The Osceola times., 1881-02-05
Tn. New South-Polar ENpedition.
-. Louis Republican.

In Il short time now the Italians will
send forth into the Antarctic regions one
Of the best prepared and most promising
expeditions that has ever bravcd the
pcriis of polar ice. The leader of this
new south-polar expedition is Lieutenant
B0ye, who was with Prof. Nordonskjold
in the Vega when he made the now cele-
hrated northeast passage around Arctic
Asia. The object in view is the explora-
ton Of the Antarctic continent as far as
possible, together with the elucidatiou of
the laws of terrestrial magnetism. the dis
covery Of new whale beds and guauo
islands in the south seas, and the pcne-
tration of the sea entered by Sir James
Ross in 1871 with view to nearer APP
proach TO the south pole.
The Italian explorers will be the first
TO carry steamship into the remote
south, and with the aid of steam power
they may expect to accomplish more in
this direction than has ever vet been es-
sayed. In ls3O-32 Mr.. John Biscoe. r..
n, made Il voyage of discovery in a brig
belonging to Messrs. Enderby and dis
covered Enderby and Graham Land in
g. degrees south latitude, and in 1870
Dumont D'Urville discovered La Terre
ANltlt anu Nplt 7 iullis SpiliE as ldI HOulll
as G6 degrees 30 minutes. Balleny in
1899 discovered the islands which bear
his name, rs also Sabrina near the sixty
sixth southern parallel, but his investiga
tons were soon after to be outstripped
by Ross, who left England in that year,
his expedition moving in the sailing ships
Erebus and Terror, crossed the Antarctic
circle, reached the great icy barrier and
discovered Victoria Land, in January,
ISL. Sir James attained by ship to lati-
tude IS degrees minutes south in longi-
tude lS7 degrees east and established the
continuity of the Southern continent
| from the seventeen to the seventy-ninth
| parallel-within little over twelve hum
| dred miles of the south pole. The En-
| glish explorer, however, without the aid
of steam, had a terrible conflict with the
ice, being engaged at one time not less
| than forty-four days in working his ves-
sells through an ice stream nearly five
hundred miles in width. Beyond this
ice belt the intrepid and skilful COM
mander found comparatively iceless and
open sea- where his predecessors, Cook,
Balleny and Wilkes, had supposed the
| frozen masses were piled in impregnable
grandeur. 1--WE sustained may severe
shocks" said Ross, "in breaking through
the interposing barriers of closer ice, but
We accomplished the object Of our exer-
| tiOns and found ourselves again in a clear
sea" and mot a particle of ice was to be
seen from the masthead"
Twice did Ross, unarmed by steam,
pierce the Antarctic ice belt. The vast
moving pack, drifting northward on the
polar current, at times completely beset
his heavy sailing ship; but, though COM
PEELED TO engineer his way through its
meshes, he courageously reasoned, "it
must have left clear water at the place it
originally occupied and from which it
drifled." 1t is of the highest importance
TO geography to follow up the wonderful
success realized by Ross in a region where
Wilkes, D'I rville, and all other naviga-
tors before him despaired of finding in
gresS. The secret of their failure was
that none of them entered the Antarctic
seas on the meridians within which the
great volume of warm equatorial water
pOurs itself into the south polar BASIN
The powerful Mozambique current after
passing southwark along the African
coast loses itself in Antarctic waters and
the line of its extreme extension towards
the south pole would apparently mark,
as Captain Bent has long argued, a most
| promising track for an approach to that
| extremity of the globe. The same may
| be said of the line pursued by the warm
Australian current, along which Ross
| approximately shaped his course. The
| plans and route of the Italian expedition
are not yet published, but it will no
| doubt occur to Lieutenant BOve to follow
| the guides now indicated as far as they
will conduct him toward his goal.