STACKHOUSE EXPEDITION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14218, 16 February 1914, Page 7

STACKHOUSE EXPEDITION.

Press Association. —Telegraph.—Copyright LONDON, February 15. Lieutenant Arthur E. Harbord, of the last Shaekleton expedition, will command the Discovery when it conveys Mr Foster Stackhouse's party to King Edward Vfl. Land next August. Mr J. Foster Stackhouse, F.R.G.S., r.ILS.ti.S., who was associated with Captain Scott in organising the voyage of the Terra Vova, commands the Brit.sh Antarctic expedition of 1911. Mr Stackhouse is a tall, broad-shouldered man, of military appearance, with that trace of com-bativcne-iS in her personality which is far from out of place in a pioneer. "Our destination i: King Kward the Seventh's Land,” he said to an interviewer, "this is a vast tract of country stretching from the Great Ice Barrier. For all wc know i.t present, King Edward’s Land may itscif be a glacier. The extent of the Great Glacier and various questions concerning it can never be determined until King Edward’s Land is thoroughly explored. The neighbourhood of Doss Sea will come within our scojjc, and our present [ fan is to go 'across ■ the line 1(10 west mid 70 south on about Christmas Day. Wc shall go west of Charcot Laud, and thence due south as far as possible. So far as is known, no Englishman has ever penetrated this region.” “The object of the expedition, Mr Stackhouse f” “Entirely scientific. The British Antarctic expedition of 1914 (1 wish to cmrtlcKKH lf«i fill! tifli.) ■ i-> im n ‘/?noli

phasise its full title) is in no sense a ‘dash to the Pole’; it is for geological and geographical exploration, and for other objects ofi a similar nature. We “hall certainly not pander to morbid curiosity by making a search for the place where Captain Scott and his brave companions are at rest. “There will be about forty of us all told, and we intend to sail from the Thames next August." “How long will you be absent?” “Ah !’’ replied Mr Stackhouse, with a smile; “that, of course, is on the knees of the gods I But if all goes well we hope to be back in about two years—that is, in August, 1919.” The ship of the expedition will be the steam yacht Polaris. She was specially built at Sandefjord, Xorway, for ice navigation. and an international committee of explorers, including Charcot, do Gorlacbe, ’Nansen, and Captain Scott inspected the de; igus. Sir Ernest Sliackleton, in the course of a conversation regarding the expedition, remarked: “There is a great deal of work still to be done in the way of Anarctic exploration, and an expedition to King Edward’s Land is particularly impmtaut. The Ximrod expedition found the June’ion between King Edward's Land and the Great Ice Barrier, and this formed the winter quarters of Amundsen. Hence I do not agree with the statement that King Edward’s Land may be a glacier. I am quite sure that it cannot ! be, since, for one thing, Captain Scott in 19(11’ drew attention to high peaks of bare j rock there, and ho was' the first to do so."