FIVE YEARS' DRIFT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 69, 17 April 1909, Page 3

FIVE YEARS' DRIFT.

m . EXPLORER'S WAKJXfi PROJECT IX THE AIIOTIO SEAS. THE mum NEXT VOYAGE. Mr. Konld Amundsen, the famous Polar explorer, recently announced to a meeting of tin, Royal Geographical Society 111 Loiulou lus determination to undertake, it live year,' drift across the l'olar Sea.

nr'^-V 1 " 11 '" ,1C sai>1 ' " is as follows: \\ nh the I' ram equipped for. seven years mill n capable crew, 1 shall leave Norway in the beginning of I'M We elmll make for San Francisco round Cape Horn, taking in coal and provisions at the former place. We shall then shape our course, for Point Barrow, the most northerly point of Xorth America, which I hope to reach by July 0 r August, l'roin tins place the last news will be sent home before the real voyage be«ins. On leaving Point Harrow it is my intention to continue, the voyage with as small a. crew as possible. "We skull then make for the drift iee in a direction north bv north-west, where we will then look" for the most favorable place for pushing further north. When this has. been found we shall go as far in as is possible, and prepare for a four or five years' drift across the Polar Sea.

''Throughout our voyage up to this point I intend to make oceanographic observations; and from the moment the vessel becomes fast .in the ice a series of observations will be begun, with which I hope to solve some of the hitherto unsolved mysteries. ; There is a constant interaction between these ocean regions which cannot be fully understood until each of them has been explored. NO "STORMING" OF THE POLE. "What I expect to find in the unknown part of the Polar Sea-1 will say nothing about at present. Some people have put forward theories oi great masses of land, others of small. I ought perhaps also to have put forward my theory, but think it wiser to refrain from doing so until I have investigated matters at cjoser quarters."

With the utterance of these modest words tli© explorer sat down. The hope was expressed that at a meeting not later than 1917 the Royal Geographical Society would be listening to a recital of a successful expedition. Some surprise may be expressed that the Frani is going, on yet another voyage in the Polar Seas, for she was built in 1893, and lias been laid up for a number of years. But the vessel is found to be as sound as when she was built, and, considering that she caiue home from Hansen's long voyage without a scratch, after withstanding the enormous pressure of ice, no better ship could be found for the purpose.

Mr. Amundsen declared that the "storming" of the Pole would not be the object of the expedition. Its chief aim would be a scientific study of the Polar Sea itself, or, rather, an investigation of the bottom and oceanographic conditions of tliis great basin. It was an important matter to know thos; northern waters in their relation to the surrounding seas—for instance, the reciprocal action between the, Atlantic or the Norwegian Sea and the Polar Sea.