AMUNDSEN'S PLANS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1389, 15 March 1912, Page 5

AMUNDSEN'S PLANS.

* PREPARING FOR ARCTIC DRIFT. (By Telegraph.—Press AsßociationO Hobart, March 14. Caplnin Amundsen corrects tho London "Clironicln's" statement that tlio rillitu'du reached by his party was 16,500 feet. Tho highest point reached was 11,500 feet and 10,500 feet at tho Pole. It is citrcnicly possible, says Captain Amundsen, that Captain Scott reached the Polo, but (hero were no indications when ho was there. After docking tho Fran), and concluding a short lecturing tour, . Captain Amundsen starts in pursuance of his attempt to drift across tho North Polo. CIVILISATION AND THE ARCTIC. WHAT IS TO BE GAINED BY EXPLORATION. "Tho importance of exploration, and of Arctic exploration especially," said Dr. Nanseu recently to a ".Manchester Guardian" representative, "is very much greater than the man in the street commonly supposes. Tho physical conditions of the earth's surface a.re of great importance to humanity. Most pcoplo are. interested in (ho weather, and !ike lo know a little about it beforehand if possible, but tho condition of the atmosphere and tho laws governing it must lor ever remain unknown to us unless wo know something of the Arctic regions, and, indeed, of every portion of I lie earth's surface. The atmosphere is just a layer of air, and the conditions of any part of it arc not without their effect upon the rest. It is as if yon studied an engine by considering tho boiler only, knowing nothing about the condenser. Polar exploration has immense bearings, not only on tho weather, which is a transient thing, but upon terrestrial magnetism, and so on. The first of, tho conditions i:c?pssnry is that wo should know wh?' IVk;> regions are, or, at any rate, the < v " leatures in (lie dislribution of land iir.-.' v. In the Arctic regions we know th ; < .-.'reaily, but not in the Antarctic. We know there is land, but how great it is we do not know; we know there are glaciers, but the extent of them wo have no idea of. These things can only be studied by going there. There may be sen stretching right across the Polar area. It may be (hose islands which we now call tho Antarctic continent are separate groups of islands more or less united by glaciers. These are features of very great importance when we endeavour to understand the movements of ocean currents and oceanography generally, while fi'am a meleorologieal point of view they are essential to the progress of our knowledge." During the course of further conversation, Dr. Nansen expressed the opinion that; there was probably a great future both for the aeroplane and the nirshin in the Polar regions, but it would bo follv to attempt aerial navigation thorn until we have thoroughly mastered it in regions 'nearer home. "In the meantime there are two chief means of Polar travel. The one is by sledge, which is as eld as mankind, and the other is by drifting with the ico across the Polar Sea in a shin. The Fram was the first to try this method voluntarily, though it had often been done involuntarily. That is the most thorough way of doing it." Dr. Nansen held that there was nothing impossible in the idea that the Polar regions would one day be inhabited by civilised beings. The mines of Spitzbergen were being worked, and Spitzbergen had no advantage over any other part of (he Arctic except that it was more accessible. Tf minerals were found elsewhere in tho Polar regions there was no reason, why, with improved means of communication, they should not be worked also.