ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2004, 6 February 1890, Page 1

ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

The news that Baron Nordenskiold is to lead the expedition to explore the antarctic regions, in the summer of 1891 is naturally of great interest to this colony, seeing that it is the nearest to the scene of operations. Looking at the matter from a severely practical and commercial point of view, there is nothing much to be gained by such an expedition. Still there is always a glamour of romance about polar travel, and the antarctic regions have the advantage of being unknown except to a very limited extent. We know practically everything there is to be known about the N orth Polar Zone, but a thick shroud of mystery hangs over the antarctic vyorld. Only three navigators—Cook, Weddell, and Ross—have crossed the 70thparallel south. Ross aiidD’Urville alone have succeeded in setting foot on land within the antarctic circle. This land was of volcanic origin, and Mr Murray estimates the extent of “ the extent of the antarctic continent” at 3,000,000 square miles. As a writer in the Melbourne Age remarks, however, one of the problems to be solved by an expedition is whether the antarctic land is continental or merely a congeries of islands smothered under a continental glazier, as Greenland now appears to be, There are also, we are reminded by this same authority, a large number of absorbingly interesting questions to be settled in regard to the flora and fuana, of these southern regions. We are told, for example that 44 per cent, of the New Zealand flora is of antarctic origin, “ *T ds 80 far . a P art as New Zealand and South America have in common three flowering plants, two freshwater fishes, five sea weeds, three marine crustaceans, one marine mollusc, and one marine fish, and similar links unite these regions with the Crozet Islands, Tristan d’Acunha, Kerguelen Island, the Marion Group and (South Africa. The inference is that there must have been in former ages large earth surfaces to develope the progenitors of these now scattered forms of life. The discovery and study of antarctic fossils may, “therefore, lead to invaluable results in the department of natural history. The meteorological conditions of the antarctic circles are exceptional, by reason of the low mean barometric pressure, the moist atmosphere and the perpetual grand cyclonic movement irom east to west. The field for investigation here, again, is vast and of deepest interest. Another branch of science that would be' advanced by antarctic exploration is that the dealing with the earth’s magnetism. Connected with this subject is that of the phenomenon of auroras, whose subtle and little understood influence has been more than once felt in Australia, notably in 1885, when the telegraph apparatus was galvanised into such a state of activity that the wires were rendered simultaneously use’ess for their normal work all the way from Hobart to Hong Kong. The problem whether the aurora of the Southern Hemisphere has its periodicity, as that of the north has been shown to have, can only he solved by observations in high southern latitudes. The solution it may be added, might have an im’ portant bearing on our power to forecast the mutations of our Australian seasons. These are but one or two of the scores of scientific questions awaiting investigation at the hands of future antarctic explorers.” It will be seen therefore that there are plenty of problems to delight the scientific mind. There is at the same time a good deal for the popular imagination to feed upon, Wo want to know more, for example, about those two volcanic giants, Mounts Terror and Erebus—the latter as high as Mount Cook and in active eruption ■ which Ross found as it were guarding the approaches to the arcana of the Polar regions. Baron Nordenskiold will have a great advantage over his predecessor Ross, in that be will be able to use steamers. Hitherto H.M.S. Challenger is the only steamer which has crossed the antarctic circle. —Exchange.