The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-04
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, d. c.
THE LURE or THE ANTARCTIC.


that the war is over. men of daring are
again turning their eyes toward the
last great uneXplored wilderness of the
world, and the most terrible of them
all-the antarctic continent. Dr. John
L. Cope, commander Of the British i'm
perial antarctic expedition, has an
nounced that one feature of the five
year expedition which is to start next
June will be dash at the south pole
by airplane.
OF course the south pole has already
been reached. This most inaccessible
of all places on earth was reached first
by Ammundsen, who got there and
back in safety, and in the same year
by Scott. who got his goal and then
died with his companions of cold and
journal which was afterward re-
covered and is one of the most in
spring accounts of death cOolly met
that was ever written.
To the average man whose chief OBJ
ject in life is to make himself as com
BILE as possibley it might seem that
the explorers would be satisfied to
leave the antarctic alone now that
the pole has been reached. But to the
hardy and coura geous souls who de-
light in explorations the antarctic is
still a challenging opportunity. Its ex-
ploration has really just begun. Geog-
raphers still differ as to wether it
is one great continent or two of them,
or an archipelago composed of a num-
Der of islands. And despite the many
expeditions which have gone there and
the number of brave men who have
died there, many things about the
south polar region remain to be
studied. Problems not only in geogra-
ply, but in geology, terrestrial magne-
tism and meteoroIogy remain to be
solved, and the life of the frozen
southern seas has not been adequate
ly studied.
The south polar regions present a
much more difficult problem to hui
man courage and ingenuity than does
the arctic. Ocean currents warm the
region about the north pole more
than they do those about the south
pole, so that there is warm summer
and an abundant animal life in the
north at a latitude which in the south
is bitterly cold all the year around.
There is practically no animal life on
the antarctic land mass. Besides this
the great southern blizzard is a more
deadly thing than the north has to
show. Every explorer who goes into
the antarctic practically CANDLES on
the blizzard with his life as the stake.
''Given fairly decent weather and
reasonable luck I am convinced that
we will safely return to our base"
says Doctor Cope
That is what Scott said But he
got neither the decent weather nor
the luck. One of his men fell on the
ice and suffered a fracture of the
skull from which he soon died. An
other became i'll and soon saw that he
was burden to the party. He walked
out OF the tent one night and never
came back. The rest pushed on a lit
tie farther and then with the blizzard
and their luck still against them, and
their food and strength gone, sat down
calmly to die.
-.
examples of heroism like that, and
so is the story of arctic exploration
of men dying coolly, laying down their
lives for each other, persisting in the
face of difficulties that seemed insur-
mountable. The stories of polar ex-
plorationS are all stranger than fic-
ton. and yet they are all fact vouched
for by men of the most thoroly estab-
lished integrity. Pioneering in other
lands. when you get down to the facts
about it, is often found to be sordid
business. The exploration of our own
west for example. mingled examples
of the greatest courage with many
which show fnen at their worst. There
is more than one example of man
killing and eating a companion to
save his own life. The rule of each
for himself and devil take the hind
most prevailed more often than the
higher one that each mans life is at
the service of his fellows.
But there are few stains on the
record of polar adventure. It is a
record of which the human race can
fairly evident The men who rush into
a new country like our west are men
of all kinds and mostly OF rather crude
and primitive kinds. They are not
heroes. They are commonplace NOR
tails driven into danger by the hope
of wealth. But the men who go on
polar expeditions are the very cream
and pick of civilization. Most OF them
are scientists of high attainment and
all of them are men of splendid
physique, or they could never undeS-
take work. In a word they are meptal
and physical supeFmen. who com
bine the conscience, sensibility and in
'tclligence of civilized beings with the
strength and physical courage of
savages. They are the thorobreds of
adventure who would rather die in the
struggle than run away and live to
fight another day.
To the good citizen who reads about
it in his newspaper, sitting before
warm fire with his pipe in his mouth
and his dinner digesting comfortably,
there is something incredible and I'M
real about this whole business of polar
exploration. He thinks it makes fine
reading, but at bottom he regards the
explorers as a pack of fools. He can
not comprehend their motives. With
all due respect to the glory of being
first to get there, and the value TO
science of knowing what kind of fish
swim in the arctic seas. he does not
see why these things should induce a
man to face starvation, freeze off
couple OF toes and perhaps die a most
uncomfortable death. He puts another
chunk of wood on the fire, refills his
pipe, and says that he guesses they
can have 1t.
But there are some things to be
found in the polar regions that he
has not considered. One of these is
freedom-the freedom to struggle
against a mighty opponent without
any of the innumerable and annoying
little checks and hindrances that be-
set our everyday civilized life. Most
of us have so long and completely lost
our freedom that we have forgotten
what ~ iS 1il<a In Of Of MS