ARCTIC EXPLORATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16914, 1 April 1929, Page 12

ARCTIC EXPLORATION

DR, NANSEN'S PROPOSALS PLIGHTS IST ‘ZEPPELIN

NEW' YuKK. February ■?: \ Dr. Fridtjof Nm-M-t., itet o *,i tin- t : mu j Arctic expedition n. lSib, is here, ;< ranging details of the projected 2eppc. | Wight across the North i’oie. The is I leniational Aero- Arctic Association, which he is president, has secum. the Graf Zeppelin tor lour major tiights during the "coming spring and suianie:. VV ith & down scientists chosen fiot countries that art- members of the as social ion. with 'Nansen himself ,n c. urge of the scientific work, anti Dr. Huge* Eckener in command of the dirigible, the hist flight is to bo made from Kola, !in Murmansk, to Frame. Jose: Land. > thence to the north coast of Greenland - and back. During the Fight, attempts >-ih be made to locate the souint-r: boundaries of the Polar ocean. Oan j two soundings have ever Ln-tu taken of the Arctic Ocean, or, by .c.iiuiidsc:: when he was wrecked wiui rus piano •at SSdeg. imrth m ..’Sr . ■ carer ey Sir Hubert Wdkitis wl.i . i.c . • c.e nr. emergency landing on tin u-t of; W ran geli island in 1527. I'iie Graf itep* 4 pel in can he held practically snh it. the air. and modern scuiudnig auu-i.::. cry is expected to produce a fine .- vrundings along tin * centre s.nut.c:: c-j: darv <>: the Arc;;:: Ocean. . „ it FOR MtndiA> II LAN I .

I i *U' satvim major L.gn; sr. ta«c the j ..is; straight across • no Arctic to Nome. | Alaska. The third n u consist o: a j mi as her of crossings. un .. .>; via lV;n: Barrow direct- to an . . Prom -*>- Tele a search will :«. a-uu- for Audnev Laud, which :s then gut ts lie somewhere between No- c .tv.cu Island and A ranged. The tiii.ctlAe is then to return to it* mooring mast at Nome. The last big highl is. to or mao* from Nome to Murmansk, ia search ot Nicholas 11 Land, a &earu; which is regarded •as one of the most interesting items of the entire programme.. Russia is bunding the mooring mas: at. Kola in Murmansk. The United States will build one at. Nome. Special pftvautior.s are tv be taken to pro ven: ice settling on the Graf s envelope, thus preventing a recurrence of the j tragic Italia expedition. The countries that are members of the Aero-Arctic association are Great Brit 1 ain, United States. Norway, Sweden, " Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Bus- ; sia, Spain. Holland and Belgium. USE OF DRIFT THEORY.

k . j Nansen enjoys the honor o; heme the Sirs; Arctic explorer to have earned the reputation for foolhardiness in staking . his life on an “untenable" theory that j exploration might make good use of the genera] cast-to-west drift of the Arctic ? Ocean. He induced the Gergen ship- * building industry to boild the From, and with a crew of 13 he put the ship into the ice north of Siberia in Septan- j tier, 1895, hoping to drift toward Green- i land. For a month short of three years she was locked in the ice, creeping ini- \ perceptibly across the Polar basin, while her commander and crew teat idly j aboard, with only the walruses anil; bears on the ice for company. Satisfied that his drift theory was cor- ■ reel Nansen left feet in March, 1895, at! 84 degrees north and set out. on foot- j across the ice toward the Pole. When ] he was 22S miles short of the Pole, ice j conditions turned him back. He re j treated, eating his dogs on the way, to j winter in Franz Josef Land, where he met the Jaekson-Barm-worth expedition | in 1836.