Cape Serge, Siberia, in October, 1921. Snort of supplies, Captain Amundsen returned to Nome, Alaska, and from there to the United States. Returning to Norway, Captain Aimind sen perfected plans to continue, his search for the North Polo. There he procured the services of a Norwegian Army flight officer to pilot the aeroplane, an all-steel JL-6 aeroplane, obtained in New York, which held the endurance riiicord. having made a non-stop flight of 2400 miles a few months previously. Because of iU bulk, the machine was to be flown across the American continent before being dismantled and stowed away in the Maud. Unfortunately, it was wrecked on the trip, but this did not alter Amund- j s«n's plans, and the large aeroplane earned will bo able to take the whole crew out of the Arctic, should the ship be crushed in the ice. Another modern invention with which the ship is equipped is a longrange wireless outfit, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this Arctio voyage, far from being the lonesome venture of earlier explorers/will be relieved by frequent exchange of news or other information with the centres of civilisation. The Maud has been fitted with a device for lifting its propeller when it is frozen into the Polar icepack, thus making impossible a repetition of the last mishap. When the ship is ready to proceed under its own power the propeller will be lowered agnin into the water. 1 It is believed by scientists that the Polar icepack, vast as a continent, 18 carried across the North Pole from this Pacific to the Atlantic and back again m . cvcles of three to five years. Many ships 1 lost in the icei on the Pacific side o. the Arctic have been disgorged by the floes, i vears later, on the Atlantic stde. Once in the grip of the floes, the ex-' plorers will have nothing to do but drift, 1: make observations, and rather magnetic ■ and meteorological data. New lands may bs '(discovered and claimed, and it 10 possible I rich mineral deposits will be found. TheS6 will accrue to the kingdom of Norway, under whose flag the Maud sails. ' The personnel of the party comprises 11 I men : Captain Amundsen, commander: II Captain Oskar Wisting, personal friend .' of the explorer and his companion on the , South Pole trip: Dr. H. V. Svcrdrup, . an eminent Norwegian scientist; the pilot 1 of the aeroplane, and a crew of seven Siberian Eskimo bailors, who have remained with the Maud since the last unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole. Although provisions enough to Inst seven years are carried, Captain Amundren believes his ship will emerge in the Atlantic Ocean within three to five years. It is expected the ship will reach a point nearest the Pole in the early spring of 1924.