Antarctic Mystery

Anyone interested in plots for a sure-fire novel in which crisis is piled upon crisis but the hero inevitably triumphs, last week could find prime inspiration in the solution of The Great Ellsworth Mys- tery. Chapter I of the tale was written with a bang two months ago when a garbled radio message from Flyer Lincoln Ellsworth, far out over Antarctica, was followed by dreadful silence. Last week, after 54 days of pulse-quickening action, another garbled radio message brought the story to its conclusion. The message, sent by the Australian ship Discovery II, declared that Ellsworth and his pilot had been found safe & sound at Little America.

On Nov. 23 Explorer Ellsworth and Pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon took off from Dundee Island in their Northrop Polar Star on a fourth attempt to make .he first crossing of Antarctica. Heading For Little America, they had gone about a third of the way when their radio gagged, stopped. After waiting a few days, Sir Hubert Wilkins on the base ship Wyatt Earp announced that in accordance with well-laid plans, the ship would sail back to Grille, pick up an airplane, return, deposit three caches of food at prearranged spots, finally go to Little America, where there was always the chance the flyers would .urn up after all.

As the Wyatt Earp wallowed back to Chile, a group of men in the U. S. chartered another Northrop to fly to Chile to he rescue. With Russell Thaw at the wheel, it got as far as Atlanta, crashed. Pilot Henry Tindall ("Dick") Merrill sprang into another Northrop, got to Chile. Picking the airplane up, the Wyatt Earp headed back toward Antarctica. Meanwhile in Australia the Discovery II abandoned its scientific studies, churned off with two planes toward Little America.

By this time, the Wyatt Earp was back in the ring, skirting the ice-fields, supposedly to lay down depots. Many followers of the tale were puzzled by the fact that it never did lay down depots, but headed for Little America despite the fact that the Discovery II could adequately handle the search from that end. Last week the Wyatt Earp was still 400 miles away when the Discovery II created the final climax by finding the two explorers, well-fed and chipper, installed in Admiral Byrd's abandoned radio shack. Brought on board, Ellsworth at last achieved the reader interest which until then he had never been so successful in obtaining as other Antarctic explorers. His story:

On the first day of the flight a defective switch and antennae lead throttled the ra dio. Soon after, bad weather forced a landing. Next day, still with the minor flaws in the radio unfixed, they took off again, were forced down almost at once for three days more. Again they took off, stayed in the air less than an hour, landed for seven days of blizzard. Finally, on Dec. 5, only 25 miles from Little America, fuel gave out. Landing safely on the smooth barrier, the flyers spent four days by the plane, finally trekked to Little America, where there was plenty of food. There was also a great deal of gasoline, which in the long wait might have been portaged to the empty plane and its radio. Instead, the men spent the time "correlating data."

If every detail of drama and suspense in the 2,100-mi. Ellsworth flight had been carefully plotted out in advance, the results could not have been more successful from the publicity angle.

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