Aerial Exploration

News from the Antarctic

COMMANDER BYRD'S recent air flight as described in the "New York Times" and the papers associated with it in receiving almost daily wireless correspondence from Antarctica, brought him in sight of a large mountain range not known to geographers, the second he has discovered.

This, now mapped by aero-camera, Byrd has named the Rockefeller Range, while a great stretch of newly seen land and mountain is to be called Marie Byrd Land after the explorer's wife—"the best sport and noblest person I know," says Commander Byrd. The correspondent, Mr. Russell Owen, expresses the belief that next season Byrd will be able to chart a land larger than the British territory known as the Ross Dependency and "possibly equally majestic in character."

Byrd's recent flights have amply justified his plan of spending one year's season in preparatory work and extending his operations the next season with the knowledge already gained as their base of information. Incidentally it should be noted that on February 24, Commander Byrd sent a direct radio code message to be broadcast in this country in code and then translated.

The Australian explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson, who is about to undertake an expedition to Wilkes Land with a view to following the unknown parts of its coast by airplane, has expressed his high commendation of Byrd's recent achievements.

When the plans of Byrd, Wilkins and Mawson have been carried out we shall know pretty accurately just what does lie in the vast Antarctic region. It is true that Captain Wilkins has returned, but he will move southward again next year and he has already a definite achievement to his credit in his air exploration of Graham Land.