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Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1909, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1909. THE ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION.

We think we may safely assume that no future scientific expedition will permit the results of its researches to be temporarily monopolised by any newspaper trust or other institution for a fee. In the present case, an enterprising syndicate has almost exactly the advantage it would have possessed had it fitted out the expedition at its own cost, while some of the contributors of the funds have had to awaib the expiry of its copyright for detailed information. Apart from this, the summary which made the telegraphic circuit of the world before reaching -the New Zealand press was somewhat meagre. The public is now beginning to receive the particulars to which it is entithJ, *nd which it has been impatiently awaiting. In the first place, the explorers have to be congratulated on their safe leturn, in the best of health. Details published to-day show that not only hardship was undergone, but imminent danger, 2nd that two parties were temporarily given up for lost. There are dramatic features in the story of the almost Hopeless search by the Nimrod along three hundred miles of coast for Professor David and party, long overdue, who had located the magnetic pole, the three men being ultimately found in a little inlet where they nad arrived only the night before. It seemed the slenderest of chances that men and ship should meet, and the feelings of either party when relief came can only be faintly imagined. There was a like experience of hope deferred and wearing anxiety when Lieutenant Shackleton's party was a fortnight overdue. In this story of hardship and danger — and, happily, of achievement also — one can well understand that many of the explorers vowed that they never more would venture on such a quest. Yet such is the call of the unknown, that such men are always the first to respond when another opportunity offers. With the fuller information, the reader can better realise what has been done, and how eolidi an addition has been made to the world's knowledge of tho silent Antarctic. The locating of the magnetic pole <s Of scientific importance and of great general interest, and both magnetic poles have been now reached by British enterprise. In the quest of the geographic pole, the record- has been materially lowered — from approximately between six and seven hundred miles' distance t,o one hundred —and on the six hundred miles of unknown track topographical discoveries of the highest interest have been made, and geological indications pointing to great changes in the past — long subpected — in the direction of the earth's axis. The systematic collation of the results of the observations of ihc different parties has thrown entirely new light on the structure and movements of the great ice carrier, as well as. on the general aspect of tho country. Leaving out of consideration the imaginary "hole'" at each pole which an American scientist and navigator stiove all his lifo to establish by many learn-

ed arguments, it has dissipated several theories which have found favour in recent times. Some have imagined extensive areas of depression surrounding the poles, possessing the advantages of a mild climate, with only the drawback of protracted days and nights, and possibly inhabited by an unknown race of men. But Lieutenant Shackleton seems to have almost proved' that the South Pole is a second "roof of the earth," a great plateau some eleven thousand feet in altitude, cold beyond almost human endurance with a rarefied air inducing mountain sickness, and swept by wild blizzards and tempests. Life is there certainly — animal and vegetable, adapted to its stern environment: it is difficult to say where life is not — but evidently there has been no extension of the area of the habitable world. The expedition has been a decided success, though it has not reached the goal which would have crowned its efforts. It has pointed the way more effectually than any other ; and with daily progress of invention and the wonderful scientific adaptation of means to ends characteristic of our century, it may not bo many years before a flag of victory will mark the world's southern polar axis — the most significant surveyor's mark on earth. That flag, let us hope, will be the British flag. In the ■words of the old Cornish sailor whose portrait Millais has painted: "It ought to be done, and England should do it." And we hope that New Zealand may yet give the successful explorers as warm a welcome as she is now giving the litUe company of the Nimrod. "^