ANTARCTIC RESEARCH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18204, 27 September 1933, Page 7

ANTARCTIC RESEARCH

BYRD’S SHIP SAILS r. VALUABLE EQUIPMENT BOSTON, Sept. 25. . The barquentine Bear of Oakland; sailed on Monday for the Antarctic with scientific equipment valued at £20,000. Admiral Byrd went down the harbor in the vessel, returning with the pilot. Dunedin, New Zealand, .will be-the vessel’s base, where she will be joined by the expedition’s other vessel, Jacob Ruppert, formerly the Pacific Fir. Cargoes will be shipped at Dunedin before the vessels begin their voyage to the frozen land. Inside tho Bay of -Whales, the Bear of Oakland will land Admiral Byrd and his party of 40, who will remain there during the Antarctic winter.

A delay in the plans of Mr. Lincoln Ellsworth for his Antarctic flight will probably mean that the Byrd Expedition will be ahead of him, and that Byrd’s flight across the South Pole will bo accomplished before Ellsworth’s expedition arrives. The delay is caused by the fact that Mr.-Bernt Balchen, the noted aviator and explorer, has had. an. attack‘of citis at Capetown. Mr. Ellsw,orth did not hoar of Mr. Balchen’s illness until his return to Christchurch from the Franz Josef glacier. The message said that Mr. Balchen had undergone an operation, that he was recovering well, and that it w T as expected that the Wyatt Earp, with all equipment for the expedition, including the Northrop-Deita lowwing monoplane, would reach New Zealand about November 7.

The disarrangement of his plans has not worried Mr. Ellsworth, nor has the possibility that the other expedition will anticipate him. Admiral Byrd had not yet announced his plans, and Mr. Ellsworth said he did not know what his fellow American proposed to do. “I suppose I'm too old to w.orry about the competitive side,” he said. “I told Byrd when last I saw him that it did not matter who made the first crossing, as long as it was accomplished, and the things wo want to find out were made known. That will be the great thing.”