Evening star., 1925-05-28

tlon returns to the United States next
ran, the Stars and Stripes may be
hytng over million square miles of
now unknown land, possibly inha bited
and abundant in animal life.
| - III a mystery continent exists in
! the l 1,500,0 square miles of uneX-
plored area between the northern tip
OF AXel Heiburg land and the North
| Pole, Donald B. Macmillan intends to
| raise the United States flag over it
ana make II Americas last frontier.
A careful lnvestiga ton has convinced
him, he told Washington newspaper
correspondents at the National Geo
graphic Society building last night,
that, all reports to the contrary, there
is no agreement, express or implied,
with any other power which will pre-
Vent this Nation from taking over any
| land he may discover
II may be by no means a territory
buried under perpetual ice, like the
greater part of the Greenland in
terror. but place of rolling pastures
covered with great herds of musk
oxen, paradises of flowers in the brief
Arctic Summer. and with forms of life
hitherto unknown to the world.
Arctic Winters Often Open"
There is little reason to assume,
Mr.. Macmillan said, that the farthest
North land in the world, if it is dis
covered, will prove inhospitable to
life. Northern Greenland, in fact, is
rather comfortable in comparison
with more southerly sections. Some
years the ground remains bare all
Winter and the average snowfall is
much less than during a New Eng
land Winter. Mr.. Macmillan said he
had known years when there was SO
little snow that he could not use his
dog sleds on land, but had to stick
entirely To the ice off shore to keep
up communications. Northern Green
land is abundant In game and is an
Arctic oasis for the Eskimos. who
live there in comparative comfort
and plenty. unable to understand why
white men, having found such par
adiSe, are willing to return to the
inhospital South.
siderable increase in its population
through the Macmillan expedition.
One of the reasons for believing an
unknown continent exists is that
north Alaska Indians have legends
that some of their people many cen
turies ago went directly north In
search of it and never have returned.
They believe that these people colo
nized the new land and that their
that white people may be found there,
however. are discredited by Mr.. Mac
MILAN. These originate. from the dis
appearance of the Morse colony which
certainly existed in Greenland and
disappeared about 9S2 A D. He be-
lieves he has evidence that this colony,
once so prosperous that the ruins of
20 of its churches still can be found
near GothaVen, in southern Greenland,
fled adverse conditions to the coast
of Labrador. where they were killed
by the Indians.
Expects Spring Temperature.
The prevalent opinion that the Mac
MILAN party is going into a country
of perpetual cold is mistaken, the COM
mander said. On the contrary. he eN-
poets conditions somewhat like an
early Washington Spring. The aver
age temperature in Summer ranges
between 40 and so degrees Fahrenheit
on hand free CT ice. Sometimes II goes
up to more than 90. On ice, however.
the thermometer never goes much
higher than A.. He does not expect
anywhere to. encounter temperatures
as low as 90 above zero except pos
sibly in the higher air trayersed by the
planes. Far above the ice. however,
may be warmer than on the surface.
This is one of the unanswered ques-
tions of the Far North.
MacMillan's dream of a vast en-
pire for America close to the Pole has
three foundations-traditi mirages
and scientific observation of tides dur
ing the full and dark of the moon. He
himself has seen its bare cliffs stick
ing black through the ice only a few
miles away, and he has followed those
cliffs through torturesome, perilous
days when they always kept just
ahead of him. Then, with provisions
low and further pursuit hopeless, he
had turned back, and the black cliffs
long Summer days.
Mirage Is Reflection.
1t was a mirage, of course, he
says. Capt. Fitzhugh Green of the
Navy. his companion on his 1913 eX
petition can tell the same story. But
a mirage. Macmillan says, is simply
a reflection in a mirror. The cold
air under Arctic conditions acts ex
actly as rejecting glass. 1t is the
mirror which follows the explorer, not
the land. In order to produce a re
Election there must be land some
where to be reflected. 1t may not be
an unknown continent that the sky
picks up. 1t may be other land, far
distant Peary saw the mirage.
Others before Peary saw it.
The evidence of the tides is more
certain The late DIR. r. A. Harris of
the hydrogra phic Office here, Mac
MILAN SAYS, figured from the action
of the tides on the northern coast
of North America that there must
be some great obstruction between
there and the Pole. He considers that
6a1
who ever lived. There is either land
or great blocks of ice.
The tides continually chase the moon.
If there were no land on the globe
they would keep directly under the
moon at every step or Its journey
around the earth The continents de-
Law them and make them take round
about courses. AS result they al
WAYS are just behind the moon rather
than directly under it. Taking the
known land masses into consideration
the tides can be figured with mathe-
matical eXactitude everywhere except
in the Far North. There they are off
their schedule. Only a land mass de-
laving them can explain the phenom-
enon. Dr. Harris went so far as to
figure the approximate mass of this
land it's theoretical contours.
Discovery on Foot Possible.
With dog teams the discovery and
exploration of this possible Arctic em-
pire of the United States was prac-
ticalIy impossible. 1t was necessary
first to go to Cape Thomas Hubbard.
on the tip of Axel Heiburg Land, and
from there push out over the Polar
Sea in pursuit of a fleeing mirage.
Merely reaching the jumping off place
required tremendous endurance. 1t
was there in AXel Heiburg Land. Mac
MILAN thinks. that DR.. Cook discov-
ered his North Pole He followed in