FORGOTTEN EXPLORERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21136, 19 March 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

FORGOTTEN EXPLORERS.

MEMORY OF POLAR ADVENTURE.

FOOD STORE ON AN ISLAND. Four Norwegian boys, members of the crew of the Norkap the Second, had the experience last summer of eating food more than twice their own age. The Norkap was off the coast of Greenland with the Dudley Talcott Expedition when it was decided to put in at Pendulum Island, about 76 degrees north latitude, to hunt and take on water. Here was encountered the telltale record of the Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition which set out for the pole thirty years ago. It was a big expedition, with 45 ponies and 250 dogs and no end of equipment, apparently for a balloon ascent. It was all found abandoned on Pendulum Island: two huts, heaps of iron filings, and lead containers for sulphuric acid, as well as a large supply of food in tins. In addition there was a big pile of bronze projectiles, spiked and filled with lead, carrying an American flag on a spring. These were probably to throw out of the balloon to mark its route, and to claim the region for the country of the explorers. The members of the Talcott Expedition sampled the food and found most of it good. No one was ill after eating it. Back in Norway they made inquiries as to the earlier venture and succeeded in getting in touch with an old man who had taken part in it. His account of it was far from clear. "Yes. yes; they failed. Nothing came of it. I remember we had to kill the ponies to feed the dogs, and then we got stuck. It seemed rather a mad idea. Yes, yes; we were glad enough to get back. One does not count the cost of lost equipment at a time like that." That was as much as the old sailor would say.