ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1526, 23 March 1916, Page 4

ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION.

EXPECTED SHORTLY

NO NEWS FOR FIFTEEN MONTHS. “If all goes well with us we should turn up at Hobart some time in March,’’ said Captain Mackintosh, commander ot the Ross Sea section of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition on his departure' from Sydney for the south by the Aurora in December, 1914. Sir Ernest Shackelton himself,' who went to the Antarctic by a different route, and who left a couple of months earlier, had said, “Look for us at the beginning of March.’’ News of the arrival of the ex peditiou is accordingly expected any day now (says the Sydney Morning Herald). A little uneasiness has been felt by some people on account of the absence all the time the Aurora has been in the Antarctic—and that is nearly fifteen mouths —of any wireless message from her, Captain J. K. Davis, who was in command of the Aurora on the Mawson expedition, staled recently, however, that , the inference that something untoward had happened was not at all justified. He pointed out that the Mawson expedition had for the first year found it impossible to get its wireless going, owing to the difficulties in erecting masts and insulating them. In any case the in stallation with which the Ross Sea party was equipped was not a high-power one, and, provided it were now working, the fact that the station on Macquarie Island, which would have been the intermediary in the communications, had lately been dismantled would account for the silence. OBJECT OF THE EXPEDITION. The section of the party under Captain Mackintosh left Sydney on 14th December, 1914, for the Ross Sea base, on this side of the Antarctic Continent, and the other, the main party, led by Sir Ernest Shackletou himself, left a couple of mouths earlier from the South American side in the Endurance, for the Weddell Sea base. The objects of the great adventure were to cross the Antarctica from sea to sea, securing for the British flag the honour of being the first carried across the South Polar continent, to carry on similar scientific work by the parties operating from the two bases, and to trace unknown portions of the coastline. Previous explorers have sought or reached •the Pole, and retired as they had. come. Sir Ernest Shackleton’s intention was to go right on, beginning at Weddell Sea, and ending up at the Ross Sea on the other side, not only of the continent, but of the world, sledging or walking the entire distance. He took with him 120 dogs, bred in Alaska and Siberia, to act as food-carriers and to be later as food. SHACKLETON’S EAST LETTER. In the last letter written by Sir Ernest Shackelton, before his stout little ship bore his party away, the programme for the attempt to cross Antarctica was sketched. “The party that will, I think, cross the continent with me,’’ he wrote, “will be Frank Hurley (of Sydney), Frank Wild, Crean, George Marstou and Mackliu. They are all splendid men, and fit, and capable of looking alter the dogs. They, indeed, spend the whole time with the dogs, and the latter know them, and are amenable to them. All but Macklin, who is a surgeon, have done a lot of sledging. Macklin is a splendid strong fellow, and a good companion. Hurley is a great worker, and I think it will be a good stroke to take him, for he has a splendid camera, that is right for 1000 ft of film, and never have moving pictures been taken on a journey. The other men are all good and keen workers. Clark, the biologist, Wardie, geologist, and James, maguetician, have already been doing much work important to science, which will make an interesting record when it comes to be written. You must not look for us until about the beginning of March, 1916. The Endurance, with the other members of the Weddell Sea party, will return to South Georgia about that time, do some scientific work, and then go on to Buenos Aires. “What I expect to happen is this : We ought to land about the end of December. If the ice had been up north we would have' landed about the beginning of December. We shall at once investigate the road to the south,

and' if Filchener’s land-place proves to be any sort of harbour suitable for the ship, I shall put down both anchors and wait for her to freeze in. “Then- I shall know that the ship will be handy to take off the remainder of the shore party about Ist February, 1916. lam not going to risk them later. The ship will go north, then to South Georgia. As we are not too well off for coals during the winter, the hands will be employed in skinning seals, and taking the blubber, which will be put in empty boxes, and this will be used to stoke the boilers on the way up. The cross country party will have their depots laid out, and be ready to start about Ist November, 1915, and we ought to cross in four months, and be met on the other side (by Captain Mackintosh’s Ross Sea party) in February. So far for my hopes. What God may arrange no one can say. Things have not worked well so far, as the ice conditions are so bad, but that is a matter which it is impossible to foretell from year to year.” • Captain Davis, on his visit to Sydney the other day, said he saw no reason why the party should not come through all right. They were thoroughly well equipped and led by the most experienced of Antarctic explorers, and with ordinary luck should turn up safely about the due time.