Polar Pilgrims

Going. After celebrating Independence Day in Battle Harbor with cannon, rifle, shotgun, pistol, flashlight and races in rowboats, Commander Donald B. MacMillan, Arctic explorer of the

National Geographic Society (TIME, June 29 et seq.), ordered his two ships on up the Labrador Coast. A stop was made at Domino to take on sealskin boots. Bucking a head wind into Hopedale Harbor, MacMillan learned that the ice had gone out of there only four days before; yet the next day, the wind falling, ravenous clouds of mosquitoes filled the sultry air and fattened on the white men as they fished for trout and salmon, shot seals, took pictures, exhibited their two Navy seaplanes and their radio apparatus to curious Eskimos, visited with the Rev. W. W. Ferret, head of the Moravian mission of Hopedale.

The Peary and the Bowdoin steamed on again, picking their way cautiously through rock-strewn channels. They threaded Windy Tickle to lie in the lee of Cape Harrigan while MacMillan and Engineer Jaynes went to Jack's Lane to recover supplies cached there by MacMillan on his last return from the Arctic.

Beyond Cape Harrigan, as far as a powerful telescope could take the eye to sea, vast ice floes stretched--the densest in years, according to local fishermen. At Cape Mugford, the Bowdoin's propeller was damaged. . . .

Returned. For "excellent behavior" displayed in fishing his two companions, Lieutenant Dietrichsen and Mechanic Omdahl, out of polar pools into which they slipped while walking over floes from their crippled seaplane to rejoin Explorer Amundsen, the Cabinet Council of Norway last week conferred a gold medal on Pilot Lincoln Ellsworth, only U.S. member of the Amundsen polar flight which returned in safety a fortnight ago to Oslo (TIME, July 13).

Asked if they would ever again attempt flying to the Pole in heavier-than-air machines, Amundsen and Ellsworth said: "No." Asked if they were interested in the project of Herr Hugo Eckener of trying for the Pole in a super-zeppelin, said they: "Yes, in-deed!" Said Ellsworth, whose recent trip was his first polar experience: "I have only just begun . . . Any project for a polar flight by dirigible should plan its route for a flight clear across the Pole, terminating in Japan."

Eckener was known to be seeking their company for a flight next year; was reported to have arranged for a conference this month somewhere in North Germany.

Planning. In Germany, plans were reported maturing for the construction of a polar zeppelin at the famed Friedrichshafen works. An estimated budget of seven million gold marks ($1,750,000) for the whole trip was to be sought by the International Arctic Research & Exploration Society in levies upon Labor organizations, community poll taxes, children's pfennigs, taxes on theatre and cinema tickets.