AN AIRSHIP TO THE POLE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8766, 18 March 1907, Page 1

AN AIRSHIP TO THE POLE.

"Wearing an unimpeachable top hat, a caiie in one hand, the other tlirust deep in his overcoat pocket, the man -who expects to reach the North Pole in a steerable balloon, and •who is spending a fortune of £75,000 to £IOO,OOO to do it, was sauntering round the great inflated carcase which has already weathered one Arctic entered the Galerie des Machines', writes the Paris correspondent of the Paris London Tribune. Mr Welmian is certainly convinced that his -chances of success are great, but the quiet confidence with which he chatted to me of his plans resembled in no way the too positive cocksureness that had been attributed to him. '' People have agreed,'' he said,'' that as the longest distance yet covered by any steerable balloon is 100 miles, which was done by M. Lebaudy's Patrie, it is beyond hope that any one can cross the 000 miles separating the Spitsbergen from the Pole. The answer is that my airship is bigger and has a tremendously larger carrying capacity than the Patrie. I shall take 3000 kilos of essence for my motor. At a speed of 28 kilometres (17% miles) an hour, that would last 10 hours, the motor running continuously. I reckon that my 'dirigeable' balloon can remain in the air from 15 to 20 days." " And how long do you think your aerial voyage to the Pole will take if you are fortunate enough to reach that mysterious point?" Mr Wellman was asked. '' That depends mostly on the wind. We might get there in thirty hours, or we might take four days, or even a week, at the maximum," lie replied. Mr "Wellman will make his dasli for the Pole at the end of July or beginning of August, and in those two months the temperature even in the Arctic region is not extraordinarily low, hovering generally a few degrees below or above freezing' point. He has devised means for preventing his motor carburettor from freezing.