WHAT WE KNOW OF THE SOUTH POLE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2683, 21 September 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHAT WE KNOW OF THE SOUTH POLE.

Thk golden ago of Antarctic discovery arrived wlion Captain, afterwards Sir Jamos Ross was de-patched from Engiand in IS 10 to fix the position of the south magnetic pole, and any other position ho could discover on the way there. Before Ross could reach thn scene of his labours, other explorers, English, Fienoh and American, were bu«y forstalling him. Of these the fir.-t was the Englishman, Balleny, who, sailing in Enderby's ship, the Eliza Scott, discovered in 1539 the islands which bear his name, and which lie almost due south from Now Zealand. Ballenv could not land on the islands, but he m-ido sure of their existence, and nfterwaid-', sailing far to the westward, hesaw niMtiy moru signs of land, and suspected the existence of much which ho could not certainly vouch for. What Billcny thought he saw was probably much what the French expedition under Dumont d'Urvillo actually did see in thu following year, several long lines of coasr, which might be joined to ono another, and might even run on to join Enderby Land in the west, and if so might certainly be parts of the Antartic Continent that d'Urvilie was anxious to find. Not less anxious was Wilkcs, the leader of the United States Exploring Expedition, who, only a month after the Frenchman, arrived within a degree or two of the Antarctic Circle, to the south of New Zealand, and after seeing land where Balleny had certr.iuly seen it before began to fancy that lie saw it also where none had seen it before and, unfortunately, where no one has seen it since. For some days, indeed, Wilkes doubted whether what he beheld were mountains or clouds, objects which his crew watched eagerly, to see if with the setting of the sun they would change their colour. But after running westward along the edge of the pack for a few days, he made sure that he now saw land, and somewhat ineonsequently assumed it for certain that what he had seen before was land also. The discovery of an Antarctic Continent was announced as a certainty ; a very large land, with a barrier of ice before it, and a range of mountains upon it, was laid down on the map ; and a copy of the map was handed by the rash but generous explorer to Ross, who left Tasmania in the autumn of the same year to look for the magnetic pole, with the two ships Erebus and Terror, which afterwards bore Sir John Franklin to his fate at the end of the world. Ross had so little doubt that the Antarctic Continent was discovered already, that he seems to have been almost disappointed when his way to the magnetic pole was barred by an unknown land. Yet this land, which lay south of the 70th parallel, and eastward of Balleny's Islands, was the most southerly hitherto seen in the world, and on it rose mountains thousands of feet high, plain and mountain alike robed in stainless snow, except on th(3 cliffs by the shore, where the black rock came out. The coast ran almost due north and south, and along its eastern facs Ross advanced steadily until he had beaten Cook's record and also Wcddcll's, and gone further south than any before him. But he could find no landing place on the mainlaud, so choked was every inlet with snow and ice ; only on a small island were the adventurers able to touch Autarctic earth, a few men among thousands of screaming and biting penguins. .Fresh mountains came constantly into view as they moved southward ; at last one in 77 south, over which what seemed to bo a cloud of snow was blowing ; but when they came nearer they saw that the cloud was smoke, and gave the name of Mount Erebna to a giant volcano higher than Etna, which belches forth smoke and lire in a laud where all things arc frozen. .Before Mount Erebus lies Cape Crozier, and round Cape Crozier Ross hoped to find a way to the westward, so as to roich the magnetic pole by the back of the new land he had found. Hut as they approached they saw stretching from Capu Cro/.ier "as far as the eye could discern to eastward,' , a " low white line, , ' the nature of which theydid not understand till they came close enough to see the truth with their eyes. It was a wall of ice 1 C>o feet high, without break or slope, but one glittering perpendicular steep, through which, as Ross sai:l, one might as easily pass as through the dill's of Dover. Along this gleaming rampart Ross ran eastward for

two hundred and fifty miles, and in the succeeding year, 1842, for two hundred more without coining to its end, on both of which occasions he reached tho high latitude of 78 south, which has never since bocu app oached by any man.