Evening star., 1925-07-16
BY VILHJALMUR STEFANssON

DI fiiHIoALhJh SIEf ANSSoN.
The press dispatches have been car
rying much speculation lately as to
whether one or another Of the sew
eral expeditions now in the field is
likely TO discover an Arctic continent
this Summer
The theory that there might be in
the Arctic a large undiscovered land
sounded plausible enough some 40
years ago, when put forward by the
distinguished explorer, Gen. Adolphus
w. Greedy, the learned tidal expert;
r. A. Harris and others. But even
IN those days the hypothesis seemed
unwarranted to those who followed
the equally distinguished explorer and
learned scientist. DR.. F'ridtjof Nansen.
The theoretical land soon developed
In the public mind into an undiscov-
cred continent As constructed by
Harris, from u study of certain tides,
it overlapped the North Pole hand
somely, and stretched, on the other
side, well toward Alaska. At that stage
1t was, on his map, very large island.
Peary Found No Land.
But Peary knocked a big chunk out
of it when he went TO the North Pole
and found. not land, but an ocean
about two miles deep.
1t seemed to many that the theory
or Harris Land might still be sound,
even after Peary. Indeed some con
sidered that the damage he did by
taking a 9.000-foot sounding near the
North Pole and thus removing one
corner, was made up by his sighting
Crocker Land west of Cape Thomas
Hubbard-for Crocker Land was sup
posed to be another corner of Harris
Land.
Before this, Leffingwell and Mikkel-
sen had knocked another prop from
under the Harris theory. for his land
was supposed TO rise from con
tinental shelf north of Alaska. BY
2,000foot, no-bottom, soundings taken
a hundred miles north of Alaska the
Spring Of 1907, they showed that the
continental shelf or belt of water
shallower than 600 feet, extended only
a few score miles from shore, and be
yond that were abyssmal ocean
depths. Storkerson of my expedition
later made this conclusive by taking
a 15,e90-foot sounding d hundred miles
still farther north.
No Bottom at 4 400 Feet.
Misfortunes We're now crowding
thick and fast on the poor undiscover,
ed continent. The Spring of 1914 my
party, sIedging over moving ice and
| living by hunting seals, ran line Of
soundings across the southeast corner
of the land" as mapped by Harris,
and found no bottom at 400 feet. We
did much other damage TO il later, too
long TO tell here.
In 1915 Macmillan and Green trav-
eled to where Peary thought he had
seen the Crocker Land corner Of the
undiscovered continent. They found
no land nor sign of any, according 10
Mr.. MacMilIans published reports on
his return.
on the other side Of the ocean Nan
sen had run line of soundings and
found abysmal depths.
Some think these discoveries have
destroyed the theory OF Harris Land
all must concede they have destroyed
the possibility of the land being large
for a big thing cannot hide in a small
place. If any land does exist. ii can
| hardly be larger than Newfoundland
or Cuba If il were twice that big, II
would still be tiny compared with
Australia, and therefore not a con
| tinent, but an island.
Victims of Phrase.
1t is, then. about as reasonable tc
! talk about discovering a continent
within the unexplored part of the
Arctic Ocean as it would be to expec,
| TO find a base ball inside Of a pea.
But you must not. therefore, neces
| sarily blame the explorers who, now
| or in the past, are connected in the
public mind with the search for an
"Arctic continent" They may be
only the victims of a phrase that will
not die.
The important point FOR thought
full person to realize is that some one
may discover an island in the Arctic
but that no one can hereafter discover
a continent anywhere on our earth
because there is not enough spare
room