Wilkins Through

One day last week, after Sir George Hubert Wilkins and his Arctic exploring submarine Nautilus had for six days ceased communication with anxious radio stations, his pretty wife exclaimed in London: "I have a hunch tonight will bring good news."

News which came was that the Nautilus lay floating amid ice debris north of Spitsbergen and about 400 mi. from the North Pole. Ice had broken off the submarine's diving fins. Nonetheless. Sir Hubert had water-filled her diving chambers, had nosed under vast cakes of ice. When she first scraped under, the hollow steel hull. Wilkins reported, "was a veritable drum or sound box with the faintest scratch of the ice sounding like the ripping of giant strips of calico. Heavy bumps set up tremors like the continuous shocks of earthquakes."

The crew quickly recovered from first fright, looked out the portholes. They saw "steel-like fangs of ice moving stealthily through the water, which changes in color . . . throughout the entire range of blues." They saw prawn-like and cock-roach-shaped creatures, sea fleas, medusa jelly fish. Through compression chambers they took samples of water and bottom sludge.

They rammed their ice-borer, which was to give them escape if they were gripped under ice, against an ice chunk, smashed it. Ice crushed the runners atop the Nautilus, which were to enable her to slide against the underside of ice fields. She sprang two leaks, became miserably dank within. The propeller edges became saw-toothed and bent, grinding against small ice. But at last the Nautilus emerged from the ice-mashed Arctic and Sir Hubert radioed the world that he was all right.

William Randolph Hearst, for whose publications and news service Sir Hubert has been reporting the submarine excursion, wirelessed him a plea: "I most urgently beg of you to return promptly to safety and to defer any further adventure until another and more favorable time, and with a better boat."

Sir Hubert replied that it had really become too risky to venture farther north. Regretfully he was returning to Spitsbergen.

Norwegians recalled planes and ships en route for Nautilus rescue, and voiced their vexation at the expense which troubled explorers cause other people. It was suggested that henceforth all Polar expeditions be required to post enough money to pay for rescue expeditions.

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