EXPLORERS’ ENERGY PRAISED BY “TIMES.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18643, 24 December 1928, Page 4

EXPLORERS’ ENERGY PRAISED BY “TIMES.”

WILKINS HAS TRUE GEOGRAPHER’S PASSION. (United Press Assn.-—By Electxio Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, December 22. Commenting on Sir Hubert Wilkins’s Antarctic feat, “The Times” says: “ After having no sleep for forty hours, and after a flight of 1200 miles, not many people would have the energy on returning to the base to sit down and write home about it. It is no wonder Sir Hubert Wilkins and Lieutenant Eielson were tired and weary, but no fatigue would be likely to prevent them sending a message as early as possible announcing the solution of a disputed question which has puzzled geographers for centuries. Graham Land is found to be an island. It is separated from the great polar continent by an ice-filled channel. That may now be taken as established fact.

“ Sir Hubert Wilkins has long had intimate practical knowledge of conditions of Arctic and Antarctic, travel. It is not only the call of the ice, but the true geographer’s passion for accuracy and detail in mapping out the surface of the globe that has induced him to add to the 18,000 miles he has already flown in Polar regions, with Lieutenant Eielson for a companion. It is already evident that the flights still to be undertaken for sites of meteorological stations will be by no means easy, but Sir Hubert is thinking less of the risks than of the benefits which may result from their adventurous sallies into the unknown, and, after the invariable practice of men of their kind, their final conclusion is that the luck still holds.”—Australian Press Association.