Viewing page 217 of 404

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

the shipping of the apparatus for his journey. 
"By the middle of May," said Mr. Wellman, "everything will be in readiness to ship by train to Rotterdam and thence by boat to Tromsoe, Norway, where, during the last days of May, the expedition will assemble and board the Frithjof and sail to our station at Spitzbergen. 
"June and part of July will probably be consumed in assembling the ship and making our test flights to assure us that everything is as it should be. We have extensive workshops there, and about forty men will be employed in making the final preparations. 
"Toward the end of July, or during the first half of August, we expect to take our departure from Spitzbergen in the airship and make for the pole. We will have everything aboard that would be necessary for sledging work, including twenty-five sledge dogs, brought to us from arctic Siberia by a special reindeer caravan over a trail of more than 1,000 miles in length."
Mr. Wellman will be the guest of honor at a farewell dinner given in New York by the Aero Club next Wednesday, and Thursday he will said [[sail]] for Paris. He will probably not return to this country again before making the essay at the pole. 

Will Sail Next Week. 

He arrived from Europe on the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm II Wednesday morning, and after attending the marriage of his daughter, in Washington, he will sail next week to complete his preparations for the aerial voyage. He expects to reach Spitzbergen, where three men were left last summer in charge of the skeleton framework of a balloon shed, early in June and at favorable opportunity in July or August he plans to launch his airship and set sail for the pole. 
But he has no intention of following the example of Andre and "deliberately commit suicide." Andre knew that the chances were vastly against his success, Mr. Wellman said, but his sincerity had been questioned and he feared more to return home without having made the attempt than the dangers of the attempt itself. 
"We may not succeed the first time," said Mr. Wellman, "but we shall not lose heart, and on the second or third attempt, if they are necessary, we have the utmost confidence that we shall succeed."
Describing the construction of his airship, which is 183 feet long, and has suspended from it a steel car 115 feet in length, Mr. Wellman said all possible obstacles to success had been taken into consideration. As to the danger from the condensation of moisture and the accumulation of a great weight of snow on the surface of the balloon, which has been suggested by Peary and other arctic explorers, as well as by aeronauts, Mr. Wellman said it does not exist. 

Will Shed Rain and Snow. 

His balloon has three thicknesses of cotton coated with an emulsion of pure rubber, which, he believes, would be impervious to moisture and would shed rain and snow as perfectly as a tin roof. In addition, he expects that the injection of air heated by the gasoline engine in to an interior balloon will, by radiation, add two degrees at least to the temperature of the surrounding hydrogen, which would result in preventing the formation of frost on the surface of the balloon. 
Instead of carrying a large quantity of sand ballast, he has designed a leather snake, covered with steel scales and filled with an extra supply of provisions, which will be dropped behind the airship swimming over the surface of the water or winding its way across the ice hummocks. It will be suspended at the end of a steel cable, and by raising or lowering the cable and the serpent Mr. Wellman expects to be able to control the rise and fall of the airship. 
From Spitzbergen to the pole it is 715 miles, which the explorer believes can be covered in 150 hours under most favorable conditions, but he will sail prepared for a [[?]] lasting several months.