ANTARCTICA

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 102, 16 January 1923, Page 5

ANTARCTICA

FAR SOUTH WITH MAWSON SOME WONDERFUL PICTURES None is bettor qualified to speak of the great Antarctic than Sir Douglas Mawson, whoso fame so filled the Concert Chamber last night that many were unable to gain admission. The president of the Australasian Society for tho Advancement of Science (Mr. G. H. Knibbs) presided. Known all over the world to people who took any interest in exploration, as well as to all universities and laboratories, it was quite unnecessary, said Mr. Knibbs, to introduce the lecturer, whose splendidly-illustrated books had been read by everybody. “The great Antarctic zone,” said Sir Douglas Mawson, who was gieeted with applause, “holds data of vital importance to science in the solution of its problems. If. therefore. . the general advance of scientific inquiry is to go forward unhampered, investigations of at least the broader aspects of Antarctic research must proceed.

Recent Voyages ,Rewarded. “Our knowledge of the great Antarctic continent is yet but fragmentary, and until the last few decades amounted to little more than nothing at all. Almost one hundred years ago explorers demonstrated the existence of considerable land in the far southern regions, but though comparatively accessible to New Zealand. Australia, South Africa, and South America, little further was done for long afterwards. In the twenty-five years leading to the present day, a series of well-found expeditions have returned with volumes of information which, though still but fragmentary, is sufficient for us to state that the salient features of the Antarctic regions are now well outlined. Even the sacrifice of life which is inevitable in such explorations is not, in the end, a loss to the nation. The Great Polar Continent. “The outstanding feature is the groat Polar continent, which is possibly about twice as large as Australia. Unlike almost all other lands it is all but entirely covered by ice, so that comparatively little rock is to be seen. Another significant and outstanding feature is the broad girdle of ocea.ii which isolates the Antarctic laria mass from other continents. At widely separated intervals throughout this ocean girdle are small isolated islands where the climate is cold but not glacial. Stark, Wind-swept Plateau, “The continent itself is situated more or less concentrically around the geographic pole. This Polar situation determines for.it a minimum contribution of heat incident from the sun. Also tho presence of that land excludes the possibility of the amelioration of the South Polar climate, by circulating ocean currents, as is the case in tho Arctic. Further, the continent in its present ice-encased form is exceedingly elevated, apparently constituting the greatest of the world’s plateau areas. These factors all conspire to secure for the Antarctic continent thio lowest mean temperatures existing anywhere on our earth. It has been calculated that the mean temperature at the South Geographical Polo is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit lower than that obtaining at the North Pole.

Where Silences are Spawned. “The existence of a continuous girdle of ocean around the Antarctic continent profoundly affects the plant and animal life there existent, as well as that of all Southern Hemisphere lands. Isolated as it is, ft cannot be restocked from the land life of neighbouring continents as has been the case in the Arctic. The absence of highways between Antarctica and. the rest of the world leave it practically devoid of life, save only along the very shore where marine birds and members of the seal family temporarily resort. The interior is silence itself. “Biologists and geologists conclude that in past geological epochs when a milder climate prevailed, long before the frost king descended upon that continent, certain land connections with other continents did exist. These land bridgeSj 'the highways for animal and plant migration, eventually foundered beneath the sea and the land fauna and flora then existent on the continent was utterly, destroyed by Ithe deluge of ice which piled over the land in more recent times.” Of the life at present existing in Antarctica and in the more Hemperate islands approaching its bleak shores, Sir Douglas Mawson gave an intimate idea by a series of slides and photographs of unique beauty, and artistic production. The pellucid clarity of those lonely seas reflected, to incredible depths the pristine purity of the soft snow fringes, the sharp ice edges and stalnccites of. floating bergs, and the blank, unutterably silent majesty of the rampart's of the great polar ice cap, piled thousands ef feet above the liighest rocks in the interior, seamed with crevasses thousands of feet deep,

pushed over relentlessly forward at its edges by its own enormous pressure. Here and there pontoons hundreds of miles jutted out 'into the ocean 150 miles wide and 600 feet thick; great tongues of the chilly, slowly-moving cataract of ice, that in places was pushed over stupendous cliffs to fall in glancing cataclysms, yet powerless to break the solid frozen sea. The bird life was the most interesting feature of the pictorial ride of the lecture, and of these the most artistically beautiful were the work of Air. Hamilton, of AVellington. Gulls, gannets, Cane pigeons, white petrels, Dominican and Skua gulls, a . young albatross in its nest, and, indeed, the nesting activities of myriads of confiding, man-ignorant birds, were shown in natural surroundings. It was, how-

ever, in the penguins lhat the audience took most delight. The king, roylal, Victoria, and giant emperor (weighing 901 b.) penguins were shown in all their domestic and acrobatic quaintness. These human birds in themselves would absorb • the interest for an entire evening. Courtship, ludicrous and devout, thiair .waddling procession to and fuim their rocky rookeries, tlyo stream of older birds ceaselessly feeding the fluffy, pampered ycung, which reach maturity in tho few brief weeks of autumn, the spectacle of an avalanche of penguins cascading off a slippery rock and returning, as salmon leap a weir, by a spring clean out of the water, to fall flat on the ice, proved an enthralling entertainment. Sea lions and elephants were hardly less interesting. Spots of interest and scenes on the course of Shackleton's expedition, in which Sir Douglas Alawson look part, including the planting of the flag on tho site of the pole, together with tho hardships of the snowed-in party in their hut below the surface of the snow, wore screened and described. Tho hardships of Antarctic sledging wero fully emphasised by photographs of tho ox'plorois peering through .holes in solid masks of ice, and it was a common source of amusement to each other to seo members endcavourii<s in the absence of a nurior, to pluok away portions of the face so badly frost-

bitten as to feel like the encumbering ice itself. The lecture concluded with portions of the film, taken of the Shackleton expedition. A vote of thanks was c»-ned by continued applause, on the motion of Professor Chilton. ,of Canterbury.