Poleflight

Roald Amundsen and five companions in two flying boats taxied along the water and rose in the air. Spitzbergen dwindled behind them, as their heavily-laden craft, fueled for a 1,600-mile trip, with provisions for six weeks, turned northward on a 700-mile trip to the North Pole. They should have wade it in eight or nine hours, they might have returned in as many hours more. But they did not. They kept the world waiting. They might have suffered mishap and be trekking back. They might have descended at the Pole, as they hoped to do, for scientific purposes. Yet the chances "of finding a landing field from which they could rise again were small. If they landed and could rise again, how long would they tarry for scientific observations? If there were no landing place from which they could rise again, had they chosen to land and trek back in order to have a chance for scientific observation? They kept the world waiting, wondering and anxious.

*Last week, Harrison Williams of Manhattan, a patron of Beebe's expeditions, purchased the 1,245-ton Vanadis, new German-built yacht of Mr. C. K. G. Billings. He said he would equip her to take the place of the Arcturus, which is a chartered vessel. Burning oil in Diesel engines, equipped with a 30,000-lb. gyroscopic stabilizer, the Vanadis will cruise long without refueling, will permit deep-sea dredging in heavy weather such as hampered Prof. Beebe's recent efforts in the Sargasso Sea (TIME, Mar. 16).