CLAIMS TO THE SOUTH POLE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 4 December 1929, Page 5

CLAIMS TO THE SOUTH POLE.

THE PRIORITY OF NORWAY. DANISH EXPLORER DISCOUNTS BYRD'S PERFORMANCE. (By Telegraph-Press Assn.-Copyright.) COPENHAGEN, Dec. 3. Major Tryggve Gran, explorer, airman and a member of Captain Scott's expedition of 1910 and also of the party which found Scott's body, declares: "Norway must be considered in any claim to sovereignty of the South Pole.- A Norwegian first planted a national flag there- and all territory from Shackleton 'S southernmost point to the Pole itself was christened Haakon VII Land by Amundsen. It is therefore Norwegian. "If a second country claimed any portion of Antarctica, it should be Britain, because of Scott's enterprise." Major Gran does not doubt that Commander Byrd flew over the Polo, but says it is curious that after 17 years he observed traces of Amundsen's and Scott's camps, whose huts, being snow-built, would crumble away. Byrd's report of Polar mountains seemed mistaken. Ranges existed 250 miles from the Pole and possibly further south between Scott's and Amundsen's routes, but not further south than 88 degrees. Gran asserts that Byrd's whole expedition appears to comprise "speculations in sensations."

"After the way in which the Americans are acting, 'Polar explorer' is no longer an honourable namo. Only money, not scientific qualities nor yearlong preparations, are now required to become an explorer. The terrible mountains which Byrd describes are fantasy. Tho land, is on the whole, a plain, on which, except for clefts and ravines, whieh must be crossed and got round, the trip might be accomplished on a motor-cycle."