The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1914. SHACKLETON'S EXPEDITION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 39, 16 February 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1914. SHACKLETON'S EXPEDITION.

Naturally New Zealand is deeply interested in the latest expedition to the Antarctic regions, and Sir Ernest Shackleton's venture will be watched and followed very closely. Shackleton is known personally to many residents in this Dominion, and when first associated with the Scott expedition spent a good deal of time in Christchurch. From his own description of his expedition, we learn that the journey is being made not only to add to the sum of scientific knowledge of Antarctic conditions, but to solve an as yet unanswered question, that is. whether the range of mountains already traced by other explorers from the South Pacific Ocean to the Pole extends across the Continent to the Weddell Sea and continues in the Andes. Shackleton's foremost object, however, is to cross tli<s fifteen hundred miles of the Antarctic Continent, something never yet accomplished, and though perhaps to most of us there does not appear anything very much more than the desire to break another record, 'it may be an enterprise requiring vast courage and resource and one fitted for men of the race which has always loved "new lands to conquer." It is noIV certain that Sir Ernest Shackleton will not take with him ponies. >r motor sledges, for it is now considered that the failure of these help- :■(' to bring disaster to Captain Scott ar.d bis party. Like Captain Amunidoil, Shackleton will rely on specially selected dogs, but he also proposes taking sledges with aeroplane engines and propellers, which would suffer less from jars and jolts ill crossing irugh and broken ice surfaces. That portion of the programme is, howp\er, quite in the air and must dei>< iid on the experiments which will leubtless be thoroughly investigated. Those who have gone carefully into •Shackleton's programme, with at least some knowledge of the dangers in (I uncertainties to be met in the Polar regions, are pretty well agreed that tin's expedition will be the most

-ruefully and thoroughly equipped expedition that lias ever pet out. Shackleton is obtaining hearty and enthusiastic support in England, and ill New Zealand will wish him well.