New York to Paris.

Progress, Volume III, Issue 10, 1 August 1908, Page 346

New York to Paris.

There are still persons who imagine that somebody now Hying or crawling, or weeping, after a breakdown somewhere in Northern Siberia is destined to win the famous New York to Paris trophy. The trophy was withdrawn because the indispensable features of the trip across Alaska and Behring Strait, the latter on the ice, were left out of the programme by the competitors who coolly steered for San Francisco. and from there sailed for Vladivostock. with intent to travel up the Siberian road alongside the railway line, striking at Lake Baikal the trail followed by Prince Borghese and his companions in the Pekin to Paris expedition of last year. But though these motorists do not deserve generous treatment, they have been very generously treated, for the committee of their race has set aside for their encouragement, three prizes— of £240, £120. and £40— for first. second and third cars on arrival at Paris from Vladivostock. One wonders why this encouragement of what, after the Borghese feat, is a mere advertising show. The only answer we can see to the question is that as the dense ignorance of matters Siberian on the part of the committee misled the even more densely ignorant motorists into actually starting for Alaska, Behring Strait, the ice packs of the Arctic, and the Tundra-, of Northern Siberia, the committee has felt it right to make some little compensation. The ignorance was encyclopedic. Firstly the surface of Behring Strait is never completely frozen over, the tremendous strength of the tides forcing the opening of long channels of water. Secondly, the ice is for the most part piled up in hummocks and pinnacles. Moreover, the ice along the Siberian coast is rugged beyond the power of any motor. Thirdly, there are 4000 miles of Northern Siberia too swampy to be negotiable in summer, and too rough for winter wheels. Fourthly. Alaska consists of mountains far too difficult for motors. In winter a motor might get down to the coast on the frozen surface of the Yukon, but in winter the world up there is pitch dark; and the motor could not tackle the "leads," "hummocks." "pinnacles" and "crevasses" of Behring Strait any better in the dark than in the garish summer light of the midnight sun. W II de Windt made his celebrated reindeer sledge journey through these regions not many years ago, and wrote a remarkably ra<'\ book of Ihe same. In the face of that book, the dense ignorance of Ihe committee is amazing. Here is an extract that ought to have stopped the project at its inception : — "Between this (East Cape. Siberia) and Svednikolyrrmki. ,1 tiny settlomciit of ,hri]fstarved natives and political exiles, there are 2000 miles of rugged sea ice (no dogsled could follow the coast) with a few walrus-hide huts at intervals of 150 to 200 miles, where we were able to obtain a little seal meat and nothing else. Yet the announcement has cheerfully been made that 900 kilometres (or about 600 miles) will be the longest stretch the cars will have to covfr without a fresh supply of petrol ' "As a matter of fact, they will not find petrol or anything else between Behring Straits and the town of Yakutsk (a dis-

tance of 4000 English miles), which we covered with dogs and reindeer, encountering, perhaps, a dozen tumble-down shelters and fewer than 100 miserable natives throughout the journey. The 2000 miles from the Arctic Ocean to Yakutsk la> chiefly over fairly level country, which, however, can only be crossed in mid-winter on account of numberless swamps, lakes and rivers. Here another difficulty will be the Verkoyansk Mountains, the only pas« across which is an almost perpendicular ice-slope. In Switzerland it would entail rope-, and ice-axes. Here we experienced a temperature of 78deg below zero. What effect would Ibis have upon petrol.' As for supplies, nothing whatever was procurable between Yakutsk and Nome City m Alaska — a distance of over 6000 miles." Truly the promoters of this mad project have succeeded m doing something phenomenal. It was not the journey, however It was their demonstration of inexcusable ignorance. Strange are the uses of Ad- ■\ ertisement !