LOST FOR 100 YEARS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 118, 14 November 1929, Page 26

LOST FOR 100 YEARS

MOUNTAIN IN ANTARCTIC SIR DOUGLAS MAWSQIvS QUEST Very shortly now Sir Douglas Mawson's Antarctic expedition will be ploughing through the Atlantic Ocean, bound for the land "of ice and blizzard. Its tasks of exploration are many and amongst them will be the examination of the mysterious patch of land discovered by Captain John Biscoo in 1831, ana named by him Enderby Land, after his employers, says a writer in an Australian journal Exactly 100 years ago Biseoe sailed ±rom Scotland with two small vessels, the Tula and the Lively. The latter was a small cutter of 49 tons. With these two" ships Biseoe remained two years in the Antarctic, exploring the waters which now, a century later, are to be explored by an Australian expedition. "VERY HIGH MOUNTAIN."' In thoir two small craft, Biseoe and his crews had a fearful time They were often in danger of being crushed by the ice; scurvy broke out; food ran short, and gales were monotonously regular. But Biseoe persisted in his voyage, ana at length he was rewarded on 17th March^ 1831, by sighting land. "At S a.m. saw lana south by compass, which was a very high mountain. Distance ten leagues." 8b he enterea his discovery in his log and named the lana "Enderby Lana " Enclerby -Land was N auly /placed on the charts, and for the last 100 years it has remained there.

But it has never been seen since Biseoe was unable to lana. on it, and he may!have been mistaken in thinkmg he saw land—as many other explorers have been.

But Enderby Lana remains a magnet drawing the explorer south again to determine if this mysterious land, as reported by Biscoe, really exists The very high mountain" isjth© goal of Sir Douglas Mawson. Biseoe in the Tula became separated from the little cutter Lively shortly after sighting the land. Biacoe himself managed to make Hobart with half his crew- dead from scurvy and the other half dying. Meantime the Lively had suffered terrible hardships. Death'-JErom scurvy and exposure reduced her crew to the captain, one seaman, ana a boy. They couia not reach Tasmania, ana were driven by gales to Port Phillip, and ran the battered little ship through the Eip. ° ATTACKED BY BLACKS. There was no Melbourne in those Says, and Batman did not come until four years later. The stricken crew of tho 49-ton cutter landed, but they nearly died of starvation; they were attacked by blacks, ana the Lively drifted away. Searching the shores of the Bay, the crew found her on the beach, ana after many tribulations set sail for Hobart. As they passed up the River Devwent they saw Biseoe in tho Tula, coming out to search for them, but"now united, the two ships sot offl once more to prosecute their exploration in the Antarctic. * These events occurred a century ago. Since then the waters which the Tula and the Lively explorea have been furrowed by no keel; the land which they saw has never been seen again, but 100 years later an Australian expedition prepares to set out to follow in the track of the gallant Biseoe and to seek for his "very high mountain."