St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1895-11-16
THE NEW CONTINENT.
Herr BorchgrevInclsss Interesting Adveu
lures in the Antarctic Kegions.

Herr BOrchgreVinckss Interesting Afyom-
i lures in the Antarctic Regions
Herr BorchgrevinclS, the Norwegian
explorer, who recently read before the
i Geographical congress a paper descrih-
i ing his voyage toward The south pole in
an Australian whaler, the Antarctic.
shipped as a common sailor before the
mast and devoted all his spare time to
the collection of data relating to the
fauna and flora Of the south pole region.
1 The whaler left Melbourne on Sep
tember 90, 1894. Icebergs from one hun
dred to one hundred and fifty feet higt,
were encountered south of Campbell
island, although the temperature Of the
| water was only 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
An immense barrier of icebergs was
sighted on November Z, extending sixty
| miles from the east to the southwest,
and the ship was obliged to alter her
course to escape ii. Packice was found
in latitude 68 degrees As minutes south
and longitude III degrees 80 minutes
east. Blue" whales were found here
IN great abundance, and petrels and
penguins were so numerous that many
were easily knocked over. A curious
seal, with an abnormally thick neck
and noears, was shot in this region.
On December 81 the sun shone bright
" at midnight, and the Antarctic sa~
iuted the new year with her guns bv
it's light. Thirty-eight days were
spent in forcing their way through
the pack ice. They emerged into a
clear, open sea, and sighted Cape Adafr
in Victoria Land on January is. This
cape Is of basaltic rock and rises to
height of four thousand feet above the
sea. Some of the peaks of Victoria
Land seen from the cape are twelve
thousand feet high. Traces of a re-
Gently active volcano were discovered,
and a cape, not on the charts, was
found. This was named Cape Oscar, in
honor of the king of Norway and
Sweden.
The party afterward landed on Cape
Adair, and were the first human bel. gs
who ever set foot on that shore. There
are natural breakwater and fine bay
at this point. Some signs of vegetation
were discovered. One remarkable
feature of this trip was that at no time
did the temperature fall below rs de-
grees, and that on one occasion it rose
as high as 40. There were unmistak-
able indications of an extensive north.
erly warm current The weather was
calm and beautiful when the barometer
registered as low as Is.
+ Herr Borchgrevinck asserted that q
ship could safely spend the winter at
Cape Adair, and recommended that this
point be made the base Of operations Of
the next exploring party. He added
that he would willingly lead an expe-
dtion which should spend the winter
months there, and that such a party
with dogs and sledges could easilv
reach the south magnetic pole, one hun
dred and sixty miles away.
He thought that scientific expedi-
ton would achieve great success from
the point of view of territorial magnet
ism alone. This great antarctic con-
tinent, the explorer said, probably COW
cred an area of eight million miles. or
twice that of Europe.
The Investigations Of Herr Borch- |
srevinck open a wide field for investi-
cation and for equally entertaining |
speculation.
For instance, seals were found whose |
hides showed marks OF struggles with |
animals having teeth and taIons far dif-
,erent from their own What er..+ "a L
creature this is can only be guessed,
ind even that not very clearly.
Creatures long supposed to be extinct
1ave been found alive and quite at home
n unfrequented corners OF the earth.
md 1t does not seem improbable that
orae Important discoveries In this di-
'ection will soon be made. All evi-
lence to the contrary is purely mega
'ive.N. Y. Sun.