WELLMAN'S AIRSHIP.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13674, 17 August 1906, Page 5

WELLMAN'S AIRSHIP.

THE POLAR EXPEDITION POSTPONED. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. CIIRISTIANIA, August 16. (Received August 16, at 9.54 p.m.) Private Spitsbergen advices state that Mr Welllman, owing f 0 the lateness oE the season, has abandoned liis proposed balloon voyage to the Pole for the present year. The expedition was to have left Snilzowcen (lus summer. It was lo have been made ,„ a . mUMo ..„,; ()f ,j Couds - a navigable balloon with accommodation for a crew ami passengers. 11. ■s liferent from anything ever built More. An airship with sleeping bcrlhs and a living room seems at lirsl siplit too ?ood to be true, but Mr Wollman has arranged it in the stool car which hangs under ii, c gas-lmg. The cenlre part is wallet) in with basket-work and made into a little room some 12ft square, with bunks just like a small yacht cabin. In a corner suhicient food for five men for 75 davs lias been compressed into a box of 16 cubic feet, that is, with ;„ side of about 30in. Hie car also carries motors capable of producing 80 lwren-power. ft small slcel boat 16ft long, all necessary instruments and tools, over 50001b of gasolene, andlatest invention of Arctic, explorers— motor sledges. These are driven bv a large toothed wheel, which grins the ice. rather m the fashion of the ratchet wheel on mountain railways. When there is any need to make an expedition over ice these can bo lot down the 400 ft or SOOfl that the balloon is supposed to keep above water level. The propellers arc capable of producing a speed of 19 miles an hour— that is, nearly 500 miles a dav. In an interview Mr Wellnian hold out the most sanguine hopes of success. ■""■""—'i ■ ""■-