BALLOONING TO THE NORTH POLE.
MR. WALTER WELLMAN, who has just gone to Norway to make ready for his attempt to reach the North Pole in a steerable balloon, is a tried Arctic explorer. If be were not, one might regard the scheme which Ile announced last year, and which he has just made kuown again in its improved form through Reuter, as that of a fervid madman. Perhaps—who knows ?—it is one of those plane which, in man's war against Nature's obstacles as in man's wars against his own kind, succeed just because they are so audacious. If Mr. Wellman does reach the North Pole, and comes back to tell us what it is like, we shall nevertheless be surprised. That we are dealing with a serious scheme, how- ever, and not merely with .n harum-scarum piece of heroic folly, is proved by the fact that the United States Government have thought it worth while to "lend" Major Hearsey to act as executive officer and scientific observer of the expedition, and by the remarkable precision of the preparations. Some people have the knack of describing their plan for evading a natural destiny and the ordinary effects of causes with such an impressive array of detail that one cannot, but think that there may be something in their confidence after all. We have felt that on reading-Mr. Wellman's statement. Perhaps we should have been impressed in the same way if lie had taken similar precautions for defeating the laws of gravity on a given date.
On June 1st the members of the expedition—who are Mr. Wellman, Major Hearsey, Chief Engineer Vannerman, Dr. Fowler, whose professional services we hope will not be required, and M. Gaston Hervieu, the aeronautical engineer— will sail for Spitsbergen. Trials of the steerable balloon, which is called 'America,' will be necessary of course, but Mr. Wellman hopes to start between July 30th and August 10th. If necessary, however, he will start as late as August 20th. The airship is not the one that proved un- satisfactory last year and caused the abandonment of the expedition. The balloon has beeu lengthened by eighteen feet, and now measures a hundred and eighty-four feet, and its lifting-power has been increased by three thousand pounds, so that it can now raise nearly twenty thousand pounds. This is the largest steerable balloon ever made except Count Zeppelin's. The car is entirely new. The framework is of steel tubing, and is a hundred and fifteen feet long, ten feet high, and eight feet broad. A man standing on the top of it will be able to reach the balloon above. The backbone is a steel tank eighteen inches wide, which runs the whole length of the platform. This will hold twelve hundred gallons of petrol, and will serve the additional purpose of giving the framework rigidity. The tank is divided into sections, and the petrol can be pumped from one section to another, so that as the petrol is consumed by the motor the balloon may be kept evenly balanced. The roof of the car is muds of tightly stretched silk, and vertical walls of silk are also placed at the sides. These are intended, by holding the air, to increase the stability of the airabip. The rudder is in the shape of a wheel, and though it has an area of nine hundred square feet, it weighs only thirty pounds. The motor, which. is placed a little forward of amidships, is of seventy horse-power. There are
two propellers, of the same kind as those used in the snecessful French military diregeables. They are placed amidships on either side of the car, In the car there is roem for ten or twelve men and twelve dogs, though we suppose there is no intention of trying to early so many passengers. Count Zeppelin's larger airship was designed, we believe, to carry only five men. Of course, in an airship the passengers cannot move about much or the trim is upset. Food weighing six hundred pounds is to be stored in a tank which is ingeniously made to run on light rails overhead and is worked by a windlass from the navigator's position. The food, like the petrel, is to be used in preserving the equilibrium of the balloon, and we can only hope that the exigencies of equi- librium may never require it to be kept out of reach 9f the passengers.
The petrol is sufficient to run the motor for a hundred and fifty hours at a normal speed of fourteen knots an hour, giving "a total radius of action," as Mr. Wellman says, "of two thousand one hundred knots." We are told nothing about the wind. This is a vital matter, of course. If a contrary wind blew at, say, thirteen knots, the petrol would be exhausted after the balloon had travelled a hundred and fifty knots. Naturally a favourable day will be chosen for the start, and possibly the wind will help instead of impeding the balloon. At that time of year it ought to do so, and the ill- fated Andree. relied entirely upon the existence of a steady southerly wind to blow him all the way to the Pole. Although Mr. Wellman does not mention the wind, he has, of course, taken it into consideration. The other difficult matter is the exhaustion of the gas. No balloon has been known to stay in the air for anything like so long a time as Mr. Wellman will probably require for reaching the Pole. He will use hydrogen, and be reckons on preserving the relative lifting- power of his balloon by his daily sacrifice of weight through the consumption of petrol and food. The weight will diminish on an average by six hundred pounds a day. Then conies one of those pretty little calculations which make Mr. Wellman seem partly a visionary and part ly It nian who demands the favours of fortune so bravely that he will get them. The loss of lifting-power in the balloon from leakage, he argues, will be not more than the equivalent of a hundred and fifty pounds a day, and as the weight to be lifted will be reduced by six hundred pounds a day, the balloon will have four hundred and fifty pounds in hand, so to speak, at the end of every day. The equivalent of that amount in gas will be free for disposal. Generally it would be released through the valves; but Mr. Wellman has discovered by experience that he can burn his superfluous hydrogen in his motor. He will collect it and use it in that way, giving himself altogether thirty more hours of running-power in the motor. This is to say, he will have (so he argues) a hundred and eighty hours at fourteen knots an hour, or a travelling distance of two thousand five hundred miles,—double the distance from his base at Spitsbergen to the Pole a-nl back. It is proposed to sail with the guide-rope always touching the ground, which means that the balloon will never ascend more than five hundred feet. The lower part of this guide-rope is the last word in ingenuity. It is made Of leather studded with steel, and, being hollow, is to be stuffed with food. It will float on the sea, or will slide smoothly with- out injury to itself over the ice, thanks to the steel scales. Altogether, the food carried will last the expedition for ten months without game or other accidental supplies. If the balloon descends sooner than it should, the fabric will make a hut for the winter, and the next year (so speaks optimism) the party can return by sledge. For this purpose twelve Siberian dogs, sledges, and small boats will be carried. But Mr. Wellman hopes that be will come back in his balloon, not in a sledge, even though he con- templates the prospect of drifting away from the Pole, without motor-power, before whatever wind there may be. He expects the journey there will take from ten to twenty days. Ile says nothing of doubts whether the balloon will keep the air all that time ; and though, as we have seen, he speaks of disposing of surplus gas, he says nothing about replacing or preserving the quality of what he keeps in the balloon.
To many people the danger of Arctic exploration will appear one danger and the danger of aerial navigation quite another. The latter danger, however, has been enormoeslY reduced by the experience of the last four or five yearn. The Preneh military dirigeable, 'La Patric,: has been steered at will
up and down wind for a whole year witlamt any mishap. Indeed, the dangers of ballooning are very much overestimated. A year ago the French Aero Club published a Report which showed that, although over three hundred accepts had been made in twelve months from the balloon ground at St. Olond, there had not been a single accident worth the name. Ballooning seems dangerous because it hi still unfamiliar. But how many of us, if we had never beard of a railway train, would care to trust ourselves in one after seeing an express pass at seventy miles an hour ? The principal accidents in ballooning are due to negligence in the examination of the envelope before the ascent, aiia to difficult descents. But the latter have been made vastly easier, even in very high winds, owing to the general use of the ripping cord by which the balloon can be made to collapse rapidly when the spot for coming to earth is chosen. There is no more dragging across country till the anchor holds. It will be noticed that there is, after all, a considerable difference between the amount of food and the amount of gas with which Ian Wellman is providing him- self. We hope that if his gas gives out he will net be landed in some spot from which return is impossible. Ten menthe ie a short time as periods of operation are reckoned in the Arctic regions. The only attempt to reach the Pole by balloon hitherto was Andree's on July 11th. 1897. Buoys that he dropped shortly after his start have been picked up, and their cheerful messages read, but from that day to this no further news of him and bis two companions has been obtained. Search parties have searched in vain. Seine say that he was killed by natives; other e that he starved beyond some impassable barrier ; others that he wee drowned. Perhaps we shall never know. One difficulty with, which a ballomt travelling low may be troubled in Spitsbergen is the preva- lence of fogs in the summer. But lffr. Wellman must be reckoning on some good luck, or he would never have under- taken Bach an expedition. It will be OA attentive world that watches him start.
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