ANTARCTIC DISCOVERY

Evening Star, Issue 20057, 24 December 1928, Page 5

ANTARCTIC DISCOVERY

WILKINS’S FEAT A GREAT FLIGHT Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. ■ LONDON, December 22.' Commenting on the Antarctic lent, ‘The Times’ says: “After no sleep for forty hours and a flight of 1,200 miles not many people would have had the energy on returning to tbe base to sit down and write borne 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 from sending a message as early as possible announcing the solution of a disputed question which lias puzzled geographers lor centuries. Grahams 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 an established fact. Sir Hubert Wilkins has for long bad an intimate practical knowledge ol the conditions of Arctic and Antarctic travel. It i c not only the call ol the ice, but the true geographer’s passion for accuracy, of detail iu mapping out tho surface of the globe that has induced him to add to the 18,000 miles he has already floWu in Polar regions with Lieutenant Eielson as his companion. It is already evident that the flights still to bo undertaken ior the site of meteorological stations will fie by no means easy, but Sir Hubert is thinking loss of the risks than of the benefits which may result Irom their adventurous sallies into the,.unknown, and after the invariable practice ol men of their kind their final conclusion is that ‘ luck still bolds.’ ’’—Australian Press 'Association.