The New York herald., 1921-08-21


the Antarctic than isolated journeys
into the interior from fixed positions"
Your ship Is very small"
Just III feet long. Yes. she is very
small. But. properly handled. she will
be safer in stormy weather than a
larger vessel and in the Ice she Will
have the supreme advantage Of being
able TO twist and turn more readily"
And how viii it work having crew
all officers and no searnen?"
We'll, at least nine OF the sixteen
are seafaring men, and willing hands
among the scientific staff, whether in
the stokehold or on deck. will add TO
our efficiency. Each member of the
expedition Is imbued with love of the
job and with the spirit of adventure.
So ! hope that our expedition. like
former ones, viii be a happy family
devoted to making a success of the
enterprise. Let me say, also. the ship
is fitted with every labor saving de-
vice"
about the seaplane-what do you
expect TO do with it?"
~ consider that seaplanes or airplanes
are now a serious factor in exploration.
Undoubtedly. when the weather Is calm.
we can gain more information on the
trend OF the Antarctic coast line or the
position and extent of floating pack ice
from a height of 5000 feet in an air
plane than would be gained in weeks of
battering through the ice in the ship.
Ones horizon from the crows nest of
the Quest is approximately eleven miles.
From the seaplane we shall be able TO
enlarge this horizon so much that 1t may
make all the difference to our manosu
wiring in the pack"
Have you any theories on the sort of
weather you are likely to get when you
1 reach the Antarctic?"
THAT is a most difficult question. On
our last expedition there was practically
no summer / understand from the
Argentine Meteorological Station at the
| South Orkneys that last winter was the
most severe ever recorded in the south
polar regions. 1t Is just possible that
the Southern summer this year may be
an open one for navigation. II so. in
stead of a falling to twenty miles day
progress the ship may reel off 100 TO
| $50 miles"
"A fine rate to plunge into the un-
known"
"Yes; one feels what Keats calls the
dearth of human words and the rough
ness OF mortal speech when one tries to
! express all the experience means
/ yet there are people who say 1t IS
/ nothing but fun-for the explorer"
| "You mean the people who ask what
is the good of all this exploration? II
1 theirs had been the view held 600 years
/ ago, and explorers had not gone lor-
ward. we should have had cramped
/ and sorry world to live in now. Life
must be lived not for the moment alone
we must live and order our lives TOT
posterity as we'll as ourselves. The tra-
4 1F te
| of tomorrow. and it Is surely the ptivi.
! Iere Of a century like our own to extend
! the bounds Of human UNDERSTANDING
! farther than they have yet been placed
! Romance of Exploration.
| Dr.. II. r. Mill. writing in the Times on
4 Shackletons adventure. says
/ That the romance or exploration IS
not dead Is perhaps the most delightful
\ OF Sir Ernest Shackleton's discoveries,
4 and the very programme OF his new eN-
pedition in the Quest is aglow with mat
| true fire which drove the explorers or oiu
without the aid Of steam into the furtnsse
\ and coldest recesses of the ocean. 10
any one who knows the difficulty OF
sighting q small oceanic island, not 70
speak OF the risks Of landing upon II, the
prorramme might seem eXravaganl.
Sir Ernest Shackleton has. however.
spent twenty years in the performance OF
almost impossible programmes, and those
who know him believe that he can ac-
complish this too.
"An oceanograp aphical cruise OF 30,ooh
miles In a 2Oo-ton craft cannot fail 70 be
as full of excitement as OF discomfort,
for every island to be touched at Is
i focus of historic interest to British sail
4 ors and men of science, from the voyage
/ OF the Pararlour Pink with the astron-
omer HALEY in the seventeenth century.
through that OF the Resolution with COOK
in the eighteenth, the Beagle with Dar-
win and the Challenger in the nine
teenth, down to Shackleton's own epic OF
the Endurance in the twentieth.
Here only one part of the new expe-
dition's route will be referred 70, and
that Is the central core or the adventure,
the exploration OF the Enderby Quadrant
az the Antarctic Area. The late sir
Clements Markham hit upon the happy
expedient of dividing the polar cap OF
the southern hemisphere into the TOUR
quadrants defined by the meridian OF
Greenwich and its continuation OF leU
deg. crossed by the meridians OF 80 DEG.
Y e. and w. To these he gave appropriate
names. and the most appropriate Is tnat
OF the Enderby Quadrant. between tne
meridian OF Greenwich and 80 deg. l..
/ tDOuRn IOTtlBH phiiSto PiSA~A
the African Quadrant. as It lies 70 the
south of that continent. II so happens
that the two remaining quadrants are
well known: In the Victoria Cor Austrai-
ian) Quadrant, to the east. Arnundsen
and Scott reached the Pole itsel-the
latter following In the footsteps o.
Shackleton, who had come within iVo
miles Of the goal some years earlier
while In the Weddell Cor American)
Quadrant. on the west Bruce. Fllcnner
and Shackleton had traced new land 10
nearly IS deg. S.
Between. these two known quadrants
that of Enderby interposes a sector OF
rnprobed possibilities. for no vessel mas
net succeeded in getting as far as tne
seventy-second parallel Of latitude witnin
II The great expeditions have for tne
most part passed II by. Cook in his hunt
for the temperate southern continent
that haunted the minds Of the theorists
81 his century. first crossed the circle
Al one point, and Bellingshausen sue
coeded in crossing II at three points
nearly fifty years later. but the great
british. American and French expedi-
tions of iS40 all kept far 70 the north.
II was a field OF fame for the smah
sealing vessels sent out IN the sos oi