AMUNDSEN’S EXPEDITION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 83, 3 December 1912, Page 7

AMUNDSEN’S EXPEDITION.

“AN EVERYDAY AFFAIR.” HOW THE POLE WAS FOUND. London, November 22. Captain Amundsen’s book on his journey to the South Pole, just published by Murray, is the most popular Polar story yet written. It is gossipy and graphic, simple and unconventional, and delightfully enthralling. The pages are full of details of thrilling adventure,- hairbreadth escapes, extraordinary incidents, and remarkable experiences. The explorer states that he intended to go north until he heard that Peary was successful in that direction, and then, believing that the possibilities of the Arctic trip were exhausted, decided to try for the South Pole. His funds were raised for the purposes of Arctic exploration. He considered that Captain Scott’s expedition was purely one of scientific research.

Fie felt that his own resources were far short of Scott’s, particularly in experience and means. The party purposely avoided Scott’s route, in tinbelief that they would not. be playing the game if they did not. Had Shack!eton, when he passed the Hay of Whales in 1908, noticed the icebreaking up, and had that explorer waited a few hours, the problem of the South Pole would, mostly likely, have been solved then. THE LAST DASH.

, Amundsen describes the final dash for the Polo.

“When we started from the depot on the morning of October 19,” he says, “the weather was reasonable. The sentiments of the party were elicited. ‘Shall ,wc start?’ 1 said. ‘Yes,’ was the reply, ‘let’s be jogging on.’

“The animals were harnessed to the sledges in.a jiffy, and with a little nod, as much as to say, ‘We’ll sec you to-morrow,’ we were off. “Lindstrorn did not even come outside the depot to see the party of live start. It. was such an everyday affair.. What was the use of making a fuss?

“At the end of a run of 12 miles or so the surface beside the sledges dropped perpendicularly, and revealed a yawning, black abyss, large enough to have swallowed us up and all our paraphernalia. “Another few inches to one side and we should have taken no further part in the Polar journey. Passing Shackleton’s ‘farthest south’, tears welled up in our/ eyes when we appreciated the failure of his effort and what it meant to him. We could not restrain those tears, and Shackleton’s name will always be written in the annals of the ■Antarctic in letters of five. “On the morning of December 14 the weather was perfect. The necks of those in the advance sledges grew twice as long, as they endeavoured to be the first to sec the actual spot of the ’pole. ' END IN SIGHT. “At 3 in the afternoon there was a simultaneous halt. Wo ran out the sledge: meters. We noted,’ By reckoning, the destination that we so eagerly sought, and at 5 o’clock our weatherbeaten, frost-bitten fists grasped the pole that we had erected with the Norwegian flag flying on the top. “There was festivity that night, in our tent. Champagne corks poped, and cigars were smoked. “In the morning observations were taken, from ■ the tent over the boundless plain, where there were no marks of any kind. Three of our men went in different directions for distances of 12 miles eacii.

“They had no compasses, and, though they fully realised that they were risking their lives, they went off amid a fusilade of laughter and chaff. “Those left in the thin, wind-proof gabardine tent, wrote a letter to the King of Norway, and a shorter one to Captain Scott, and these were left there.

“Then wo laced the tent-door and said ‘Good-bye.’ ”

It is interesting to add that Professor Polheim, a scientific investigator of Christiania, has, from the expedition’s notes, placed the position of the South pole at latitude 89deg. 58.5 south, and longitude GOdeg. east.