POURQUOI-PAS WRECK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19126, 22 September 1936, Page 12

POURQUOI-PAS WRECK

DR. JEAN CHARCOT A GALLANT EXPLORER i■ • “ Recent cable news from Copenhagen recorded the wreck of the French Polar expedition’s barque; Pourquois-pas and the loss of Div .lean Oharcot, • seven French scientists and a crew of 25, all French. * Dr. Jean Baptiste Etienne Charcot was born in 1867, atid commanded the French Antarctic Expeditions of 1903-5 and 1908-10. The latter expedition sailed in the Pourquois-pas and mapped a new coastline at 70 degrees south, also Graham Land. Adelaide Island, Alexander Land, and Deception'lsland. Much work was also .done in oceanography, temperatures being investigated and the sea bottom explored. The* expedition returned to Rouen in June, 1910. Dr. Charcot Was an accomplished yachtsman as well as a man of science, and in I£o4 he investigated the Antarctic. seas in the Francais, the expedition oeing equipped at his own instance. He cruised along the western side of Graham Land", but suffered a mishap to his ship and had to return after reaching 67 degrees south. DISTINGUISHED WAR SERVICE President of the French Yacht Cluh, Dr. Charcot commanded the auxiliary cruiser Meg (a British ship) during the Great War, and later had command of a French phantom boat. He won the D.S.C. and the French Croix de Guerre with palms. He took up the study of navigation, bacteriology, and oceanography as hobbies, and after the war commanded the ship on cruises almost every year. Various Ministers or learned societies sponsored these cruises, which took place in the summer, and ' were to tbe northern polar regions, the' Atlantic, or the Mediterranean. The ship, a barque of immense strength, -was specially built at Dr. Charcot’s design in 1908 by Gautier at .Saint Malo. She was fitted with laboratories of all kinds, and carried strange and powerful- dragsMoreover, she had a scientific and technical library, of about 1500 books. She was of 449 tons, 139 ft. long, 31ft. broad, and had a 40 h.p. auxiliary engine. Her crew usually consisted oi 25 men, including six officers, who were generally scientists. OBJECT OF VOYAGE Dr. Charcot sailed for Angmagsalik during the present summer to take back to France the French trans-Greenland expedition, comprising Dr. Robert Gessain, M. Michael Perez, and M. PaulEmile Victor, which left Paris in April on an official mission sponsored by the Trocadero Museum ot' Ethnography, after its difficult trek of approximately 1000 kilometres' across the “ice desert’’ of Greenland. . Upon its arrival in May a,t C'hristianshaab, on the western coast, ■ the expedition, which had been joined by the young Danish artist Count igel Knuth, established a base camp at the edge of the immense ice desert which covers most of the island. The Eskimos who aided them in the establishment of the camp and the transport of the materials, recently returned to Chri.stiaushaab, and it. was they who relayed the telegram announcing the departure.

The route followed by the four young explorers,- who were travelling without the aid of native guides, was roughly that followed by the English explorer, Mr. Martin Lindsay, in 1934. it lies across the ice track and interior mountain ranges at an altitude from 2000 to 3000 metres) and was being made with dog sledges on skis.

It was estimated that seven to eiglit weeks would be required for' the crossing, during which time ; ; the expedition would he cut off from communication with the outer world. The announcement of their departure was, therefore, their last message until they reached Aug maksalik, their destination on the eastern coast.