The Russellville Democrat., 1881-01-20
The New sonti,-poIar Expedition.
t. Louis Republican


 In short time now the Italians will send forth into the Antarctic regions one of the best prepared and most promising expeditions that has ever braved the perils of polar ice. The leader of this new south-polar expedition is Lieutenant Bove, who was with Prof. N0rdenskjold Tn the Vega when he made the now cele- brated northeast passage around Arctic Asia. The object in view IS the explora- tion of the Antarctic continent as far as possible, together with the elucidation of the laws of terrestial magnetism, the dis covery of new whale beds and guano islands in the south seas, and the pene- tration of the sea entered by Sir James Ross Tn lS4l with view to a nearer ap- proach to the south pole.
 The Italian explorers will be the first to carry a steamship into the remote south, and with the aid of steam power they may expect to accomplish more in this direction than has ever yet been es- saved. In 1S30-32 Mr. John Biscoe, R. N, made voyage of discovery in brig belonging to Messrs. Enderby and dis covered sEnderby and Graham Land in 67 degrees south latitude, and in IS37-40 Dumont D'Urville discovered La Terre Adele and Cote Clarie, going as far south as 66 degrees 30 minutes. Balleny in 1889 discovered the islands which bear his name, as also Sabrina near the sixty sixth southern parallel, but his investiga- tions 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, 1S41. Sir James attained by ship to lati- tude IS degrees minutes south in longi- tude 187 degrees east and established the continuity of the Southern continent from the seventieth to the seventy-ninth parallel-within little over twelve hun dred miles of the south pole. The En- glish explorer, however, without the aid of steam, had terrible conflict with the ice, being engaged at one time not less than forty-four day in working his ves- sels through an ice stream nearly five hundred miles in width. Beyond this ice belt the intrepid and skilful com mander found a comparatively iceless and open sea. where his predecessors, Cook, B.ilieny and Wilkes, Lad supposed the frozen masses were piled in impregnab.e grandeur. We sustained may severe shocks" said Ross, fin breaking through the interposing barriers of closer ice, but we accomplished the object of our exer- tions and found ourselves again in clear sea-" and mot 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 pelled to engineer his way through it's meshes, he courageously reasoned, it must have left clear water at the place it originally occupied and from which it drifted." It is of the highest importance to geography to follow up the wonderful success realized by Ross in region where Wilkes, DUrville, 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 southward along the African coast loses itself in Antarctic waters, and the line of it's extreme extension towards the south pole would apparently mark, as Captain Bent has long argued, 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.