Office of the Historian

031.11 Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition/98: Telegram

The Consul General at Sydney (Wilson) to the Secretary of State

[Extract]
Sydney, February 22, 1939—4 p.m.
[Received February 22—6:46 a.m.]

Reference the Department’s telegram dated February 17, 1 p.m.5

1. Owing to stormy and unfavorable conditions Lincoln Ellsworth tells me that he did not touch or see Heard Island. After leaving latitude 70 he dropped from his airplane a copper tube containing an American flag and the following statement:

“Having flown on a direct course from latitude 68.30 south longitude 79 east to latitude 72 south longitude 79 east I drop this record together with the flag of the United States of America and claim for my country, so far as this act allows, the area south of latitude 70 and to a distance of 150 miles east and 150 miles west of my line of flight and to a distance of 150 miles south of latitude 72 longitude 79 east which I claim to have explored.”

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Wilson
  1. Not printed.↩