Science: Amundsen Plans

Captain Roald Amundsen, South Pole discoverer, who was frustrated by airplane defects in his attempt to fly across the North Pole from Alaska last Summer (TIME, June 18, 25), will try again next year, starting his flight in June from Spitsbergen (Norwegian islands northeast of Greenland). With him will go Lieutenant Ralph E. Davison, U. S. Navy, selected by Secretary Denby at the Norse explorer’s request, to command one of three seaplanes which will make the trip.

The planes are Dornier-Dolphin flying-boats with rounded hulls, built to take off and land on ice, earth or water. They will have radio equipment for communication with the depot ship. They will be manned by six men. The edge of the Spitsbergen ice pack is about 450 miles from the Pole. It is 600 miles nearer than the northernmost point of Alaska. Between the Pole and Alaska stretches a vast waste of at least 1,000,000 square miles which has never been penetrated. The Amundsen party hopes to explore this and determine whether it contains a small continent, as Stefansson and others have speculated. If the expedition reaches the Pole, they will leave there a cache of supplies, food and fuel. They will also investigate the possibility of transPolar air routes linking Europe and the Pacific by the shortest lines. The bubble sextant will be the principal instrument of navigation. It requires no horizon, laying courses directly by the sun. The magnetic compass is useless, owing to the discrepancy between the true and the magnetic Poles. The party will try to establish contact with the steamship Maud, which has been drifting in the Polar ice pack for two years.