FAMOUS EXPLORER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21758, 24 March 1934, Page 14

FAMOUS EXPLORER

. SIB HUBERT WILKIN S LECTURES IN AUCKLAND POLAR SUBMARINE VOYAGE "I am not a real explorer, but I wanted to discover things," was the very modest remark with which Sir Hubert Wilkins introduced himself in the absorbingly interesting cinematograph lecture which ho delivered for the first time in Auckland at the Majestic Theatre yesterday. The lecture, which was illustrated with remarkably fine films; taken mostly by Sir Hubert himself, described his extraordinary adventures in the Arctic and Antarctic within the past decade, particularly in traversing unknown icebound regions by aeroplane. It ended with a graphic account, pictorial and verbal, of his voyage beneath the Arctic ice in the submarine Nautilus. Sir Hubert explained that he had been led into the polar regions in the pursuit of a life-study of winds and their influence upon such climatic variations as the unexpected droughts in Australia, his native land. In the course of this study he found that many localities where it was necessary to make observations were blank spaces on the map. They had to be "discovered" before anyone could live there. Ellsworth Expedition Film

In a brief account of his adventures with the ill-fated Stofansson Arctic Expedition from 1913 to 1917, the lecturer said that Stefansson first suggested to him .the use of a submarine for exploring the Arctic Ocean, pointing out that there were many cracks in the ice which covered it. In 20,000 miles of flying in the Arctic he had failed to find any signy of land, The North Pole, in fact, was sot in a mediterranean soa, whereas the South Pole was situated in a great and lofty land mass. The Arctic Ocean contained no icebergs, which had their origin in the south of Greenland. The first film shown by the lecturer was one of the recent Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition. This depicted a trial flight of the monoplane in which Mr. Lincoln Ellsworth hoped to fly from the Ross Sea to the Weddell Sea and back, only to have his plans wrecked when the pack-ice gave way beneath the machine and damaged it so badly that the expedition had to return to New Zealand. The mishap was well depicted. From this the lecturer went back to his expedition in 1928 to Point Barrow, in Northern Alaska, with two Fokker monoplanes, the larger of which, he said, was the famous Southern Cross,, then known as the Detroit. In the film of this expedition were some magnificent pictures of the flight over the 9000 ft. Endicott Range in Alaska. Grazed a Mountain Peak

Sir Hubert related that once the heavily-laden aeroplane just grazed the snow on the top of a peak. "If we had been six or eight inches lower, I should be still on the peak," he remarked. "No one could ever have got there to rescue us." , - . Some of the difficulties of Arctic flying were shown in views of .damaged aeroplanes. With the aid of a map, Sir Hubert briefly described his flight with Carl Eilson from Point Barrow across the rim of the polar basin to Spitzbergen, a distance of 2500 miles, which they covered in 20J hours. He said that the mountains of Spitzbergen were completely hidden by a blizzard and they "were very lucky to make a safe landing. Next, Sir Hubert showed viewa taken on his expedition to the South Shetlands, in the course of which he discovered from the air 1500 miles of new coast, pushed the coastline back 800 miles, and proved that Graham Land was not part of a continent, but merely a series of islands. Some of the new mountainous islands discovered wero depicted as seen from the aeroplane. Under Arctic Ice The last film dealt with the voyage of the Nautilus in 1931. Sir Hubert's narrative, which followed tho picture stage by stage, told of tho damage the submarine received in crossing the Atlantic, of how an American battleship towed her into Queenstown and how Bhe was repaired in dock at 'Devonport. Other views showed her amid the Arctic ice and 1 the taking of hydrographie and other observations by the scientists aboard. ' n

A most interesting series of pictures was that of the under-surface of the pack-ice taken from a porthole as the vessel moved along. Sir Hubert said that the light passing through the ice and water made the loveliest colour effects he had ever seen in nature. Myriads of air bubbles shone like diamonds, sot in opals. He looked forward to exploring tho Arctic Ocean again, but in a submarine designed and built specially for the purpose,. Tho pictures included many entertaining scenes of Eskimo life in Northern Alaska and studies of penguins, seals and polar bears. Sir Hubert will lecture twice daily for the next week.