"SLENDER CLAIMS."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 288, 5 December 1929, Page 10

"SLENDER CLAIMS."

U-S.A. AND ANTARCTICA. GEOLOGIST'S COMMENT. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Mr. H. T. Ferrar, who was geologist in Captain Scott's first Antarctic expedition, in 190M904, says the claims of the "Washington Post" on behalf of the United States are rather slender. Its editor forgets that it is well known that Ross, innocently, and Scott, intentionally, sailed over the places Wilkes had mapped, and named the landfalls. Major Gran's remarks about mountain ranges near the Pole are hard to follow, says Mr. Ferrar. It is well known that the Polar plateau is 9000 ft above the great ice barrier. Moreover, it is buttressed by mountains 12,000 ft to 15,000 ft high, between which Commander Byrd had to pass on his flight. Mr. Ferrar ascribes Gran's impatience to a journalist keeping up interest in the expedition throughout the winter by vivid descriptions of conditions of life in the Antarctic, which is well known to Polar travellers, and can be.read in any of the many narratives of other expeditions already published.