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Show VHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK 1 1 By LEMUEL F. PARTON NJEW YORK. Perhaps it is the heat, general, it seems, throughout through-out the civilized world these days, nr more likely it is one of those waves of human Born in Wealt h, aspiration that Ellsworth Picks sometime , ,., sweep the Hazardous Life word At any rate in announcing intention to return re-turn to Antarctica to seek to learn some of the primal vsecrets hidden m the interior of the continent at the bottom of the world, Lincoln Ellsworth shares ambition with Admiral Ad-miral Byrd, as with British, Norwegian, Nor-wegian, French and Argentinan flyer-explorers. Difference is that, whereas Mr. Ellsworth's motives are purely scientific, in other cases international politics in their relation rela-tion to geographical claims are the incentives. Love of adventures manifested when yet in his 'teens sent Ellsworth Ells-worth forth to explore unknown regions in different parts of the world. Scion of wealthy parents, born in Chicago in 1880, he could have ordered his career, had he wished, along many lines less strenuous and of fewer hazards than the one he chose and in which he has become so distinguished. distin-guished. He came east to a crack seat of secondary learning, the Hill school, Pottstown, Pa., and upon graduation entered Columbia Colum-bia where he won .scholastic honors hon-ors in the department of civil engineering. But, becoming restive res-tive under the sedentary routine of student life, he did not wait to be graduated. faring forth into the wild, he became be-came an axman on the first Grand Trunk Pacific railway survey of the transcontinental route across Canada. Cana-da. For five years he saw the virgin vir-gin land of the Northwest, lived among Indians, shared the hardships hard-ships of pioneers. In 1907 he became resident engineer of the Grand Trunk at Prince Rupert, B. C. But his work, filled though it was with hardship and adventure, was not enough. Restlessness was in his soul and the unknown beckoned. So 1909 found him in the-Peace river district in northern Canada, prospecting pros-pecting for gold. Then the World war came and, seeking action, he went to France where he became an aviator long before the United States entered the strife. The real turning point in his career came with his meeting with Raoul Amundsen in Paris in 1924. With the great Norwegian Nor-wegian explorer he participated in various expeditions culminate ing in 1926 with the famous flight in a dirigible over the North pole. Since then subsequent subse-quent trips of exploration won him enhanced fame and added thrilling chapters to a gallant life of action. pROFESSOR J. B. S. HALDANE, the famous British biochemist, who just now offers to sit inside an air-raid shelter while it is bombed from the out- Scientlst Balks side, is the At Nothing; as only living test- v . r? j tl'be still un- Yet Unscarred scarred Last month he sealed himself in an air-tight chamber for 14 hours to learn how the victims of the Thetis submarine disaster felt in their last hours. He once ate an ounce of ammonium chloride a day, survived it and learned a lot about tetanus and saving children's Iive,s. Studying fatigue, he shut himself for long periods in a tight chamber, the air charged with carbon dioxide. Tracing effects of acid on the body, he ate daily three ounces of bicarbonate of soda, following it with a chaser of hydrochloric acid, diluted with water. Twice gassed in the World war, he seemed to enjoy himself a lot, writing down his sensations with Gusto and later qualifying as an expert on mustard and other gases. With all that, he hasn't a scratch on him and doesn't suffer even from indigestion. Husky and vigorous, he doubles as guinea pig and a writer, the latter pursuit greatly enhancing his fame, notably with his book Daedalus, which was quite a sensation sensa-tion in this country in 1924. He experiments ex-periments on his mind just as he does on his body. He is moved mainly main-ly by the idea that we know precious little about life and death and the human body and mind, and that in the short time allotted to us we ought to try anything once, which he consistently docs. He is -a spirited writer, giver to epigrams, and is known as the G. B. Shaw of Science. The son of a distinguished Scottish scientist, he was educated edu-cated at Oxford and gained increasing in-creasing reputation before he was 30. He i,s 47. (Consolidated features WNU Service.) |