SOUTH POLE EXPEDITION.

Southern Cross, Volume 9, Issue 4, 27 April 1901, Page 9

SOUTH POLE EXPEDITION.

The Discovery, writes Mr H. Leach, in the Daily Mail, is one of the finest ships that have ever been constructed for Polar exploration. Under the supervision of Mr R. Paterson, of the Dundee Shipbuilders’ Company, and periodically of the chief officers of the expedition, she has been built in a yaad which has great traditions in the way of Polar ships, and it is indeed a curious circumstance that she is the second of her name which has been made there. Her predecessor went northwards to the other Pole. She is unique because no other British ship has ever been built in this way, especially for Antarctic exploration. In the first place, this boat, which is costing £50,000, and which, from a scientific and practical point of view, is worth every penny of

it, is made entirely of wood, while a necessary condition of her constt action was that she should be far stronger than any ordinary navigating 1 boat, and should be able to withstand extraordinary pressures from ice that would crush up a common trading vessel like a match-box.

Iron was barred for the simple reason that in the very forefront of the expedition’s programme is magnetic survey work of a most, important description, as the result of which it is trusted that navigation in the tar Southern seas will in the future be much assisted. It is certain that at present iron ships in these waters sail many miles out of their way, and an iron exploratiou ship would be useless for such purposes. The magnetic pole must be wooed in a wooden craft. Geographical discovery and geological and biological investigation are also important among the expedition’s objects, but to the commercial mind it is probable that the one first named will appeal with the most force.

There was, then, a problem presented in which a ship was to be made of wood, and so made that she would be stronger and safer than any sheathed in iron plates, and it has been very satisfactorily solved. Nine feet of solid oak in the Discovery’s stem provide the solution in the allimportant forequarters, and the sides all the way round are two feet six in thickness, of oak also—not ordinary oak, but grand stuff grown in Scotland itself and picked with care for its very special purpose. Bulkheads of unusual strength stretch across from side to side, so that when the terrible ice pressure is at its worst the defence may be positively all that is possible in wood. But it will not stop at that. While she will have these yards of timber in her bows and feet of it in her sides, sbe will be no clumsy, barge-looking bulk, but a really dapper little craft of the whaler pattern, and one which is as full of ice tricks as she can be. The Antarctic will find it has a harder nut to crack in the Discovery than it has ever tried its icy teeth upon before. The polar fiends may try to circumvent her endways and freeze big solid lumps of iee upon her, as they have done to venturesome vessels which have been seen in those parts before, but they will find that the Discovery knows all about that, and has had her shape cut accordingly. Or they will very likely try another test upon her, and see if they cannot ‘ nip ’ her in closing ice and hold her fast. But the' Discovery is prepared for that also, for a peculiarity in the fashooing of her makes her so that when the ‘nipping’ begins the vessel rises, and she lifts herself away. The rudder and the screwpropeller are more or less indispensable, and the Antarctic may attempt to get them. In that case another resource would be called upon, and the pair of them would be hauled on deck as if they were merely sounding leads.

These are only a few of tricks of this wily Discoverer. She has air locks between her exterior and interior, so that those who enter and leave the vessel will not disturb the cheery warm atmosphere that comforts those within. And she has cabins and work-rooms and laboratories and wonderful storerooms of such capacity that food for forty for three years will be stowed away inside them. That is the Discovery. It is well understood that she has a German ally, which will be sent out with her next August by the Kaiser. Both the Discovery and her German friend will carry with them captive balloon equipments and plenty of dogs. Of the latter, the Kaiser’s ship will have fifty kennels on board, while the Britisher will take twenty Sarnoyedes, which are being specially chosen and sent from Russia. It is just a possibility, if certain difficulties can be overcome, that the expedition may seek to avail itself of wireless telegraphy, for Captain Scott is highly skilled in this respect, and has had charge of such arrangements in Channel Squadron manoeuvres.