NO EXPLORERS IN A.D. 2000.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 47, 20 March 1909, Page 3

NO EXPLORERS IN A.D. 2000.

The present generation will see the last c\f the explorer.,, for .the simple! reason that, by 'the time the next one arrives there will lie no more unknown lauds in the world left to conquer. This .sounds strange, but il is true, nevertheless. Take Africa, for example. Men not yet past .middle age can reiui'inbcr when itis interior was a blank on the map. There is hardly a. .dnglc district in it now where the advent of a strange white nilati would cause much inure comment! than would that of a, strange black one in ,I'id-adillv.

Dr..Sven llediu',.- laM. juurnev has covered pracitK'ally all Tibet Dial was previously iinkniMn. The de-erts of Southern Arabia, have all been 'mapped save one .-.'mail portion, anil Hint is piow being attacked hv an expedition, led liv k Mr. O. AY. linn. ' l,ii'ut.eiuifit .Shackelton is at this present 'moment' motoring over the inland ice of it lit" Antarcltic towards the South Vole. Captain A'niiunt-on stai-U shortly in -Nanseii's ofct ship, the Krain, in an hltti-mpt to drift to the North Pole. . A do/.en .expeditions are busy in what (raritiins unexplored of the interior of 'Xew Guinea, an'd ait least as many more 'are surveying the Iforest dis'trk-ts yet tatrmUk-n by white men in Jlrar.il and llo'livia. Patagonia h'a.s now been, traversed from end to end, and acro:<i and across, and there k no new ground to explore. Australia, which used a little while Inii-li lu be "white on the maps with a dense fringe of names round the coast, is now inlerwctcd almost everywhere by telegraph lines awl 1-ailhvays. Gieen*l:iiul lias ilmtii crossed .more than once 'at dillVreiil points. So. too, hms Spilz'bergeii. and yet anollier expedition' is 'now on its way under Captain lsaacli•sen. No,, taken' altogether, the outlook •for the 'explorer of the future is of the blanket, rules*, of .course, he is liv 'then able to, voyage to Mai's ill seiu'ck of adventure, or to Neptune.