SOME CRITICISM

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1929, Page 11

SOME CRITICISM

ONE OF SCOTT'S MEN

FANTASTIC DESCRIPTIONS

COPENHAGEN, 3rd December

Major Tryggve Gran, the explorer airman, and a member of Scott's expedition in 1910, and rlso of the party which found Scott's body, declares that Norway must bo considered in any claim to sovereignty of the South Pole. A Norwegian first planted tho national flag there, and all the territory from Shackleton's. southernmost point to the Pole itself was christened Haakon VII. Land by Amundsen. It was therefore Norwegian. If a second country claimed a portion of Antarctica it should be, Britain, in view of Scott's enterprise. Major Gran does not doubt that Byrd flew over the Pole, but says it is curious that after seventeen years he observed traces of Amundsen's and bcott's camps, whose huts, being snowbuilt, would crumble away. Byrd's report_ of polar mountains seemed to be a mistake. Kanges existed 200 miles irom the Polo, and possibly further south between Scott's and Amundsen's routes, but not further south than S8 degrees.

Major Gran asserts that Byrd's whole expedition appears to be a speculation in sensations. "After the way iv which the Americans are acting polar explorer is no longer an honourablo name. Only money, not scientific qualities, nor year-long preparations, is now required to become an explorer. The terrible mountains which Byrd describes are a fantasy. The land is on the whole a plain, on which, except for clefts and ravines which must be crossed and got round, the trip might be accomplished on a motor-cycle."