THE SOUTH POLE.

Waikato Times, Volume 2611, Issue 2611, 6 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SOUTH POLE.

It appoars to bo possible that Professor Neumayr, of the Hamburg Marine Observatory, will succeed in getting a South Polar expedition organised. It might have boon supposed that until some greater measure of success had attended similar adventures in the Arctic regions, the most ardent advocates of such schemes would have doubted the wisdom of exposing human lives and treasure to the risks of Antarctic sea?. 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 of the last Arctic expedition might well have sickened the boldest of this generation sufficiently to deter them from any assault upon the stronghold of King Winter in the South Pole. In comparing the difficulties of Arctic and Antarctic adven turo Sir Wy villa Thomson says:—"We «aw only anticipate disasters, multiplied a hundredfold, should tlio 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 bo no such warm currents as are to be found iu the North such, for instance, as the Labrador current, or that round the South coast of Spitsbergen. Such emanations from tlie torrid region 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 tho 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 tho early part of March, that is. But oven iu tho height of summer 'he temperature of the air in Antarctic regions is always below the freezing point of sea-water, and bittor, tcmpostuons winds and fogs and blinding snow-storms are ail but incessant. No Arctic explore)' has ever gone beyond the bounds of vegetation." At least linelier.s and seaweed have been found wherever northern navigators have penetrated, but in the awful solitudes of the South Sir Jatnos Ross found not the faintest trace of vegetable life, either on the land or iu tho sea, yet he never cauio within loss than 700 miles of tho South Pole. Tho magnetic polo has been approached within 100 miles, and it seems possible that important scientific results might bo attained by covering that further distance; but even this is doubtful.