THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1929. NANSEN-ONCE MORE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20372, 28 September 1929, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1929. NANSEN-ONCE MORE.

It is announced by Dr. Nansen that next April ho will lead an expedition to the North Polo by airship. Sir Hubert Wilkins, according to a message from New York, sets off thence to-day for tho Antarctic. Meanwhile, Sir Douglas Mawson's expedition to the Australian quadrant of the frozen-South has begun, and news comes from Commander Byrd's party that the rigours of their base within the Antarctic Circle are testing their endurance as they wait for conditions favourable for their exploratory plans. From these related items of news from the polar regions, north and south, there emerge reminders of the seriousness of the self-chosen quests amid snow and blizzard, and also the magic lure that these regions have for men of intrepid spirit. How strong is the lure has impressive proof in the way in which, time and again, men who have once tasted the zest of polar adventure return to tho fray undeterred by either their own or others' experience of hardship and peril. Of late, Nansen's name has been so closely linked with the work of the League of Nations that his setting out yet again for the North Pole has been deemed unlikely: his vocation seemed to call him to tasks nearer home. Mawson long ago won his spurs, but he too must have his " one fight more." Wilkins and Byrd, though relatively young, have great achievements to their credit; yet the spell is on them and perforce they plan and strive as of yore. Pathetically confirmatory of tho quenchless eagerness was Amundsen's hurrying off to the relief of the stricken Italia, to go into the calling battle and be seen no more. Stay-at-home mortals can wonder and applaud: only they who have followed the gleam of polar beckoning can understand.

Of Nansen, a man of many partsprofessor of zoology, politician engrossed in the problem of relating Scandinavia's kingdoms to each other, Norwegian representative in London, diplomat in League business and director of much of its social relief, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize—none could blame him if he continued to devote his great talents to quiet international service for a year or two and then took his ease. Sixty-eight years of age and gifted to produce scripts for younger men's acting, he might have been proudly content to prompt from the wings. Instead he comes " down stage centre," taking his old role to the manner born, girt and dominating as of old. It is a little amazing, whatever is known of the fascinating lure of the poles. At twenty-one he was early afloat for the North Pole, to come back baffled but with his young ardour strengthened. Six years later he was away into Greenland with Sverdrup, leading an expedition across the unknown and, as it proved, uninhabited tract till then the subject of many a guess as to what lay hidden. Next, having the blessing of the Royal Geographical Society, he set out to test for himself the discussed possibility of drifting with the ocean currents across the roof of the world. Is it not thrillingly written in the story of the Fram, a saga fit to rank with any ever told of Viking prowess] Exhausted and in dire straits, his party spent nearly a year at bay in Franz Joseph Land, till the Jackson expedition found them and the Fram, was brought back safe and sound to a reverberating welcome. Thereafter, Nansen was busy with his travel books and his university lectures, his Scandi-. navian politics and his ambassadorial duties, hut there were intervals filled with the old occupations —a hydrographical survey on the east of Greenland and a journey to Spitzbergen and Bear Island—until the aftermath of war called for the grim and patient gleaning he proved so well able to organise. Thus his career, albeit it seemed likely to end in definite philanthropic service for Europe's war-ravaged needy and perplexed, has been marked by an almost constant zeal for Arctic discovery and investigation. His methods have changed with the contriving of new means of polar travel, ski, dog-train, ship and aircraft taking their places in his plans, but the northern field has abidingly held his heart.. Now, should all go well with this fresh essay, his career will be crowned in the realm to which he has been so unswervingly loyal. He looks on this new expedition as the most important of that career. Well he may, for his plan is to travel by the Graf Zeppelin on a round cruise of the Arctic regions—not a long voyage, by any means, but one designed to settle some important questions, particularly those of the, distribution of land and water within the Arctic Circle and of the depths of the polar sea. In one respect, although it will profit from much revealed by other expeditions, it will be pioneer in nature. None can imagine his being content merely to follow where others have gone. As with the more recent projects of the Antarctic, this flight by the Arctic; veteran is designed in part to lead to the establishment of meteorological stations, equipped with wireless facilities, in permanent and semi-permanent locations round the circle. The value of such a chain of observation posts, as a means of weather forecasting in adjacent occupied countries, is now rated high: thus Nansen's quest promises to confer enduring benefit. Romance remains as an element in all these ventures, and hazards enough to satisfy the boldest have yet to bo faced. From the days of the first search for a North-west Passage, however, right on to these quests of our own time, a nobly utilitarian purpose has been increasingly in explorers' minds. Acknowledging this, all civilised peoples in the world will wish the veteran well when ho sets out.