THE POLE SEEKERS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 454, 6 April 1912, Page 5

THE POLE SEEKERS.

FAIR, SQUARE, AND ABOVE BOARD.

By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright Sydney, Thursday.

Professor David, presiding over Captain Amundsen's' lecture, said that it had been published that Captain Amundsen did not give* Captain Scott notice that he was a competitor for the South Pole, but it w«b clearly understood that he sent a message from Madeira, which' Captain Scott received in New Zealand that the Fram was going to the Antarctic. Here was a fair field. It was anybody's Pole, and Amundsen's doings were {fair, square, and above board.

There was nothing unsportsmanlike and everything between Scott and Amundsen had been concluded in a spirit of high, and friendly rivalry. Scott would before now have reached the Pole, and when he returned his first action they might be sure, would be to Bend hearty congratulations to the champion who had beaten him. A BIG COALFIELD. Sydney Friday. Professor David says that Amundsen's statement that there is a patch of calm, 260 miles in diameter, near the Pole, proves the theoretical prediction of meteorologists, and indicates that the wind ib blowing straight down instead of horizontally. He considers Scott's coal discoveries highly important in conjunction with Sir E. W. Shackieton's discovery, shine it proveß that the coal-bear-ing strata are continuous over a enormous area. It is not unlikely to be the largest uwnorked coalfield in the world.

AN OLD ARCTIC EXPLORER.

Mr Adam Ayles, caretaker of the Rocky Nook Bowling Club, dropped dead on Thursday morning while at work on the green. The deceased was well on towards 70 years of age, and waß one of the heroes of the Arctic expedition under Nares and Stephenson in the early seventies. The term hero is used advisedly, for when a boat's crew was down with the scurvy it was Adam Ayles.who travelled over 100 miles across the ice to take them relief. Being one of the only two total abstainers on the expedition, the deceased's name afforded opportunity for the wit of the London Punch, the question being asked if it were adhering to "Adam's Ale" that enabled him to carry assistance to the boat'B crew stricken with scurvy. Mr Ayles was a (single, man, and a native of England. He was a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity. When Rear-Admiral Beaumont was in Auckland he had an interview with Mr Ayles, and was much interested in the old Arctic explorer.