DR NANSEN TO LEAD ZEPPELIN EXPEDITION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18874, 26 September 1929, Page 4

DR NANSEN TO LEAD ZEPPELIN EXPEDITION.

WILL MAP UNKNOWN ARCTIC REGIONS FROM GERMAN AIRSHIP. (United Press Assn. —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, September 25. “I look upon the expedition as the most important in my career,” said Dr Fridtjof Nansen, who will lead the Graf Zeppelin, that has been lent to him by the German Government, to the North Pole in mid-April. The crew will be the same as accom* panied the airship on the tour round the world, with Captain Lehmann as naxdgator. Full Arctic equipment, including twenty dogs and sledges will be carried.

The expedition will start from Tromso and travel westward over Spitzbergen and North Greenland to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, thence to Fairbanks. This should occupy four to five days. After refuelling, the airship will make a cruise of the Arctic regions for another four or five days, returning to Fairbanks, thence homeward via Northern Siberia.

Dr Nansen hopes to determine the distribution of land and water in the Arctic Circle, also to map any new land sighted. It is known that the Arctic Pole is situated in the ocean, but the depth of the oceaui has not yet been properly measured. Dr Nansen explained that sea depths would be measured by an in genious apparatus that would be lowered from the airship into the ice-cracks and water-lanes to see what could be found. He described the expedition as more or less of a pioneer trip, probably leading to the establishment of a chain of permanent and semi-permanent wirelessly equipped meteorological posts all round the Arctic Circle. These would

incalculably assist the forecasting of weather in Northern Europe and the British Isles.—Australian Press Association.