FUTURE AIR ROUTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20622, 22 July 1930, Page 11

FUTURE AIR ROUTES.

OLD AND NEW WORLDS. WORK OF EXPEDITIONS. GREENLAND AND ARCTIC. [FROM O UII OWN CORRESPONDENT.] VANCOUVER. June 23. The most practical air route of the future between the Old and New Worlds, according to geographers and Arctic scientists, it via Greenland, A BritishCanadian expedition will set out from London next week to survey this route and make further studies of the ice cap. A Danish scientific party is there already, intending to spend a year in Greenland.

The Canadian Government is equipping a special expedition to make an air route survey from Winnipeg, through Hudson May, to Baffin I,and, possibly including Labrador. The British expedition will pay much attention to meteorology. According to Stefansson, the mean winter temperature of Central Greenland is much lower than that of the North Pole, corresponding to conditions in Siberia, where the lowest readings have been recorded. There is said to be comparatively little fog away from the coast. The Danish party, financed by the German Scientific Kxploration Society, has the services of Professor Wegener, a noted authority on the region, who will use Iceland ponies, dogs and motor sledges for transport. The summer is to bo spent establishing camps, one on each coast and one on tho ice cap, where temperatures of more than 70 below zero are recorded. Professor Wegener says lie has already proved that the depth of the inland ice is 3600 ft., and that he believes it is 30,000 ft. in some places. He will endeavour to learn what effect tho "cold air centre," with its violent storms, has on the climate of Western Europe, and North America. The German Government are asking him to pay particular attention to Greenland as a route for airships.

All air route has already been tentatively mapped out by Professor Hobbs, of the Michigan University, who two years ago, established a weather observatory at Mount Evans, Greenland. His route lies from Chicago by way of Shelter Bay on the north shore of the »St. Lawrence, to Hamilton Jnlct; Labrador, thence to South-west Greenland to Mount Evans, over the ice cap to the east coast, thence 370 miles to Reykjavik, Iceland, with another 240 miles to the Faroe Islands.

The only successful flight by the. northern route was made in 1924, by the United States Army aviators, who Hew from England to the Orkney Islands, thence 800 miles to Iceland, on to Labrador and down the coast to New England.

Supplementing these expeditions will be the annual tour of the Canadian Government. with the steamer Beothic, whose survey will be mainly in the Arctic regions around Baffin Land.