ADVENTURERS ALL

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1929, Page 11

ADVENTURERS ALL

EXPLORING THE POLES. FOUR EXPEDITIONS AT WORK. TJie icy wastes of the Arctie and Antarctic will be almost crowded this year by busy exploration parties! Crowded, that is to say, by comparison with long years of emptiness. The following article .in the Melbourne Sun News Pictorial tells of the work that is to be done in these regions. Both the North and South Poles are to be thoroughly explored this year, and tills season there will be no fewer than four expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. They will be led respectively by the veteran explorer Nansen in the North, and in the South by Byrd, Mawson and Wilkins. Curiously enough, each of these four expeditions are of a totally different kind in regard to their transport. Nansen is going to examine the region round about the North Pole from the Graf Zeppelin, the great German airship, which has just completed a record voyage round the world. Mawson’s expedition will be housed aboard the wooden ship Discovery, and will have as the scene of its operations that great unknown stretch of the Antarctic to the south of Australia. TRANSPORT CHANGES. Byrd, from his base at the Bay of Whales, in the Ross Sea, is now preparing his three great ’planes for fli S hts over the interior of the Antarctic continent; and finally, Captain Wilkins is off to Graham Land, where he has dcpoted his two ’planes in which he will seek to fly right across the Antarctic from one side to the other, where he hopes to arrive at Byrd’s .headquarters. Never before has there been such a diversity of expeditions and of means of transport; and never before has there been such activity in Polar regions. In the old days there was only one means of transport, trudging along on foot. Those were the heroic days, when men plodded along, happy to cover a few miles a day. Sometimes they took dog sledges with them, but. the difficulty was to feed the dogs, and, sooner or later, these had to be killed, and the return journey made on foot. All the great explorers of the past used dogs, including Peary, Nansen, and Amundsen. Captain Scott, on his first expedition, relied on man-hauling; Shackleton took ponies; Amundsen was indebted for his success chiefly to his wonderful dog teams; but now the popular and fashionable form of Polar exploration is from the air, since by this means an enormous area can be covered and new areas discovered. All four of the coming expeditions will employ aircraft. Up north, the Graf Zeppelin will fly slowly backwards and forwards across the impenetrable wastes, and, if convenient, landings will be made; in the South, Byrd, Wilkins, and Mawson will all employ aeroplanes. Thus, this year, for the first time, it is probable that more new geographical discoveries will be made in the short summer season than is represented by the whole of the work of previous explorers added together. A RISKY BUSINESS. Never’ before has the Antarctic been attacked from three separate directions, and since very little is yet known of the great continent itself, it is quite probable that startling discoveries may be made necessitating a complete redrawing of the maps. There are, of course, risks to be taken by those who set out in planes across these wastes of ice and snow. Wilkins’ projected flight from his base across to Byrd’s camp is one of the most venturesome feats ever attempted in the history of Polar exploration. The distance is about 2000 miles, and in the event of a forced landing, he and his companion will be entirely dependent on their own resources. They will be veritably “lost” in the Antarctic, but Wilkins has already such startling achievements to his credit that those Who know him are confident that he will be successful.