Evening star., 1925-06-21

i Northwest Passage has in
terest been so keen in the
Far North as this Summer.
Two expeditions already are in the
fed and the Macmillan Arctic eX
pedttiOn, under the auspices of the
National Geographic Society, with the
United States Navy cooperating
weighed anchor at WiscaSset, Me.
yesterday, beginning one of the most
ambitious and unusual voyages yet
attempted.
When Macmillan and Byrd fly
under the midnight sun to regions
which the eye of man never yet be
held; when the radio flashes back al
most Immediately tthe news of their
discoveries; and when camera men
snap pictures in natural color of the
gorgeous flowers, fish and birds of the
frozen North, new era in Arctic
exploration will have begun.
There is prospect of discovering
land between Alaska and the North
Pole which may be continental IN
size. Morse ruins of Greenland will
he visited. and the weird stories of
E,Skimos about the lost tribes" of
Vikings will be investigated. Ocean
currents and air currents VIII he
studied new birds and fishes may be
found. there even is a possibility OF
new peoples on lands not yet dis
covered. These are some of the pas
IA ges to India" that Macmillan seeks.
Not only will the radio he used to
send back dispatches in code which
will be released Immediately to news
papers through the Navy Department
and the National Geographic Society;
effort also will be made to transmit
the human voice so that listeners
in on Screened-in pOrcheS may hear
Comdr. Macmillan tell of the eXpedi-
nd n 'Sly o
entertainer singing his curious. plain
tive chant, on a musical scale as
strange to civilization as his language.
The code sending, by which news
paper readers will have a day-to-day
account upon the cooperation of boy
amateurs. From coast-to-Coast thou
sand amateurS-amateurS whose status
is ; jealOuSly guarded as that OF the
players on a college foot ball team
will try TO tune in on the short wave
length, 20 and 40 meters. by hook
up devised by John ReinartZ. erSt-
while employe of a silk mill in Con-
neCtiCut.
p EINARTZ himself, whose name is
~ known wherever juvenile ingenu-
ity has turned to radio set building,
will be the sending operator. lie was
engaged by T.. F. Mcdonald, president
of the National Association of Broad
casters and of the Zenith Radio Cor
poration of Chicago. who has general
charge of the radio arrangements. By
a code as rigid as the Hippocratic oath
of physicians, these amateurs are
bound to relay messages and deliver
them to the address given
When the amateurs first were al
lotted the low wave lengths, they
We're disconnected, but some of them,
including ReinartZ, believed they could
overcome that handicap. Reinartz,
working by day, experimental by
night, and got down to 40. then to 20,
the two bands he will use in his send
ing. But in his experimenting he has
reached much lower than that-aS low
as one meter-and now he has been
granted a license by the Department
of Commerce to experiment with
waves from three-quarters of meter
downward
At first a handicap, the short wave
length turned out a boon for Arctic
exploration. because it requires COM
paratively light apparatus, and every
pound counts in the Far North. More
over, it will travel tremendous dis
tanCes (WaShington amateurs now are
getting New Zealand) and it cuts
through daylight. The Macmillan eX-
pedition will work in "A hours of day
light
Vocal sending will be done on the
and broadcasting stations in the
United States will step up this
transmission to the wave lengths as
signed to their stations.
The two ships that put out from the
rock-bound harbor of Wiscasset, Me,
yesterday are the Bowdoin and the
Peary The Bowdoin already has had
her baptism of fire, or rather ice, for
MacMiHan twice has taken her north.
She will be the radio station WNP
CWireless North Pole) when she gets
to Etah. The Peary is a converted
mine sweeper, built by the French
government in war time, and she was
christened recently in New York in
honor of the discoverer of the North
Pole, under whom Macmillan served
in the expedition which reached the
pole in 1909.
The christening of the Peary took
place in New York with a memorable
ceremony when Mrs Marie Peary
Stafford, daughter of Admiral Peary
broke bottle of Eagle Island water
from her fathers Maine home over the
Peary's bow, and DR.. Gilbert Gros-
venor, president of the Va tional Geo
graphic Society. presented Commander
Macmillan with a National Geogra phic
Society flag, similar to the one which
Peary carried along with the Stars
and Stripes to the Pole, to be flown
on the Peary. In tribute to the Navys
part in the expedition. naval planes
few over the ship during the exer-
ciSeS.
Every since Peary's time Macmillan
has been engaged in Arctic work. He
is an authority on Eskimo customs
and he will make such further study
of their life and language this Sum-
mer as his brief stay permits.
One of five orphans, MacMillan's
boyhood was spent in the vicinity of
Bowdoin College, later his own alma
mater, where Peary had been a stu
dent. There he acquired the lure for
the frozen North-a dream he nur-
tured for nearly 20 years until he was
summoned one day while teaching
school to go with Peary.
X X x
IN his years of waiting Macmillan
had stepped himself in the lore of
the North, and when his chance came
he developed the stamina men must
have who would endure the rigors
which have detied human conquest for
centuries. In appearance and manner
he is gentle, not gruff; kindly rather
than abrupt, and has a gift of express
sion that led one reporter to comment:
Why. he talks in headlines
One day he was asked what provi-
sion he intended to take on overia nd
marches from Etah or Cape Hubbard.
which will be the airplane base of the
expedition.
"A cartridge a day" was his terse
reply.
Living on land, however, he added,
is feasible enough while there is land.
But when one gets out over the ice of
the Polar Sea he eYnlained there iS