NORTH POLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 208, 3 August 1937, Page 9

NORTH POLE.

/ RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS. MUCH LEARNED ALREADY. Already the Soviet’s* scientific expedition at the North Pole has produced valuable results. It has sounded the Polar Sea and found that it is more than 3000 ft deeper than indicated in Nansen’s researches. Even while drifting on the icefloe which supports the camp, the scientists have gained knowledge, mapping hitherto unknown areas as the wind and currents move them about. Cheerfully they have settled down to drift for a year, hoping in the process to discover the secrets of the currents which flow between the Pole and the Atlantic.

The North Pole summer climate has been proved much milder than was generally believed, with temperatures often above freezing point. Already, too, it has been learned that the Polar climate is affected by much the same cyclones as is the climate of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Professor Schmidt, who took the expedition to the Pole, is modest concerning its achievements. He attributes Russia’s outstanding triumph to the fact that the expedition is Racked bv all the resources ol the Soviet State, whereas great Arctic figures of the past, such as Nansen, Amundsen, and Peary, depended upon private enterprise