THE LURE OF THE POLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19217, 5 January 1926, Page 8

THE LURE OF THE POLES.

The frozen seas of the far north and the far south still exercise their spell over adventurous souls who feel the call to explore the unknown. In days gone by it was ships specially built for the work which used to disappear into the ice-fields, for months, or even for years. Sometimes they returned, sometimes they were heard of no more. When airships and aeroplanes were in the earliest stages of development it was assumed that they would make easy what had previously been full of difficulty and danger in the search for the poles. This has not been so. When, a few months ago, Captain Amundsen made his venture, it was soon evident that a dash for the pole by aeroplane was no holiday jaunt. What stirred the imagination most was the silence which reigned between the departure and return of the party. In these days of wireless it seemed full of ill-omen. Then it appeared that in stripping the aeroplanes for the final venture, wireless apparatus had been discarded to make room for other equipment held to be more essential. The adventures of the airmen after they landed showed that even with flying machines the frozen seas had not lost all their difficulties. The pole was not reached. Now another, airman-explorer, this time from the United States, is about to try his fortunes in a flight over the Arctic seas. The account he has given of his objectives shows that the polai regions are far from having yielded all their secrets even to those equipped with all that modern science can provide. There are works of exploration and possibili ties of adventure still remaining in the ice-fields even in these days when most of the world has been robbed of the glamour of the unknown.