THE SIEGE OF THE POLE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1675, 15 February 1913, Page 7

THE SIEGE OF THE POLE.

; SUCCESSES AND FAILURES. /RECORDS OF THE PAST. ' 'Antarctio conditions differ from thos« of the Arctic but the dangers and dimoulties that tho explorer has to face are not less than thoso that.hamper his movements in thp' North. Tho Antarctio winter is, porhaps, a little less cold than that of tho Arotio (though a man who has experienced 89deg. of frost in tho Sojith •would 'not be ■•seriously troubled," surely; by-another sdeg. at tho other end of the world), and,tho summer a littlo colder. There is a snow-plain of great extent that .affords smooth travelling when onto the Great Ice, Barrier that guards the South Pole J.ha3 been passed,' instead of tho ■rough',, ico-hummocks that impede the northern: traveller; but boyoud it are mountains., \-- .. '■, '<■

V No Lifo In the South.; The South, too, has no lifo—no bears or wolves to afford occasional fresh meat to the that everything -that isirequircu for food must bo carried. Sir Ernest., Shackleton y knows _hotter:;. than anybody else what' a h'an'Jiiap ; this is; for: he; would, .with scarcely ya'doubt, have reached the Pole, probably on January :15 >or 1G ; in 1909, had .he' and his three companions had with them another few pounds of food apiece.; So great, in foot,-are the difficulties of Antarctic exploration that it was not until 1773 that the Antarctic Circle was first crossed; it was not until 1821 that ;lahd was-first Been, within ,that circle, no human; foot ererUbuchod the Antarctio mainland -until Captain .Christenson, Carstonu BorchBrovink, and. two companions, landed near Cape Adair on January. 23, 1895) and Borchgrevink and tho. members of . his Southern Cross expedition-'in'-lM iivcre the/first : hien''to epcnd.a winter on'-the, 'Antarctic continent...'.!.. ■■„...'■ >->■:•■'; ■•■.-

' AnUrctic'exploration,' in its earl/ days, was casual and': erratic, aE d of ten merely incidental to the business of scaling,-and the wonder; is tjiat; in the oiroumsiancca, it was, on the whole, well and accurately done-The: old theory that thero'was a, great" "South' laud"; or "Third world'' lived well; into the; seventeenth oentury; but ; until 1750 no .navigator /'oven oame into; contact with tho Southern-ice unless by accident, as,tho result of being driven out of his course by the fierce galea that xago the Antarctic circle during certain periods of tho year.' By far the greater part of ;tiio worlc that lias actually been, done in the Far South, in fact, has been theresult' of the pluck and .deter--minfttion of : British .navigators and scientists./ : ; '':\ : -f/: v ■

'Captain' James Cooki with the Resolution and the Adventure, was the first man. Jo oross. the 7 Ahtarctio i? circle,': anil •i he . i io j 'pass'", tha-71st - 6onthernmost limit that had been'reached up to the end of .the eighteenth century. l Ho first made it' absolutely -clear that ■ theTO iwas no habitable southern continent, f and after <hi 9 return the Alitarctio was left to British hnd-American :sealerß for'many, years.. It; was .by them'that most/of. the 1 Arohipelagoea lying ■ -far - south j of-Cape l' Horn- were -'.'discovered;-., though; it l-iraa" a Russian; Bellingshausen,' who did valuable work in command of an expedition 6ent out by the r Tsar; Alexander I;- who first i'.-. sighted Ahtarqtio land-* little island on • 'the South .American .'. side- of the ■; circle, ■ that ho, called Peter, I Island—in ,1821; -and he .followed, this by the discovery ;of' .'Alexander: JLand a week lator. I ', James iWeddoll and .Captain, Henry,, Foster car-; ;, ried on; Jjhe.work,land thefr for a long .:period.a ;u>ndon' firm, who owned a fleet .'.; of, whalers and sealers—Enderby Brothers •■'. —took thj lead in directing: and encouraging Antarctic exploration. , Their cap- ( tains wero direoted to take advantngoof 'every opportunity for discovery that come to them,' andVjojJohn. \BaI- : leim ■ond i " l enabled "to 'add' ...- muck to the geographer's knowledge of the :' Southern regions. ~..', : ,.

.:':.','.-;'—;.;:'---The First-'Landing.''.'.;..,v A". ■ ;,i. : : It 'was 'in 1840; thai the' I first''dDfinite . attempt was made :,to. reach the .South . , Magnetio! Pole, rby a Frenoh,, expedition ,: under tl'Urvllloj but neither this nor an * American rexpeditionuundir; Wjlkea that . was'in the South at the'same timo did : , mord than fill in a faw, blank spaces on .; the outer edgo of the 'Antarctic map. ';- Simultaneous with them, though, was a : , British expedition that made the first great advance in tho journey towards the '.; Pole—that of James Clark Ross,-with the. Erebus and the: Terror. Rosa managed to getithrpugh tho, ice-pack into openwater 1 boyond'j'iand he found : and named Capo ■ ;■•' Adair, and, on'Possossion'lsland, formal-'. ;ly', "annexed" ..the >;•Antarctic • continent.' :He 'discovered the; twin volcanoes; and 'oalled them after his two shiparahd his wastho first expedition ■'.. to,, sight the .'■ Great Ice Barrier <hat stopped,'its-further in 1811/:: '-y,:'J : -,-."■'• ■•'■••' :! '- ■■ •■-' For the next thirty years, almost, the ■. Polar regions; w«ro-left undistarbodr-but then the steamship'camo to assist tho ex.;..plorer ,in his endeavours, and , H.M.S. '■'■ Challenger; was ordered, South) ahd was : ' the first .-.vessel-.of her 'kind to cross tho .'.'Antarotio.;.Circle,- in 1874... Tho, expedi- -: tion i that ■ sh'o carried was more 'concern-,-,,ed>.with,oceanography than with'.cxploration, though;; and. tho next.notable suc- ,■-. oess.was the voyage of tho Antarctic, a ■Norwegian' whaler, that enabled Christengen and. Borchgrevink; in. 189-4,: to make ; the, first landing on the mainland! In ' : 1838.: the Betgica expedition; among tho 'members :of .which ltoaid; Amundsen, . Scott's'rival, and ;Dr. Cook, the discredited "discoverer";of ;the.North- Pole, were '; included, went out j' drifted with the.ice.pack for a year; .and was compelled to return without'.'making ;any notnbje dis- : .oovbry.' Borchgrevink and.the; Southern -;.;'Cross expedition went southward next, ; and ..".; did good service'; and here-the latest/and - probably .the final- phase;in' tho long ,task of.Polar explorations begins. . : -, ■• .' ,

<;■ 'Scott andvtho Discovery,' / In tho ■ autumn of 1901 , Cominander Robert Falwri Scott, R.N., went south 'in .-; the Discovery, with Lieutenant Ern«t Shackleton".■ as ■• ono. of '• his".officers, and forty •men,, almost all' of - them drawn fromtho Royal Navy, for his .am'.' He: confirmed: a discovery -that llorchgrevlnk '.■had made ithat the Great Ice Harrier lay. . thirty miles nearer the Polo than.it did ■when Boss discovered: it—and found and -.named King Edward Land.'v'hich Ross had "sighted,";but nothing' more.' He tried a captive balloon as a sort'of observation tower, but found ; it of little usej and Tie. established himself in winter quarter*, and, at tho beginning of that .Antarctic 'summer, made, a fledge journey •with'Shackleton,-and. Dr. A'. .•.$.. Wilson «ver the 'snow-plain that lies beyond th« Barrier, : until : the mountains of • tho Quoen Alexandra Range ,camo in 'sight,' He found the surfaoe ;'■ of ' the ice much ./CTevassed.'.'and.was imptded by frequent • snow bliziards, so that he had to take his ■ sledges forward by relays, walking three .miles for .every mile.< t progress south-, ward that ho made. His dogs failed, ono after the : other, and raany had to bo kill-ed;-but he found »nd homed Mount

.ilorkham; 15,000 ft. high/ and .' Mount Longstauy 9,700 ft. high, and advanced 380 "miles towards the Polo in fifty-nlno days, over a country that human foot hnd never touched before, in uhich everything that lay.-'..before' him wis'.quite -unknown—a magnificent achievement. His.ship, which ' he had kept at hid winter quarters, was '. .60, firmly; frozen ia that his .relief' ship, ! tho Morning, when she went back to him 'at the beginning of 1901, 'accompanied by the-Terra Nova, of tho present expedition, took-him orders from, the Admiralty to abandon her; but when'he wns on the. 1 - point of retunduff the Discovery brokeV out of tho ico, ond ho had tho eatisfac-, tion of bringing he'homo Uukjiircd.

: Shackleton's Dash, , Then came Shackloton'e dash. Shackleton had previously mado a journey to establish depots, along the route that ho hoped to follow to the Pole, Ho took three companions with him,' four ponies, and four 11-foot sledges; and in order to avoid the crevasses that had troubled Scott, four years earlier, they kept about forty'miles to the east of his route. Thr« weeks after the start a pony broke down, and hid to be shot; and the meat was Uft'in a depot for use on the return journey. . Excellent progress was made— fifteen miles a day—and in twonfy-eTght days Scott's "farthest South" was left l>oxhind. - Now mountains were found, beyond Markham and Longstaff, that Scott had soon j and the rnngo that they formed was found to run across the direct path to tho Pole, A, second pony had to

bo shot on the thirtieth day) and the party went on with only two sledges. Oh tho thirty-third day another pony had to be sacrificed i and tho men hauled one sledge while the surviving pony drow the othor. '

After thirty-six days the explorers reached the foot of a great glacier—tho Beardmoro Glacier—formed botwoen great cliffs of granite that rose to a height of a couple of thousand feet. For many days tlioy toiled painfully up this glacier, until the last pony—it was to have been shot that night, us the rough ice destroyed ita usefulness—fell into a crevasse, and was lost, happily without dragging its sledge after it. And the loss of this amount 6f meat—a whole pony!—aa it happened, prevented Shackleton from reaching the Pole. The journey on the glacier proved to be more than a hundred miles Ionj) and the-travellers had been on their way fifty-seven days before they reached tho plateau boyond, at ft height of 9500 ft abovo sca-lovel.- Then,: but for • the blizzards, they had easy "going," and, finally, after climbing small crevasses and rising, etill further, to a height of 12,200 ft., they camo to a smooth plain of snow. After. soventy-two days—on January 9, 1909—they abandoned their 6ledgo and wont forward, unhampered) as far as they could. They had gone as far as it was safe.to go with their'small store of provisions. What food remained to them was barely ' enough to enable them td r<£ turn to their'headquarters—as it was they reached - depot after depot empty-handed and hungry. "With success almost in their grasp, therefore, they were compelled to abandon;; their journey. They hoisted a Union Jack in 88deg. 23min.' S;. and 162deg. E.-rOnly ninety-seven miles from tho Pole—at nine o'clock in. the morning,, and then/ turned . northward again.; i .•'."'' The story of Amundsen's voyage to the South, his sudden, determination to make ■■ a dash for the Pole, and his. successful at-tempt-are of recent date. A few weeks later Soott found the proofs, but perished in.the homeward march.