The South Pole.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 341, 9 February 1889, Page 6

The South Pole.

It appoav3 to be possible that Professor ISeumayr, of the Kambiu'g Marine Observatory, will bucceed in getting a South Polar expedition organised. It might have been supposed that until some greater measure of success had attended similar adventures in the Arctic legions, the most ardent advocates of such schemes ivoulcl have doubted the wisdom of exposing human- lives and treasuie to the risks of Antarctic seas. All the best authorities are agreed that the difficulties to be encountered in the South are much greater than in the North, and the hideous stories which gained currency after < the return ot the last Aictic expedition might well have sickened the boldest of this generation sufficiently to deter them from any assault upon the stronghold of King inter in the South. Jn comparing the difficulties of Arctic and Antarctic adventure Sir Wy ville Thomson says : 'We can only anticipate disasters, multiplied a hundredfold, should the South Pole ever become a goal of rivalry among nations.' For various reasons the great lone land under the Southern Cross is more difficult of access than the 'North. It is much colder there than in the Arctic Circle. There seems to be no such warm \ currents as are to be found in the j North— such for instance as the Labrador ; current, or that round the South coast of Spitsbergen. Such emanations from the torrid regions of the earth do much to mitigate the rigours of the northern seas at ! certain points and bring about the most striking variations of temperature, breaking up the ice at certain seasons, and opening the way to navigation far beyond points otherwise attainable. Any enterprise of 'this kind will, of course, be pushed on during the' summer months — during January, February, and the early part of March, that ib. But even in the height of "summer the temperature of the air in Antartic regions is always below the freezing point of sea-water, and bitter, tempestuous' winds and fogs and blinding snowstorms are all but incessant. No Ai'ctic explorer* has ever gone beyond the bounds of vegetation. At least lichens and seaweed have been found wherever northern navigators have penetrated, but in the awful solitudes of the South Sir James Ross found not the faintest trace of vegetable life, either on the land oi* in the sea, yet he never came within less thah 700 miles of the South Pole. The magnetic pole has bean approached within 150 miles, and it seems possible fhab'imp'drta'nt scientific results might be' attained by covering that further distance ; but even this is doubtful.

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