ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE

Hokitika Guardian, 30 August 1930, Page 6

ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE

’ ■ >* } APPEAL TO THE UNKNOWN. LONDON, July;7.\j’ With the open season in Antarctic waters appoaching it is worth while asking the question, “What is the use of polar exploration?” Dr Griffiths Taylor, Professor of Geography at the, Chicago University, answers it in the volume of the “New World of Science series which is being published by Appleton. Professor Ta.Vior is himself a polar explorer and was attached to the Scott Expedition (1910-13) when lie led the party which explored the Ferrar Glacier. “It has been customary £ he says, “for promoters of a new ex,v peclition to dwell largely on the 'quick returns ’ which -may accrue from exvv ploring an unknown land. Soiiie good Antarctic friends of my own have,. Hit this connection, stressed the fact that Alaska was bought lor a song, when its resources were almost unknown, and that its gold yield has made it a very profitable* investment for the United States. Subconsciously, I fancy, the hesitating supporter thinks, ‘Well, Alaska is a mighty cold place, so is Antarctica. Why shouldn’t the expedition find, a second Yukon neaj the South Pple?’ Personally I don’t believe that this method of angling for support does much good, lhe h.udheaded. business man learns that, hardly a single mineral product and ceitaiii.iy no vegetable products of. present value have been discovered In the Antarctic, and that the chances are against 'such being discovered in tbe relatively small areas of rock which are not, coveicd deep beneath the Antarctic ice ''caff But he gallantly subscribes to help hi the cause of exploration. Why? . Because other considerations beyond pounds, shillings and pence\appe.R |3 his pocket? ','#M • •>. :•

TWO REASONS. s fM ' 'f'/lvH He declares further that two real reasons for Antarctica tfix!ploration—appeal of the and the elucidation of polar regions help To provide for certain scientific probieife. “Tlie world has been e<|ucat€d|.|j? revere astronomical research, and governments feel it part of their dutyJ|) support public observatories foi study of far distant stars. I jidpe (says Dr Taylor) for a time wlienßp larger nations of the world will IddjjL nearer home and subsidise work onTliis very large segment of their owh whose study would repay thenir equally well in the advance of scientific ki|qw:),edge. . • • There is' 'hardl|.^a lira noli ol science which is not awaftiiig help from data to be studied properly only in. the inaccessible lands of high latitudes.” ,

...One of these scientific problems—tip. distribution of the lines of magnetic •force—has a very practical value, to' the navigator, and it was the search for the Magnetic South Pole which dictated the dispatch in 1840 by the British Government of Sir Janies ‘Ross r , ; the. discoverer of the Northern Magnetic Pole, who, however, did not succeed, nor. did D’Urville,- the French explorer,,. who' was alse bent on doing this. That was not .achieved.. till ...Professor: i ’Sir Edgworth David, in whose party was Sir Douglas Mawson, discovered it in 1908, during the first Shaekleton Ex : . pedition. 5 i.. '

Next to problems of magnetism rank those of meteorology;; , Perhaps, in these days of travel by air meteorology should rank not next, but first, . for, according to Prolessor Taylor’s descrip? fioii, the phenomena in the,heart of tlie Antarctic may he compared to an organic “heart,” which . pumps... tfie streams back again to reyi'yjfy. regions of vital importance to nuin. '“’ W

The layman knows that the general surface calculation of the' atmosphere is from the colder regions towards tiie equator and hack again : a.t iWeisF ! But it is only:-since; 0$0’ s discovery in 1902 that a gigantic: ice-covered-, plateau That meteorologists have appreciated Rhe special, localised action off the phenomena at the South Pole. (,lhere is, foi instance,' nothing of the kind at the North Pole, and, indeed, the. meteorological pole in the Northern lleiiiis.phere is to he placed in N6rth-eust'Si-beria rather than in tlie deep ocean at the Pole itself.) We may picture; tlie poleward-flowing streams sinking to the earth at tlie intensely cold elevated South Pole and thence streaming out, either with moderate speed or as furious blizzards, hack again to temperate regions.” ,

PEOBELiMS OF MIGRATION. In tl.ie field of natural science Antarctica is expected to yield the answer to the puzzle how vertebrate animals migrated over the face off the globe and whether Antarctica was a sort of halfway house whence animals could spread by vanished “land bridges ’ to South America, to South Africa, to Australia, and to New Zealand. '“ The real proof would be forthcoming only .through the discovery of marsupials or other perti-, nent material in t’ossililerous beds of Antarctica.” Wonderful fossils, both of plants and animals, have been discovered in South Victoria Land ih Graham Land, which throw a flood of light on the fascinating problems of past climates. In AYest Antarctica (Graham Land, etc.) we seem to see; a. continuation of the South American Andes. These arc folded mountains occurring often in arcs, one of wlijbh appears to link Chili with Antarctica, by way of the drowned islands of 'South Georgia, South Orkneys, etc,.