Evening star., 1933-09-03

plants to live and die and decay and be packed
down to form coal
Today there are only two Towering plants in
Antarctica and they are scrawny. stunted
things. The highest form of land life there Is
a spider, except on the rocky island fringes,
where penguins and seals congregate.
Barrenness CT the Antarctic is almost In
credible. The ice sheet is no thin frozen veneer,
but cap thousands Of feet thick the remnant
Of a glacial age.
There again science calls upon explorers to
find out
How thick Is the ice sheet, and Is it really
shrinking?
The present scientific view Is that the cap
is shrinking. but so slowly that no perceptible
change takes place. Why it is shrinking Is one
OF the weather mysteries Of the Antarctic.
The thickness Of the sheet Is enormous, II
the German geologist, Prof. w. Meinardus, Is
right in his estimates. It Is definitely known
that the South Pole is 10000 feet above sea
level, which Is almost as lofty an elevation as
some Of the Alpine peaks The known portion
Of Antarctica has q high average elevation
DUT Prof. Meinardus believes that most Of
y this loftiness Is just ice. The hidden land
he estimates to be not more than 1000 feet
above sea level. In reaching this conclusion he
was guided mainly by the height OF neighboring
continents.
II he is right, the ice sheet Of Antarctica Is
80 vast q store Of cold that it Is hard to find
ways Of appreciatng it. He says that If spread
thin over the earth, it would bury every coun-
try under more than 120 feet Of ice. II 1t
should melt 1t would raise the oceans 100 feet
and cause havoc to coastlines.
This ice, piled on top Of Antarctica, is reason
enough why that continent had to wait for
the age Of science before It's secrets could be-
gin to be probed.
Remote and fantastic as the Antarctic area
seems, it Is important to the rest of the world.
II nothing else comes from the ice cap, plenty
Of weather is manufactured there, and nobody
knows yet how directly it affects the weather
Of the United States and Europe.
The ice patrol has reported that water from
the Antarctic apparently creeps far north
as Greenland, a 10,000-mile sea journey. Be-
tween Greenland and Labrador the patrol
found that the deep water was SO cold and
salty as to suggest strongly an origin in the
distant Antarctic
It is generally agreed that the world should
be having weather reports and forecasts from
its Antarctic weather factory. DR.. Bowman.
in discussion of this problem, says, TT would
pay handsomely in crops and cattle and Sc
curity Of life if meteorological stations were
set up on the borders Of the Antarctic and on
the island groups that girdle it.
TT is under the impulse of this idea" he
adds, that Capt. Sir Hubert Wilkins has car
ried on his explorations in the Antarctic
archipelago for two seasons. He was search
ing for suitable bases for meteorological sta
tions about the Antarctic and with daily
weather reports from them by radio it would
be possible to draw charts that would trace
the effects Of cyclones and anti-cyclones as
they move forward from breeding places out
over the Southern ocean,"
Physicists are among the scientists who have
important errands for exploring expeditions to
do in the Antarctic. For one thing, they
would like to have records taken of the cosmic
rays in the worlds highest latitudes. AS far
as such researches have gone, they have shown
that the rays from outer space gain in inten-
sity as the higher latitudes are reached. Per-
haps the polar regions may yield facts that will
help in learning whether or not the cosnaic
rays are electrons.