A POLAR AIRSHIP.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 28 October 1907, Page 4

A POLAR AIRSHIP.

The attack on the North Pole by the W'ellman expedition, which has its headquarters at Spitzbergen, is expected to begin this week. It is the sort of enterprise that would have appealed to the romantic imagination of the lato ' Jules Verne. Instead of wearily dragging loaded sledges across the icy wastes of the Polar regions, the daring explorers will set sail from Pp'tzfcergen in the airship America, and try to fly to the Pole. It is an experiment the utility and efficiency of which only actual trial can demonstrate, but the America's captain and crew are very hopeful of success. One of the most interesting features of the Wellman airship is its pair of guide ropes, shaped like gigantic serpents, and packed with a reserve supply of food. One of these guide ropes will trail along the ground over which the airship passes, and will thus help to balance the America's weight while she is in the air. This guide-rope, or equilibrer, must have weight to be effective —a thousand pounds at least. To escape putting so much weight into useless material, Mr Wellman has designed and constructed tbe serpent—a pipe of strong, waterlight leather, 6in in diameter and 123 ft long; its outside surface covered with more than 29,000 steel scales, each abont as big as a silver quarter-dollar, very thin, and riveted to the leather, overlapping like the scales of a fish. This serpent is designed to have the smallest possible resistance in sliding over the ice or snow, or floating on the water, in which element it is buoyant. The retarder serpent, on the other hand, is designed to make the greatest possible resistance, in proportion to its weight, in dragging over the ice-Hoes, which are usually covered with a snowcrust, and rarely present a smooth surface. The function of the retarder is to drag like a drag-anchor, when the wind is adverse to the ship's course, and she wishes to drift gently with it, and without losing either too much headway or burning too much precious fuel in the motor. Hence the serpent is covered with 1875 steel scratchers, each with six sharp points, about lin in length, or a total of 11,250 points on the 75ft body. The equilibrer is always to have more or less of its length upon the surface of the earth; the retarder is to be let down to touch the earth only when necessary. Both of these leather pipes were to be filled with reserve food. This food was to be a vital part of the stores should circumstances compel the crew to winter out, dependent upon the stock carried in the America.

Packing the food in these long cylinders was, says Beater's correspondent with the expedition, a tedious job. The first thing to do was to melt paraffin wax in a tank, and dip into it hundreds of. sheets of thick, strong paper. These parffined sheets were then, each in torn, rolled in a cylinder about, two feet in length, and placed in a tin mould nearly six inches in diameter. Within this receptacle the food was packed. Bread (ship biscuits) was, as far far as practicable, packed inside hotter and fat meat, so that, should sea water get inside, the bread would be protected from injury. Bacon was cut in discs to fit the receptacle, and packed in tight. Butter was "worked" carefully by hand to get out the superfluous water. Various expedients were resorted to for security's sake, and to permit of discarding the weight of tins. The tins were used only on a part of malted milk, condensed milk, compressed oatmeal, and an emulsion of peameal, bacon, beef, potatoes, etc. As each cylindrical package, two feet long and six inches in diameter, was made np within the paraffin paper it was carefully tied with cord, labelled with its weight and contents, and tlxen eucased in long tubes of oiled silk. The tubes of silk were three times varnished, making them not only impervious to water, but gas-tight as "long as they were not torn. Within each section of silk piping were placed partitions of wood about seven feet apart, and, by wrapping either side of these with with tightly-drawn cord, each section was made independent of the other, so far as watertightness is concerned. That is to say, water might get into one section and not pass through into its neighbor. The packed silken pipes were then drawn into the leather cylinders, and the sections of these rivetted and glued together. In the two serpents, with a combined length of 198 ft were packed 14731b of food, of which 85lb wu paper, tin and packing, leaving 14381b of food net. The serpents , weigh 4631b > the total is 19361b, and the per cent, of contents is 76, leaving only 24 per cent, for the serpents The serpents are attached to the steel car of the airship by a steel cable with a tested and certified breaking strain of 59361b. There is thought to be small likelihood that the strain of either serpent will be sufficient to break the cable. [Our cables have since advised us that, owing to contrary winds, the attempt had to be abandoned for this year.]