Evening star., 1926-04-18
AMUNDSEN'S HOPES.
TOF|ND NEW LANDS.
Flight Over North-pole Area
of 100000 Square Miles
Believed Assured.
BY CAPT. ROALD A.tUNDsE>.

BY CAPT. ROALD .AHtUNDSEN.
The supreme achievement of the
AmundSen- Ellsworth trans-r piar flight
IN Il dirigible across the Arctic sea
win be to throw some light for III"
first time upon the interior "f that
uneXplored and mysterious eXpanSe OF
ice. Many ships h2,e ."ne into it.
some OF them never - re- urn. Men
have wandered about il% fringe, baf-
fled by the shifting ice from making
any extended trip inside. We know
the shores of the Polar sea. but the
great white space Of Loco eco square
miles which is its center has never
been seen by civilized maa.
We hope to tlv over tnH center of II.
Our eyes VIII search constantly and
eagerly for some distinctive feature
of its desolate surface We may be
rewarded hY the sight % land or we
may not. but il will be II thrilling eN-
perience to look for tho first time
upon a region that ha" tetied every
effort to spy uut is secret.
This is primarily a GcC;-r: nhical eX-
redition Ous passa-," WI! be too
swift for EXTENDED scicG :tir obserVa-
tions. We are land hunters, seeking
The rarest bit Of land ~ }he world
an oasis in the Iceland which, If
found, should be worth much more
than any similar strip IN the world.
For in the future it will he mans base
In the midst OF the nast Isolated OF
all regiOnS-mnre isolated even than
the vast expa3se of thc Antarctic con-
tnent.
Area Covered With Glaciers.
The Antarctic is a sable and solid
land, rising III "a high plateau covered
with glaciers. Once on Il. the en-
plorer is sure of his path and his goal.
But the Arctic ice foe is a shifting,
drifting. precarious footing. 1t is
never where 1t was a short time be
fore. 1t moves constantly and it en-
CULTS those who venture into it, and
hitherto it has been imDrernable. We
hope to conquer i.
One must always remember that the
North Pole is not in the center of the
Polar Sea. The pole Is 10 one side
and much easier 10 reach than the
center of this great waste Uf ice. Even
so, it took Pcal'Y % wears 20 move
over the shifting foes TO within strik-
ing distance ~ the Pole lie was
thwarted aGa5n and again in his at
temptS and Vet he went Ia one side,
much nearer Il @DeSihla base than the
center of the unknown area.
Peary thouGh5 hH saw land. Nc
MILAN seems To have proved th3t what
he saw was a mirage: hut Pearv had
good reason - believe that land was
there A large island. a ve"y large
island, indeed could eA.St tI7"n. with
temperatures which w"u.G make hu
man life possible, without mans ever
being able to reach it over the ice.
Perils in Journey Over Zee.
1t is almost im0oss.hlo for The per-
son who had ne} ,r heon in The Arctic
TO realize how dalcult il is to travel
have come in actual contact with it
can have any conception Of the diff
Cultics which It interposes. capt. Rob.
ert Bartlett, who WAS padrV ship
commander and later commanded the
Karluk on the expedition to Wran-
gell Island. made the Grip from Wran-
gell to the mainland with incredible
difficulty. and yet he was on The mar
gin of known and explored territory.
If he had been farther in no would
never have been able 10 get through.
There has been much sad about the
friendly Arctic. The statement has
been made that it IS possible to so in
without provisions and sustain life by
killing wild animals. l can under
stand how that misrepreSentation
could be made by those who have fol
lowed only the coast, but I know that
life cannot be maintained without pro
visions in the interior The Winter |
spent in the Maud on the coast of
Siberia in 1929 proved that.
The natives died of starvation that
year, even so near the coast line. They
went out day after day for food, and
we saw them return empty handed.
Not more than 200 miles from where
we were caught in the ice they ac-
tually perished for lack of food. We
helped them all we could. but there
was not much we could do. If the
natives run short of food that way,
how can a white man, an adYenturer
from the south, exist without provi-
sions Of his own? Those who say life
can be sustained on the animal life of
the interior of the Polar Sea do not
state the facts.
Hard TO Find Animal Life.
The farther north one goes, the
more difficult it is to find any animal
life. In our last flight of more than
900 miles we saw one seal and three
birds. A man who could subsist on
such rare game would be mighty thin
by the time he got through. Those
who call il the friendly Arctic are
mistaken; they are saying things that
may cause others to lose their lives.
The Arctic is anything but friendly.
But. although il is so surely impos-
sible TO live on the Arctic foes from
travel may be SO difficult over the ice
as to make communication with the
mainland impossible, it is not out of
the realm of possibility that life may
actually exist in the interior, if there
is any land to support il.
Suppose, for instance. there is an
island, a large island. in the interior.
1t will probably be surrounded by COM
paratively ShOal water. In the Sum-
O1pr mont he the will ratrpaf little
way, and when this occurs seals and
birds will always be found. That
would be d spot where life could be
maintained indefinitely; but there
would have to be land.
Cause for Wonder
have often wondered what would
have happened if one of the 100 whal-
ing ships that have been caught in
the ice in Bering Straits since the
days when Whalers first dared the
icebergs to get oil had been carried
into the interior of the foe and had
caught on such an island. The ice
drift from Bering Strait IS to the
north, toward the point where we eX-
pect to find land, If it exists. These
whalers shipped about so men each,
and they always took native hunters
and women with them,
If they had drifted to the north and
struck land at last. they would have
been able to build houses with the
timbers of the ship, they would have
had a large store of provisions to keep
them until they got in. stores of food
from the seals and other sea animals
and from the birds. They would have
found a comparatively mild climate in
the Summer months. The sun would
have been warm for u good part of the
year. They could have lived. multi
piled and thrived, but they would
have been cut off forever from civiliza-
ton by the drifting ice.