DEATH OF WATKINS

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 89, 12 October 1932, Page 7

DEATH OF WATKINS

WHAT WAS'THE CAUSE?

EXPLORERS^' SPECULATE

The death of Mr. H." G. Watkins, the British Arctic explorer, in Greenland, has aroused much speculation "among explorers, says the London "Daily Telegraph."

Mr. Watkins went seal hunting in a kayak (skin canoe). Later his canoe was found full of water, and his special skin breeches used when paddling the kayak were found on, a drifting icefloe. •■■' .

Mr. George Binney, who has been connected withv Arctic exploration or .ten years, suggested, in conversation with a representative of the, "Daily Telegraph," that Mr. Watkins's canoe might have upset while he was trying to shoot a seal or walrus, or that a wave, caused by ice. falling- from • a glacier, swamped the canoe. Such falls of ice frequently occurred. . '

Mr. Watkins, Mr. Binney added, had made a close study of the Eskimo technique of travel, and was able to undertake with confidence and facility long and formidable journeys by land and sea. He had thus earned for himself the distinction of being spoken of in the same breath as Knud Basinussen and Lauge Koch.

Having more than won his spurs in the north, he had aimed to use his unique Arctic knowledge in the conquest of Antarctica. No man was bettor fitted in personal qualities of leadership or in experience successfully to undertake the traverse of the Antarctic Continent, upon which he had set his heart. '

"JProm every standpoint Gino Watkins stood for the highest traditions of exploration, and had already achieved more than is the lot of most explorers during a lifetime."

The Danish artist, Amanuel Petersen, who travelled with Mr. Watkins on board the Gertrud Bask all the way to Lake I^OTd, suggested that it is possible that the kayak drifted away while Watkins was hunting seal on tho ice-floe. It is likely, he thinks, that the young explorer rgmoved his heavy skin breeches and endeavoured to swim to the kayak. Cramp overtook him, and he was drowned.

Another theory is that Mr. Watkins was attacked by a seal walrus. News of the tragic death of Mr. Watkins reached his fiancee, Miss Margaret Bose Graham, while she was yachting off the west coast of Scotland with Mrs. Stephen Courtauld., Mrs. D. N. Graham, Hazlemere, mother of Miss Graham, stated: "I sent a telegram to the headquarters of the yachting party on the lale of Skye. it is probable, however, that my . daughter heard tho first news by wireless."