Polk County news. [volume] (Benton, Tenn.) 191?-1983, 1921-01-27
Sixteen Exploration Expeditions
Are Now in Progress or
in Contemplation.
MANY PROBLEMS TO Be SOLVED
Most Important Enterprise Is British
Antarctic Expedition Headed by
Commander John Lachlan Cope
-Amundsen Is Trying for North
Pole.

New York.-Sixteen exploration
expeditions are now in progress OF
in contemplation after four years OF
inactivity in this line of scientlnc re-
search due to the great war. MoSt
of these enterprises have been under
taken or projected since the armistlce'
and they recall the fact that mother
earth still has important blolOglcal'
geological geological, chronological ana
meteorological problems to be solved.
One of the most important of these
enterprises is the British Antarctlc
expedition, headed by Commander
John Lachlan Cope, F. r. G. ST. for
merly of the British navy. 1t Is Il
nanced for S75O,OOO, includes five
ships, 125 men, several airplanes ana
extensive wireless apparatus. Inc
undertaking is to require five years
and its objects are the circumnaVl-
CATION of the Antarctic sea, dash
to the south pole, the locating OF new
whaling grounds and the discovery
of supposedly rich gold, silver, coal
and ruby fields.
Capt. Roald Amundsen, who dlscoV'
cred the south pole in 1911, left Nome
Alaska, last August in an attempt TO
reach the north pole. His ship, the
Maud, had already spent nineteen
months in the Arctic, north of Asia
and Europe, and had successfully maze
the northeast passage. He expected
the Maud to be locked in the Ice pack
and TO drift toward the pole when
the Arctic winter ended. In negoti-
ating his way to Nome he was fire.
uuently compelled to blast a path
through the ice.
Captain Amundsen was last heard
of off East cape, about 40 miles north
west of Nome in the Boring strait.
The explorer, on account of high wages
and scarcity of men, was handicapped
by lack of help, his only companions
being three sailors and an Eskimo
cook.
Other Prospects on Foot.
The other interesting expeditions
projected or now underway are as
follows:
Siberia-Capt. Axel Landmark and |
Capt. John Vatney, in 5O-foot power
boat are on a 4,000-mile voyage to
Kolyma river, using a primitive chart
made in 1878 by Nordenskjold, Swed- |
ish explorer on his voyage from Nor
way to Japan via the Arctic ocean.
Greenland-Knud Rasmussen, Dan |
ish explorer, who returned from the |
east coast late in 1919, after studying |
Eskimo tribes, is preparing for an
other expedition of five years dura-
ton. LANCE Koch, another Dane, is
planning a scientific survey of North
his main purpose being to
establish Danish sovereignty in that
territory.
Africa-Four expeditions are in prog
ress namely, the Mackie chronological
expedition to Central Africa for the
purpose of studying the Bahima, one
of the chief pastoral tribes Of An
kole, district west of Uganda; the
British natural history of museum eX-
petitions to the west coast and the
Jeb-Maria mountains; the duke of
Abruzzi's effort to find the sources of
the Webb Shebeli river, which flows
from Abysslnia through Italian Somali-
and into the Indian ocean, and the
tour Of the Belgian por-
ion of Tanganyika and the eastern
Congo, by T. A. Barns. who explored
he Ituri and Semliki forests, finding
/ strange race of pigmy savages, as
we'll as gathering a wonderful collec-
ion of moths and butterflies.
Baffin Land-Donald p. Macmillan,
who was with Admiral Peary plans to