AMERICA'S CLAIMS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 139, 9 December 1929, Page 11

AMERICA'S CLAIMS

ANTARCTIC TERRITORY

EFFECT OF BYJR-D FLIGHT

. NEW YORK, 7th December. Director Isaiah Bowman, director of tho American Geographical Society, and one of the principal backers of the Byrci expedition, stated that tho United States, by virtue of Byrd's latest flight, is in a position' to la.y claim to 35,000 square miles of Antarctic territory, lying along the hitherto unknown coast of some 250 miles in length. This territory, ho stated, .lies wholly outside tho Ross Dependency, "Tho Eastern limit of the Ross Dependency is the 150 th meridian west. Mary Byrd land lies east of 'hat meridian. On the other hand, the Rockefeller range lies west of meridian 150, within the Boss Dependency. Since Byrd's base camp is within the Ross Dependency, it is necessary in setting up an independency claim on the part of the United States that there be independent continuous connection between the new discoveries and the sea at a point where no question of conflict of claims could enter the argument." Mr. Bowman explained Byrd's observation of such connection, and continues: "Insofar as any claims to tho Polar territories are valid, they must rest- not upon the principle of permanent occupation, but upon subsequent notification o* tho fact to other Powers."