Seven Million Miles Yet to be Explored.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 8 May 1914, Page 2

Seven Million Miles Yet to be Explored.

(By OAT?RFTT 1\ SETIYTST!.)

The brave cs.-i.th of Captain Scott, more even th-n the triomph of Captain Amundsen, has turned men's minds towards the regions of the earth which have not yet been explored. Of the Antarctic Continent itself very little is known. ]!y pushing straight to its centre the explorers have obtained a bettor general idea of its nature than they could have got by merely studying its, icy outskirts. Th?re is little doubt thut it. forms a vast table land with a greater mean elevation than any other large division of the globe. The evidence of the former existence there of a climate capable of maintaining forms of life now found only in temperate, or even tropical, lands give to that snow-buried continent a fascination that will for many generations draw adventurers to its storm-swept plateaus. But nearer home (to say nothing of the surroundings of the North Pole) there are vast unexplored lands which promise discoveries of the highest interest. It has been estimated that of the fifty-six million square miles of land that the earth contains, about seven millions are still practically unknown, except in outline. Of this area 3,000,000 square miles belong to Antarctica. A peculiarity of some of the yet unexplored regions is that, they f'Tni vart.q f-t '.-■"•ti'-e:-.(n Hint have ,t>een inhabited from time irnme-»ai.ji-La.l, by peoples representi/.g the civilisations that the earth Jhas known. Take Arabia, for instance. It is a land 01 superlative Mystery, lying in close touch with '..he seats of ancient and modern Empires of the first rank.. It is three-quarters encircled by Lravigable seas and gulfs. It has Jjorts that are visited by the shi;\s <tf all nations. It has given birth to a religion professed by more 'than 200,000,000 people. It is inJiabitated by a race possessing physical and mental qualities. It once conquered an empire wider than that v'7T Rome, wherein the torch of knowledge was kept burning during ■the Dark Ages of Europe. Its area that of Europe west of the River Vistula —and yet its interior* Is almost absolutely unknown to t.he world. In the heart of Arabia is a territory as large as Germany and France combined, and has not a I single river, and yet it may not be ijltoaethcr a desert. Mounted on *)is long-legged camel, the Arab *Ides over his sand-hills disappears tfreyor.d a horizon which he alone transits, and is lost to all human Knight except that of his own tribes,»nen, visiting scenes of which no fcthers of Adam's descendants have fony knowledge. Those small portions of the skirts of Arabia that Europeans have penetrated are amo:ig the most singular places on She planet, but what lies back of them we can only guess. ■ South America, some of whose fcancl^ are coming so rapidly forward fen recent years, is still full of unexplored mysteries. ' In Peru, Colombia, and along the Jupper waters of the Amazon (mighti.est of rivers), lie enormous forests j&nd junglea and mountain fastnesses, billed with rich and strange vegetable forms, and with animals yet flrtranger—gigantic anacondas, " carnivorous ants," birds of marvellous jplumage, and wonderful vocal •powers, and stores of untouched minx*rals and metals, a'tnoaj; which gems iand gold and silver undoubtedly .abound, and inhabited by tribes ■Sthe names of some of which are yet At least a quarter of the continent of Australia, has never been explored. Its neighbour. New Gui.'.nea, the largest island in the world, fis known only in small part, although it may be filled with undeveloped riches. The mighty mass of the Himalayas, the loftiest of all mountains, "the roof of the world," ha« not Leen penetrated to its centre. No man has yet approached nearer 'than a hundred miles from the loot of Mount Everest, which lifts its ;snowy head five miles and a half above sea-level. There are lofty valleys among the Himalayas, of whose inhabitants only traditions are known. Such is ti%e storied valley of the Amazons, said to be ruled by women, and 'where men have no suffrage at all. Even the open oceans, now traversed in all directions, are full of mysteries. Among the strangest of •these is Easter Island,) in the South Pacific, 2,000 miles from the shores of South America. There are foi;:: " those gigantic images of stone, erected on immense platiorms, telling, of a vanished people whose story, if it could be unravelled, might throw a flood of light on the mysteries of Polynesia.—"London Budget."