WILKINS EXPEDITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19617, 22 October 1925, Page 9

WILKINS EXPEDITION

EXPLORING THE ANTARCTIC. PURCHASE OF AN AEROPLANE. Press Association —By Telegraph—'topyrleln LONDON, October 20. In connection with his forthcoming Antarctic expedition, Captain Wilkins has received generou.s support from Mr W. S. ivobiuson and Mr H. B. Howard Smith, and ho is ■ anxiously awaiting available funds from the Geographical Society at Adelaide to enable him to complete the purchase of Captain Amundsen's aeroplane (N2sj on Thursday; otherwise lie will be forced to try later to buy a new machine, entailing an additional cost of at least £SOOO.—A. and N.Z. Cable. Captain Wilkins proposes to establish seven fully-equipped observatories on the edge of the Antarctic Continent, and five sub-Antarctic stations on islands that are suitably placed. Each observatory will bo in daily communication with the neighbouring observatories and with one ox three collecting stations at Melbourne, Capetown, or Buenos Aires. These stations, if maintained simultaneously and continuously for a period of 10 years, will give a great deal of information that* may prove of inestimable value. The collecting stations at Melbourne, Capetown, and Buenos Aires will each have four observatories under their control, and by means of wireless they will communicate their deduced information to the British Meteorological Office, London, where _it will be collated with meteorological information from other parts of the world. Three ships will be required, and, working from the three collecting stations, they will carry supplies and changes of staff to the Antarctic observatories, and at the same time collect biological information of importance to the whaling and fishing industry. Captain Wilkins also proposes that observing aeroplanes should be attached to the Antarctic stations. '