Russia at the North Pole "First weather report from the
North Pole" makes an effective headline ; it also signifies the extraordinary progress of Russian polar science. The Russian expedition which landed a party of four on an ice-floe at the Pole worked with no fewer than five aeroplanes, which set off from a care- fully prepared base at Rudolf Island. These four scientists are due to remain at their Polar camp for a year, though the latest news suggests that their floe, which they charac- teristically named "Comrade Stalin," is floating away. At any rate, Stalin's portrait, like Nobile's Italian flag, has been dropped on the magic spot. The expedition's object is not simply to gain prestige by annexing what is in any case not land at all. Its members are to study polar magnetic conditions, ice-floe movements, the depth of Arctic waters, and meteorology. They will in a literal sense explore every avenue for the trans-polar air route from San Francisco to Moscow, which is ambitiously planned to be ready in 1939. The days when the traveller will think nothing of lunching over the North Pole are not yet, but the contrast between this swift progress of mechanically-equipped expeditions and the painful plodding of Nansen and Peary is impressive. A generation ago every advance of fifty miles nearer to the Pole was hailed as a great achievement ; a generation hence fifty miles an hour increase in the speed at which man flies backwards and forwards over it will be taken for granted.
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