314 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



An airplane can carry more and bring back more specimens than a 

 dog team could haul and although much time might pass while wait- 

 ing for reasonably good weather, the speed of travel when the weather 

 is good and the excellent visibility to be had when traveling by plane 

 more than compensate for the delay. Therefore I think that with the 

 airplane we can reveal the last remaining unknown regions on the face 

 of the earth. 



So much for our plans and the way in which they failed in certain 

 points. The details of the flight have appeared already in the publica- 

 tions of American societies, but a brief summary of them will still be in 

 place here. 



In 1933 I had planned to make the flight in the opposite direction, 

 from the Bay of Whales to the Weddell Sea, and in January 1934 had 

 landed the airplane on the bay ice which, after a successful trial flight, 

 broke up in a gale and crushed the machine so extensively that we had 

 to abandon the attempt. 



In September 1934 we were back in New Zealand ready for another 

 attempt; this time to make the flight from the Weddell Sea to the 

 Ross Sea, because an earlier start was possible in that direction owing 

 to earlier break-up of the pack ice about Graham Land. But the 

 weather was altogether against us, first at Deception Island and later 

 at Snow Hill Island on the east coast of the archipelago, where we 

 found a suitable flying base. We made a start on January 3, 1935, 

 but were soon driven back by bad weather. In the whole of that 

 season, and we were there for 3 months, we had less than 12 hours of 

 flying weather. Returning from Snow Hill Island, we were caught in 

 the pack and got free wdth difiiculty, and for the third attempt we 

 chose a safer base, Dundee Island, some 80 miles north of Snow Hill, 

 which we had marked on the return from the previous attempt. 

 The Wyatt Earp reached Dundee Island again in November 1935 with 

 Sir Hubert Wilkins and five others who had been on all three expedi- 

 tions. For pilot on this flight I was fortunate in obtaining Mr. 

 Herbert HolUck-Kenyon, who had obtained leave from Canadian 

 Airways; he had much experience of flying in subarctic conditions. 



At the summit of Dundee Island, about 500 feet above sea, there 

 was an almost unlimited snowfield with an excellent take-off slightly 

 downhill. Supplies and fuel were hauled up on sledges and personal 

 equipment carried by the plane during test flights. The weather was 

 favorable and we took off on November 21 in clear weather for what 

 we hoped would be the main fUght, but after about 600 miles our fuel 

 gage clogged, so that we were forced to return, and landed after 10}^ 

 hours in the air. We had reaUzed from our experience on the first two 

 expeditions that the only way to fly in the Antarctic is to start in good 

 weather, and, if it turns bad, to be prepared to land and await the 



