The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1896-10-29
WORK FOR EXPLORERS.
AN AREA EQUAL TO ONE.FlFTH THE
GLOBES LAND STILL UNKNOWN
Even in the Americas There are 2,oOo,.
ooOSquare Miles Not Mapped Out...Vast
UnexpIored Tracts in Africa and Aus.
tYaIia,

oooSquare Miles Not Mapped Out...Vast
UnexpIored Tracts in Africa and Aus.
traIia.
With an unexplored area equal to
one-fifth Of ali the known land on this
globe it can scarcely be claimed, says
w. II. Glider. in The New York
Journal. that the work of the explorer
is finished.
Even in America-NOrth and South
there are two millions of square miles
of which we know absolutely nothing.
In Australia there is an equal tract Of
urexplored territory. In Africa there
are over six millions of square miles
of unknown land to attract the adven-
turous traveller, and in the polar re-
gionS there remain between nine and
ten millions still unmapped.
Surrounding the southern axis of the
earth, we are warranted in drawing
the coast line of a vast unknown CONT
nent, covering the greater part of the
territory lying within the Antarctic
circle. Such lands as are now chart
cred have been sighted at great dis
tance, and the mapping is greatly in
need of authentication. No one, or at
least no one in modern times, passed
a whole year in the Antarctic. and such
Observations as have been made have
bee.I /, trn short summer
months
So little is known of this vast terri
plot, hor
this unknown, and, in many places, un-
approachable, land may prove to be a
continent, which, with the outlying
islands, covers a region of eight million
square miles, an area equal to one
sixth of the entire land surface Of the
globe-a continent as large as North
America
Though the coast line of Australia is
pretty we'll known. and has been since
1S43, there is a great uneXplored in
terror that has, so far. baffied all at
tempts to cross it laterally From south
to north it has been traversed, though
the trip was only made at the cost Of
great suffering.
Africa will soon be an open book, if
exploration in the future keeps pace
with what has been accomplished in
the past. A great part of the work
has been done by what might be called
amateur explorers-people who travel
for amusement and to add strange and
fierce wild beasts to their game score.
Frederick Jackson, in command Of
the expedition fitted out in England
by A. c. Harmsworth to seek the North
Pole by way of Franz Josef Land, is
now at work on this polar problem;
NanSen also aimed for the same point
by his own way. which was to drift
there in a specially designed ship, and
Robert Stein, of the United States Geo
logical Survey, wants to establish a
new route by the way Of the west
coast of Ellesmere Land and Jones
Sound.
For the exploration of the south
polar regions. DR.. Frederick A. Cook,
of Brooklyn, who was surgeon OF
Peary's first and most successful ex-
pedition. is devoting himself to raising
the funds necessary to fit out two YES
sells to proceed there, one of them to
remain during the winter.
Borchgrevink, who. by jumping out
of his boat and wading ashore, claimed
to have earned the distinction of being
the first man to set his wet feet on the
south polar mainland, says that he
will accompany a British vessel that is
fitting out to bring load of penguin
guano from that desolate region this
fall, and devote what is allowed him
to a solution of the great Antarctic
problem.
But what do all these people expect
to find upon these unexplored lands?
To be sure, there are those who claim
that the garden of Eden was located
at what is now the North Pole, and
say that, owing to the fact that the
earth is fiattened at the poles, the sur
face is so much nearer the eternal fires
that the soil is warm and the verdure
luXuriant, and that there still exist
there the descendants of some Of the
children of Adam and Eve.
The most important work of explor-
alton that remains at the present day,
and the work that will be of the most
immediate benefit. is a magnetic sur
vey Of the territory Immediately sur
rounding the North Magnetic Pole.
This pole is situated in the vicinity
of Cape Felix at the northern end OF
King Williams Land. and near the
SEVENTEEN parallel or north latitude.
In 1891 it was approximately located
on the west coast of BOothia Felix
by Captain Sir James Clarke Ross
Since then it appears to have been
travelling in a westerly direction, Or
rather, such is the theory of some
magnetists, drawn from the fact that
there is at present constant westerly
variation Of the magnetic needle.
Other magnetists say that. as moth
ing is more fixed than the poles of a
magnet, the earth being magnet, its
magnetic poles cannot move. Those
who agree upon there being move
ment of the poles are not all agreed
upon the direction and rate of motion
These are important facts that await