ARCTIC EXPLORATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19292, 3 April 1926, Page 9

ARCTIC EXPLORATION.

WILKINS EXPEDITION. FLIGHT TO SUPPLY BASE. POINT BARROW SIGHTED. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received 5.5 'p.m.) A. and N.Z.-Reuter. NEW YORK. March 31. A message from Fairbanks, Alaska, states that Captain G. H. Wilkins and Lieutenant Carl Eilson left there this morning in the aeroplane Alaskan for Point Barrow. The latter is situated at the northern extremity of Alaska, 500 miles from Fairbanks. The flight route is over a range of mountains to Point Barrow, where a supply base has been established for tho expedition which is to attempt a flight, across the North Pole. The Alaskan was loaded with 30001b. of provisions. Captain Wilkins acted as navigator. The aeroplane is the smallest of the three attached to the expedition. Jt will probably return to Fairbanks tomorrow. A wireless message from Captain Wilkins reported that he had, sighted I'oint Barrow at noon. He was then fiving north at a rate of 100 miles an hour. When Captain Wilkins leaves Point Harrow he purposes flying on a giant monoplano over the "Ice Pole" and the vast region vet unknown to man. If be discovers land, he will drop a flag on it, photograph it, and leave his second plane to establish a base there while he proceeds to Spitsbergen by way of the Pole itself. To the centre of the polar tee pack no explr/rei has ever ventured. Peary, on his sledge trip to the geographical Pole, was on the other side of the sphere, as was Amundsen last year, and Nansen skirted the region in the Fram, while Stefansson followed a similar route with his dog teams. The line of flight taken by Captain Wilkins will be northwards, along tho meridian of 156 West longitude. The flaring of Captain Wilkins may be gathered from his understanding, explicitly made, that "if we fail to return, o>- to reach Spitsbergen, no rescue expedition will be sent for at least two years. We can live off the ice indefinitely, and expect to find seals as far north as the earth's top." This valuable lesson of "living on the country" Captain Wilkins learned from Stefansson. The aeroplane can cover 2500 miles without refuelling. It ir 800 miles from Barrow to the Ice Pole (that is to say, 1600 if the airman is forced to return to Cape Barrow) and 2100 miles over the Pole itself. Wireless installed on the aeroplanes will keep tho world in touch with the progress of the dash through the Arctic. Captain Wilkins was a member of the Stefansson Arctic expedition and the Shackleton expedition. He is an experienced airman. Shortly after the war he attempted to fly from London to Australia, but was forced to come down in Crete, In 1921 he was second in command of the British Imperial Antarctic expedition to Grahams Land, and recently he commanded an expedition into little-known Australia for the British Museum of Natural History. His pilot, Carl Eielson, is a university man, who has specialised in flights in Alaska and the North.