CAPTAIN AMUNDSEN AND HIS PLANS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10066, 6 February 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

CAPTAIN AMUNDSEN AND HIS PLANS.

(By B. W. Norregaard.)

I have just liad a conversation with Captain Roakl Amundsen, the leader of the famous Gjoa expedition which solved the problem of the North-West passage, who has-now laid before the Geographical ■Society in Christiania.. his plans for -a. new Arctic- expedition, his\ object being during a voyage. lasting over, five, or six years to study the oceanography,.of the Northern Polar basin. The funds' for lus .expedition will: be raised in Norway, King Haakon and Queen Maud heading the subscription list with £ll2O. The ship he proposes to use is the renowned Fram, in which Hansen undertook his great journey in 1893-1896, and' which is still in perfect condition. And as the new expedition will be undertaken with Nansen'6 ship, so Captain Amundiseh's journey will be modelled upon the methods and founded on.the experiences of his predecessor and teacher.. '

His plan is this: With the Fram equipped for seven years and manned by picked men, he is to depart from Christiania in 'the beginning of 1910, setting the course for San Francisco via Cape- Horn. After coaling and provisioning at San Francisco he steers straight for Point Barrow; the northernmost point of America, where he hopes to arrive in July or August. Here he dismisses all but ten of his crew, and then in a N.N.W. direction proceeds as far as possible until his ship is fiymly gripped by the ice. ' And then the slow drifting with the ice, calculated to last for four or five years, will commence, his course after a while probably being nearly parallel to that of Nansen, only a good deal more to the north. i • ' * Captain Amundsen, though belonging to a family nearly every member of which is a sailor, originally had no idea, of going to sea-. He graduated at the Christiania University, and for two. years studied medicine. The blood of the sea-dog, however, soon manifested itself. He - read more of great travellers and seamen than of physiology and chemistry, and was always particularly interested -in everything that concerned the exploration of the Arctic seas.

After, some hesitation, to the great annoyance of his parents he decided to <m"e up his university career and devote all his energy to the study of Arctic problems. His mind once made up, he set to work with the zeal and thoroughness which have characterised all his doings. He enlisted on a sealing steamer, and for two years first as a deck-hand and later as an ordinary seaman —was initiated into the practical navigation, of Arctic waters. Then he passed his mate's extra examinations, .and soon afterwards was taken as first officer on the Belgian Gerlache expedition, sent to explore the regions to the south of Cape Horn and Grahamsland, and lasting for two years. In 1901 he commanded a small expedition to study the Polar current along the ■eastern -coast of Greenland. From 1903 to 1906 he was the leader of the Gjoa, expedition, and sailed his brave little ship through the ice and dangers of the NorthWest Passage. Captain Amundsen is now a man of thirty-six. Though lean and: slender, he is strongly built. In his 6pare, strong face a largo hooked nose is a prominent feature. He has the eyes of a seaman, small and sharp under half-closed lids. His manners are calm and measured, his voice very pleasant. I talked with him to-day of his plans. "My expedition," he told me, "is not ■primarily geographical, nor is it my chief ambition to reach the North Pole. Of course, any land we may come across will be explored and mapped, and the farther north the current will take us the more, pleased I shall be. If it seems well within the bounds of reasonableness, I certainly shall make a dash for the North Pole, in that case leaving my ship and. proceeding with an especially equipped sleighing expedition. "For hauling the sleighs I had intended to use tamed and broken-in Polar bears, these being stronger and more enduring than dogs. Several of these animals have for some time been in training at Hagenbeck's in Hamburg. But the process turns out to be a very slow one, requiring several years; so it looks like their being acclimatised to warmer latitudes and unfit for Arctic life before they can get broken to their work. Although the training is being continued, I foresee I shall have to fall back on dogs after all. "My main object, however, is an exploration of the large and deep Polar basin itself. While expeditions of former times always had the object of discovering and exploring new land, since the middle of last century several important expeditions have been equipped with the sole object of exploring the .seas. The most renowned of these were the Challenger expedition under Sir Wyville Thomson and John Murray in 1872-1876, and the Norwegian Voringen expedition under Professors Molm and Sars in 1876-18/8. The Fram expedition also did splendid work in this respect. If Nansen did not actually succeed in solving all the riddles ■of the Polar basin, the reason is to be found in' the defective oceanographic methods and instruments of that time. Building on the experiences of former expeditions, and with the excellent instruments of to-day at our disposal, I' trust I shall be able to clear up much that is still unknown and unaccountable to

"We shall explore the form and the depth of the sea. Instead, of tho shallow Polar sea which Nansen expected to find, his ship was taken across depths up to 4000. metres. We, taking another course, may come across still greater depths, perhaps also come to islands and larger extensions of land. The basin, we know, is bounded by comparatively steep edges, like the North Sea.

"Between the edge and the land are flat banks of changing width. Noticeable is the great continental plinth to the north of Siberia, where these shallow parts have a larger extension than in practically any other part of the earth. The continental plinth to the north of America is still unexplored. Nansen believes that between North-Eastern Greenland and Spitzbergen there is an under-water ridge separating the deep parts of the North and Polar Seas. All these questions we will try to elucidate.

"But these investigations really form the smallest part of our task.

"From the firm ice of the Arctic we shall have a unique opportunity, impossible to obtain from the moving, deck of a ship,' of studying -a whole series of oceanographic problems, such as the' temperature and the degree of saltness in the three different layers of water—the cold arid: little-salt top layer of about 200 metres in depth,-the warmer and Salter central layer between 200 and 800 metres in depth, and the huge cold bottom-water —the systems of currents in these layers, and the "huge submarine waves on their edges which - may reach dimensions of a. ■couple of hundred metres. , Further, we shall investigate the phenomena- of -. tidal water, the effect of the'winds on the currents of the sea, the amount of light-at different depths under the ice and in open water, and its influence on animal - and vegetable . life. Finally, we shall make meteorological and magnetic. observations and study the aurora borealis." Captain Amundsen explained all this to me very circumstantially, but very quietly and unaffectedly, as if it were a question of taking a trip_ to China or to Argentina instead of burying himself for many long years in the'night arid the terrible cold of the Polar regions. I scan his selfreliant • face,' his strong, wiry frame; I remember. his courage and resourcefulness and' never-failing energy • during his Gjoa expedition, his large experience and long study of the problems he will attempt to solve,, and I feel Confident that no -.better leader for the new venture could be found. I -believe he - will bring; the ; Fram back loaded with material - and' specimens, and its cupboards stored with 'notes that will throw-light on many questions as yet unanswered.

And'l, for one, would not be-in the least astonished if,-on his return, he would be able to. serve his guests with champagne cooled on ice taken directly from the' North Pole itself.