By NEA Service, Chicago, Oct. 19--The giant snow cruiser being built by the Research Foundation of the Armour Institute of Technology for the U. S. Antarctic Expedition is nearing its final tests, which will be stiff ones carried out among the sand dunes near here. That will give a close approximation of conditions to be met in the Antarctic later, when the cruiser will be the home of four men throughout the polar winter.
When the tests are completed, shortly after Oct. 23, the cruiser will roll slowly eastward toward Boston along roads chosen for width and the lack of bridges or underpasses. It will average 20 miles an hour on this "shakedown cruise," 10 miles under top speed, making overnight stops at Fort Wayne, Ind., Mansfield, O., and Akron, O., Fredonia, Auburn and Albany, N. Y., and Westboro, Mass., before arriving at Boston, where it will go to the army base before taking ship at the navy yard for the polar seas.
(The route to be taken by the giant snow cruiser includes the stretch of U. S. Road No. 6, across LaPorte county and many LaPorteans will be able to see the big vehicle at Kingsbury and elsewhere along that route. Definite announcement as to when it will make its trip will be published later.--The Editor).
The cruiser will travel only by day because of traffic risks, but once in the Antarctic, day and night will be all one, for she carries her own generating plant for lights, her own machine shop for repairs, and her own winch and dragline to pull herself out of any crevasse or pit from which her own wheelpower is unable to move her.
The cruise from Chicago to Boston will be to the snow cruiser what a "shakedown cruise" is to a battleship--an opportunity to show up any defects before the real test comes.
Any repairs or changes which should prove necessary can be made at Boston before embarkation.
The snow cruiser built in Chicago for the U. S. Antarctic Expedition, dwarfs the men beside it. One of its 10-foot, half- ton wheels is shown.
Lumbering over these roads, the snow cruiser built by the Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, for the United States Antarctic Expedition, will go through its "breaddown tests" on this route to Boston, Mass.
Seated at the controls as he will drive the snow cruiser to Boston and later in the Antarctic is Dr. Thomas C. Poulter, its designer.
