FACTS ABOUT THE POLE.

Captain Amundsen's narrative of his journey to the Pole has provided evidence of the truth of the conjectures Iraade jis to the conditions farthest south based on the investigations of Lieutenant Sliackleton. Below arc given briefly som« of the most interest ing points about the great uninhabited waste that surrounds the South Pole. The South Pole is situated on an Antarctic continent, somewhat larger than Australia, with an area of 4,000,000 square miles. True, it is almost entirely covered with ice, but the surface of the ice in most parts appears to be comparatively smooth, so that sledges can make , good going over il:. The Pole is on a tableland about 10,000 feet in height. The glaciers of the Antarctic regions are of stupendous size, many of them incomparably larger thau the largest Arctic glaciers. The Great Ice Barrier is an Antarctic glacier 700 miles wide and hundreds of miles broad in places. At its northern edge it presents a continuous wall of ice, in some places 300 ft in height and seldom le.S3 than 100 feist It extends across Ross Sea from King Edward Vll.'s Land to McMurdo Strait, and i» at least the size of France in area. The breaking off of portions of the northern edge in summer produces the greatest crop , of icebergs in the world.

In no other part of the world do frost and fire hold such divided sway. On tho mainland of Aantarctica there aro numerous volcanoes, at least one of which, Mount Erebus, is active. One of the strangest things about Antarctica ; s that many of its. mountains are built partJy of snow — that is to nay, with layers of snow between strata of lava and ashes. The ashes thrown out by the volcanoes, fall cold, and form a sort of cako which is an excellent non-conductor of heat. Then molten lava flows over the crust of ashes without melting the snow beneath, and in this way glaciers are actually sealed up under layers of rock.

Mount Erebus lies within sight of Cape Royds, now the favourite ship headquarters of Antarctic explorers. It wa» discovered by Sir James Clark Ross, who led a famous expedition to the Antarctic regions in 1843. The ascent of Mount Erebus to its su.-nmit was regarded aa almost impossible, but this was one oi the first feats accomplished by Shackleton's expedition. Six men marde the ascent, On the third day, at an altitude of 8700 feet, the;? "were caught in a blizzard so terrific that it blew the gloven off one of the party, Sir Philip Brocklehurst. The next daj they camped on the rim of an old crater and explored it floor. Their attention was attracted to some curious mounds dotted over the snow plain. They found that they were furaaroles, or smoke holes, which in ordinary climates may be de-

tected by the thin cloud of steam above them. The fumaroles uf Krebus hava their steam converted into ice as soon as it reaches the surface of the snow plain, and the result has been the creation of the remarkably shaped mountain. The ice was coloured yellow on account ot the sulphur. On the sixth day they ToacheJ ihe edge of the active crater and found themselves on the lip of a vast abyss filled with a rising cloud of steam. The explorers ascertained the height ot the mountain to be 13,350 feet.

It is probable that the South Pole itself is buried beneath as much as 5000 vertical feet of everlasting ice. For thia reason, on account of the altitude nbov* the sea, its neighbourhood may be expected to be colder than that of the North 3'ole. Then, again, because there is no water to render the climate milder, it may be supposed that the temperature at the southern end of the earth's axis iH lower than at the northern eirJ. It is deemed not at all impossible, that somewhere in the neighbourhood of the

South Pole there may be a comparatively warm patch.

Lieutenant SbaekLeton r Captain Scott and others were puzzled by the occurrence of a wind blowing from the South Pole considerably warmer than the previous temperature for this point. Captain Scott writes: — "The warm enow, bearing southerly winds, which we experienced, have not yet been explained. E\en in the depth of winter this wind had a temperature ol ten to fifteen degrees." This alone suggests that there may be comparatively warm valleys or regions somewhere in the Antarctic continent. It is a most extraordinary fact that vast na is the accumulation of ice in the Antarctic continent, it is less than il used to be, and is gradually diminishing. Lieutenant Shackleton found traces of glaciers on Mount Erebus 1000 feet a'hove the sea level. As the adjacent eea is 1800 feet deep, the ice sheet at on* time must have been 2800 feet thick. of the glaciers in Antarctica are dying, that Jβ to say. decreasing in eire aria not flowing. Strang to say, meteorologists argue that the diminution of ice indicates that the climate -was formerly milder than now. Ice and snow only pocuimilato where there is occasional warmth with moisture and variations of temperature. A continuous dry cold does not favour the accumulation of ice and snow.

Geological conditions indicate that Antarctica was once linked by land to South America and Australia and that it then possessed vegetation and abundant human and animal life. Little is known of the interior of Antarctica. Shackleton made a dash into it so rapid that he had no time for careful research, and Amundsen's passage through the country was eve n quicker, while other explorers have merely scratched the edges of the land. No fossils have been brought back and very few geological specimens of any value. These are points to which th« nest explorers will devote itheir attention. Ximataks are a curious feature of the ' Antarctic landscape. They are sharp, black rocks, which stick up out of the snow and are very prominent in summer. Sastnigus is the name given to curious hillocks of snow (hat also form in summer. It was at Cape Adare. where there is a break in the environing ice cliffs, that Ross, in 1842. with his two little sailing ships, the Erebus and the Terror, made his way as far to the south as latitude 78 degrees 10 minutes.

This place is remarkable because the temperature at the base of the high cliffs is unusually warm—sometimes up to 50----degrees in summer—and much curious Antarctic vegetation is found there.