The Washington times., 1922-09-10

forests the pterodactyl the enormous flying lizard
whose memory stiI comes down to US in the legends
Of dragons. may still beat the air with It's bat-lke
wings.
And In some such hidden and protected valley the
creature that brdged the gap between the ape-like
forms and man, the missing link" itself, may still be
alive Or at least relics Of him may still exist in such
numbers and forms to settle forever the question of
our evolution.
1t may be, too, that on this lost continent are the
ruins and remains OF forgotten civilization to which
old Egyps most ancient cities nothing but babies
Remnants OF the races that built them may stll be
alive among them. Almost certainly there are de-
scendants Of a great expedition Of Norsemen who
journeyed west some seven hundred years ago. found
the lost continent and were trapped there.
All these things may be- and science believes that
many of them are. It Is that. at the least the
minerals of all kinds There Is evidence that radium
bearing ores in vast quantities exst-and II this can
be found and utilized the whole problem and power
may be solved for the world.
When Captain Road Amundsen the discoverer of
the South Pole starts of this FAN with the expedition
that delayed last month by the accident TO his
aeroplane the hrst step toward discovering and open
ing up the lost continent will be taken II was indeed
the primary cause Of the expedition, but Amundsen
was drawn away from his purpose by the dramatic and
spectacular idea Of racing the Pole In his plane
Now II is reported by those close to him. he has gone
firmly back to his first idea and the finding of the
lost Arctic continent again becomes a probability.
The lost land cannot be less than half million
square miles in extent and Is perhaps more than
million Its existence is proven not only by the leg
ends OF natives and tales Of explorers who have
1t from distance and were beaten back by ice and
cold and storm. Its verify has been scientifically de-
termined by careful studies Of the Of polar
tides, currents and ice drifts and from these the
United States photographic Office has been able 10
place on It's charts the lands approximate location.
The nearest approach is by way Of Bering Strait,
and this Is the direction which Amundsen will take.
He will drive his ship THE Maud" into the ice foes
which circle the shores Of the polar continent and
allow himself to drift for years II necessary until he
Is closest to those shores. Then he will arise in his
all-metal plane and soar the mysterious land,
landing for closer observations of what he Sees like
the eagle, high up In the air.
We know That the whole Arctic region once had
tropical climate and that the animals trees and plants
OF the tropics once fourished there. The Pole,
frozen, basked under a fervent
In Greenland, which Is to large extent In the
latitude the unexpored land vast remains Of trop
cal life have been discovered. There are fossil
mains Of palms and bread fruit trees in Greenland and
also Of tigers, camels, rhnoceroses mastodons, ele
plants and other animals of the tropical zone.
In that period all the lands within the compass Of
the Arctic Circle Of climate and clad with
a luxurant verdure. Then a great change occurred,
due, perhaps to shifting Of the earths axis and cold
descended the polar regions. Vast quantities of
Ice were formed and flowed down from the poles to-
ward the south. series Of glacial periods then ex
tended over the temperate regions, and to some
tent over the tropical regions Of the earth.
But the occurrence 81 the glac1el period was NOT
a. severe In some regions as In others Climate has