THE SHRINKING UNKNOWN.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 172, 21 July 1921, Page 4

THE SHRINKING UNKNOWN.

To-day's cable message about an Englishman's journey through unknown regions of the Belgian j Congo is a fresh reminder that. there are now very few part •. of tho j world to which the word unknown can • be applied. Knowledge has advanced with j great rapidity in recent times. Less than I forty years ago Mr. Rider Haggard) could in writing "King Solomon's Mines''! (and "Allan Quartermain" count upon being helped by the mystery which still! hung over the interior of Africa. The reader had the feeling that while these stories were fiction, Africa might parallel | them in fact. Now, nowever, there are few spots left in which the scene of such . stories can be laid with the same effect.! Thanks to the energy mainly of the ( French and the British, Africa has been | almost completely explored. Asia presents a few opportunities, such as parts i of Tibet and Arabia, and the present j expedition to Everest will, even if it does' not reach the summit, add to our know- ■ ledge of the former. In South America there is some work to be done in the, vast interior. The late Mr. Roosevelt i traversed new country there only a few years ago. In the Pacific there is pro-: bably a good deal of New Guinea to be ', explored, and possibly parts- of Borneo. | There remain the. Polar regions, where although the Poles themselves have been I reached, there are many gaps to be filled.! Now that the main objects of Polar, research have been achieved, public in-j terest has subsided, and many people. wonder why explorers continue to visit these terribly inhospitable regions. Man, however, will never be satisfied tin-til he has visited every corner of the globe and examined it in the interests of science. This thirst for knowledge, this determination to learn all j secrets, and to conquer her everywhere, account for the prolonged, costly, and dangerous attack on Mt. Everest, if man were satisfied, it would be proof of his stagnation and decline.