Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-02-13
ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

At the London institution DR.. II. Fl.
Mill delivered a lecture entitled The
Story Of the Antarctic in which he
briey traced the history of antarctic eX-
plOration. beginning with the early
Greek idea of the world as t fiat disk,
surrounded by the river Oceanus, he
showed how it was gradually modified
by the notion of the spherical form of
the earth and the increase of knowledge
generally, till in the second century we
conception of that antarctic continent
which had given rise to 50 many daring
explorations, says the London Times.
Then followed a long period of intel
lectual sleep, the depth OF which was il
Illustrated from two maps in which the
earth was again represented fiat as a pan
cake. The lecturer then referred to the
voyages Of the Portuguese. and described
how Vasco de Gama's discovery of the
open sea route cut off Africa from the
antarctic continent.
After a mention of the theorizing of the
sixteenth century, including Leonardo de
Vinci's lucky guess at the form OF the
land under the southern pole, he de-
scribed the Spanish attempts to find an
independent passage to the Spice islands,
and told how Magellan, who missed Aus
tralla by about 100 miles. showed that the
of the north We're cut off from
the antarctic continent. In 1922 a French
expedition was sent to look for the sup
posed for southern island. and later the
two expeditions of Kerguelan resulted in
the discovery and occupation of the land
Of desolation.
But it was not only the French army
who were seized with the idea of the
greatness of the southern land. A Scotch
man named Dalrymple was SO convinced
OF the immense extent of uneXplored ter
ritory in the south that he obtained the
concession of the rights to exhibit it. The
first ship, however, to cross the antarctic
circle was that of his rival, Captain
Cook. 1t was the latter who, in his sec
ond voyage, undertaken to find out
whether there was any continent, gave
the first real account of the southern
ocean, and proved that there was no
southern land reaching up into the tenn
perate zone. ThencefOrWard antarctic
exploration became a scientific. not a
commercial question. Between 1887 and
lS43 three great government expeditions
were dispatched one American, one
French and one British, under Ross. The
achievements Of the last-named explorer,
who was accompanied by Sir Joseph
Hooker, now the last survivor of the ex-
petition, We're chiefly described, and it
was mentioned that he reached as fan
south as Baffin and Hudson had reached
north 800 years ago. A period of averted
interest ensued, broken in 1892 by the
visit of Dunde and Norwegian Whalers
to these southern regions. The Chal-
lenger expedition, too, got just within
the antarctic circle and it's results were
interesting because they indirectly proved
the existence of land within the circle. AT
the present time two expeditions We're in
the field-one sent from Belgium, the
other by Sir George Newnes.
After showing some statistical dia-
grams, intended to max the audience
realize the huge extent of the unex-
plored area lying under the southern
pole, the lecturer concluded by referrins
to the German expedition now being or
ganized, and to the efforts put forth by
the Royal Geographical society, after
failing to gain the aid of the government,
to obtain the interest and support of tthe
public for a British antarctic expedi-
ton. r-