The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, January 13, 1910. THE SOUTH POLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 708, 13 January 1910, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, January 13, 1910. THE SOUTH POLE.

A recent cable stated that the British Government has granted ,£20,000 to Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expedition. With ,£20,000 already subscribed, this ensures a start in July. Captain Scott has been experiencing some difficulty in financing his projected expedition. “ I have bought a ship,” he said at a meeting held at the Baltic Exchange in Eondon in October, “ but have not paid for her. She is in Newfoundland now, but will be in the Thames in about a mouth’s time. I have got to get the £"40,000 for this expedition by hook or by crook.” The meeting was held in support of Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition. Captain Scott was received with loud cheers. He said that whatever else the expedition went for, it went for scientific purposes, and the results for science were the most important harvest it expected to get. At the Antarctic the rocks could be examined on the land, which was iree from ice and snow. The refuse from certain mines had produced the valuable product of pitch blende, from which we got radium, and who was to say that the rocks of the Antarctic would not be of use to generations to come ? It was absurd to say that they cannot be worked ; that might have been said of Alaska, which had enriched the world with gold. Magnetic observations in the Antarctic would be of great

benefit to Australia. If English- I men dropped the work of Antarctic I exploration, they would find that the Americans would be only too willing to take it up, and we should be careful that the Union Jack was planted at the South Pole first. (Cheers). This was a question of enterprise, and what would Nelson have said to a person who asked him what was the use of enterprise ? Lieut. Evans remarked, amid laughter, that Captain Scott and he were but a couple of simple sailors among the business men. The expedition would be a practical and wellequipped affair, under the command not only of an able sailor, but a scientist. (Cheers). On a motiou of a member of the Baltic, it was unanimously resolved that, subject to the conseut of the committee, a subscription list should be opened at the institution for the equipment and organisation of the expedition.