The record-union., 1894-02-23
SEEKING THE SOUTH POLE.
Few Mariners Have Braved the Peri
of the Vast Antnrl.tfc

Few Mariners Have Braved the Perils
of the Vast Antarctic.
The vast mazes Of the Antarctic have
| been neglected iOr nearly half a century.
England, America and France INDUCED
in a brief rivalry OF exploration there
back i'll the thirties, and the adVenturerS
brought home awe-inspiring tales of
frigid grandeur and desOlation; but since
then almost no human voice has ever
broken its solitude. The southern cir
cunpolar continent-if it be a continent
rather than an archlpelagO-lS set Ill a
great waste OF waters, far removed from
the track OF commerce, unplowed even
by the adventurous keel of the whale and
seal-hunters. There is, therefore, no line
Of retreat by land lett open for the ad-
venturer, nor can he hope for any human
succOr. From the time he leaves the
dreary Falkland Islands, off the Cape
Horn coast, until he returns again, his
dependence must be wholly upon his
own exertions. And he plungeS almost
at once into the unknown. He cannot
even trust TO charts, so many and notorI-
Gus are their inaccuracies, but, according
to the Providence JOHTBut, must 1eel his
way mile by mile, III the midst of be-
wildering currents, OF tremendous storms
and impenetrable tOgS.
Immense hat-topped icebergs, some
times many miles long, come up silently
out Of the mist, waits from a continent
which is thought to be much larger than
the United States, and which certainly
presents to the sea an eternal and almost
unbrOken barrier Of ice. The cold there
is declared to be greater than any eX-
perieuced in the Arctic regions, but no
one has ever wintered in the Antarctic
continent, nor does any human being
dwell upon it. These are the pictures
which Wilkes and D'Urville and Ross
brought home fifty years ago. They
spoke, too. of abundant life in air and
sea, and told Of two majestic mountains
far to the south, one clad in unmeltng
snow, the other perpetually beIching out
smoke and flame. Beyond this we know
almost nothing of the southern polar
regions. There is not even knowledge
where a suitable winter harbOr for ShipS
may be found.
The Antarctic explorer, then, needs a
stout heart; he goes handicapped in many
ways, and to an extent unapprOached by
the present-day traveller in the north.
And yet it may very easily happen that
the south pole Is conquered before the
north surrenders its secret. The report
which the Challenger brought back from
the Antarctic was that voyaging there is
by no means so dangerous as has COM
monty been thought, and that opinion ap-
pears 10 be in part, at least, corrobOrated
by the Dundee WhaIerS, who in the past
season cruised as far south as latitude SO
The Challenger's dredging, moreover,
gave indication that a continent rather
than an archipelago lay to the south, and
the character of the Antarctic ice would
appear to support this view, although we
know so little of the atmospheric and
other conditions that any deduction from
this source must be of dubious value
Still it seems probable that a continental
mass surrounds the southern pole and is
surmounted by a fairly level and un-
broken cap of ice.
II that is true it may be found possible
to make sledge journeys there far longer
and more eXpeditiously than in the sadly
cut-up north. At any rate, with the
great advances which have been made in
the appliances as we'll as the methods of
polar travel, a journey to the Antarctic
can hardly be as appalling as it once
seemed. formidable though Ii certainly is.
and the expedition which DIR. Cook is to
make from this country in the autumn,
and the one which seems to be afoot in
Great Britain, will not be regarded as
having in them any necessary element of
foolhardiness, while they will certainly
be watched with keen and eager interest.
1t is, indeed, somewhat singular that the
resumption OF these researches has been
so long delayed since there is a threeloId
Indictment TO them, in the fascination of
the unknown Tor the adventurer in the
geographical and meteorological knowl-
edge to be attained and in the possibili-
ties Of new fields Of industrial activities.