The Cordova daily times., 1921-08-06
WILL EQUIP MAUD
 WITH WIRELESS
,By Associated Pressl

SEATTLE. Aug. 6.-From the. re motest, most inaccessible spot on earth the North Pole-a wireless message will be flashed to the civil ized world, if the plans of Captain Roald Amundsen. discoverer of the south Pole and famous Arctic ex- plorer, are carried out
 ! Captain Amundsen's schooner ! Maud, on which he hoped to drift past the pole with the ice flocs, was disabled by a broken propelor off , Cape Serdze, Siberia, after he had spent two years in pushing around ] the eastward Arctic passage from ! Norway. The explorer left his yes scl and her crew to await break in tha ice and proceeded to Nome. later coming to seattle on recent ship
 The Maud has no wireless appa- raus, but Captain Amundsen expects to install one when the craft is brought here. some time this sum. mor to be repaired and rcfitted. Cap tain Amundscn explained that his party had been cut off from com. munication with other human beings for two years, with but one break his trip out 10 Nome last year two years of ice-bound horizons, of bitter cold, of almost endless night.
 The war was raging in its most critical period when we left the world most of you know" he re- called. and for many months we specuatcd in vain on the course of events. It was in December, 1918, more than year after the signing of the armistjCe. that we finally met Russiun trader who told us what had happened Then I determined we would carry wireless'
 Captain Amundsen told the Associ- ated Press he would spend the next year in the United States, probably most of it around Seattle. and would sail from this port next summer. He will strike back for Cape Scrdze, he said. trusting to meet with better duck than the furious Arctic storm which last year hurled the Maud into an ice-bank on the Siberian coast
 
 voyage had tended only to confirm his previous theories about magnetic properties of the Polar basin. He expressed faith in his belief that an ocean current running northeasterly from Cape Serdze would carry him past thc pole and eventually into the Atlantic ocean.
 When we reached Nome a year ago, and started back" he said. the trouble was that an unprecedented jam of ice prevented us from push ing far enough north We drifted too much to the east-and the cur rents eastward from Siberia are ex. traordinary-it is a sort of whirl- pool, where one wanders around in circles instead of following any course"
 Tt will take three years-perhaps longer" he predicted
 Captain Amundsen said that an important part of his equipment con sisted of books, hundreds of them.
 "I read mostly fiction" he said. l Under such circumstances a mans mind needs diversion. I want some thing light-but not too light, it | must be plausible
 The party experienced no serious illness the entire trip. Nor did the cold cause suffering. the explorer said. for all were we'll equipped. On the tortuous voyage from Norway to eastern Siberia they encountered few natives.
 Tt is q desolate shore on the north | If Siberia" he pointed out. We saw few signs of life. except occa- sional polar bears. At one point we shot forty. skinned them and used the meat for steaks. If we had been trapping for skins we could have made a small fortune"
 The Maud's crew includes Dr. H. " Sverdrup. a scientist; Oscar Wist- ing, G. Olonikin and seven natives. They left Norway in 1918 and re- mained buried in the ice nineteen months.
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