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Show SAME AS IN 500 A.D. Pacific Journey Made on Raft Dr. Thor Heyerdahl, 32-year-old Norwegian enthnologist and zoologist, zoolo-gist, had a theory that the first Polynesians Poly-nesians were blue-eyed blondes who floated over to their Pacific islands is-lands from South America on rafts in about the year 500 A. D. What he did about proving that theory now is history. He and a party of six men built themselves a primitive raft of bamboo and balsa wood, climbed aboard and set themselves them-selves adrift at Callao. Peru. Exactly 101 days later the scientific scien-tific group drifted ashore on their raft, the Kon-Tiki, at Raroia reef in the Tuamotu archipelago, center of their target. They had used no motors, oars or sails. Their only means of propulsion on the 4,300-mile 4,300-mile trip had been the Humboldt and South Equatorial current. That, said Dr. Heyerdahl as he landed in San Francisco en route to Norway, provided "indubitable proof" of the veracity of his theory. "The fact that we made the journey jour-ney demonstrates it could have been done around 500 A. D., when the Polynesians were first populated," he said. "Expert navigators said it couldn't be done, that the balsa wood would sink, that it was impossible; but it wasn't." He related that the current and wind sometimes carried the raft as much as 71 miles a day, sometimes only 9 miles; but that "we always moved westward." The raft was 45 feet long and. 18 feet wide a virtually vir-tually infinitesimal craft on which to cross the vast sweep of the Pacific. With true scientific objectivity, the men ate a little of everything that came their way during the course of the journey fish, small crabs that walked on the otean, seaweed and plankton. Plankton was described de-scribed as a semi-microscopic sea life, both animal and vegetable, which was "like shrimp paste." Cost of the expedition, estimated at $40,000, was financed by Dr. Heyerdahl Hey-erdahl through funds of bis own and by borrowing money |