THE POLAR PARADISE.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 June 1925, Page 4

THE POLAR PARADISE.

A M UXDS EX ’ S Cil AN C E. (Hy E. Dwyer Gray in the Sydney Herald.) Amundsen says that one of the olsjeets of his projected trans-polar flight across the North Pole is to ascertain, if possible. whether Commander Green’s amazing Polar theories have any ofundation in fact, lie does not regard what the Americans have tilready named “Z.R.I. Land’' as necessarily the “Polar Paradise’’ as an essarily a mere myth, nor summarily dismiss the ” Polar Paradise” as an idle dream. Early last year Viljnmur Stet’n nssou declared .that if the great American airship Z.R.I. made a trip across the North Pole in search of the supposititious “Z. 11.1. Land.” and “the lost Norsemen,” it might prove to be “one of the turning points of history.” It, was. at that time, thought that the Z.R.1.. popularly known as the Shenandoah, would leave American on this venturesome voyage on last lndependnnee Day. amidst salvoes ol star-spangled oratory, flic American Semite eventually decided that the airship risks were too great, anti the daring expedition was reluctantly abandoned. The existence of Z.R.I Land as a. real land mass remains to lie ie-ted, whilst the story ol the lost Norsemen lias at least the support of history and tradition. Commander Kitzliugh Green. I.S.A. writes: “lit the centre ol the unknown area of the Polar Sea may hr discovered a vast continent, heated by subterranean fires, and inhabited by the descendants of the lost Norwegian colony of Greenland.” Thai is the supposititious Z.IU 1. Land. Is there n j Polar Paradise, and if so. are the lost Norsemen there? BELIEVER IN STEAM-HEATED CONTINENT. Lieutenant-Commander Green is m s •iisut.iunalisl. writ ing with the audacity of ignorance. Eollowng his graduation from the I nited StaLs Naval Academy at Annapolis, be join ed Ibe Cioker Land Arctic* Expedition :o engineer, mid physicist in P>M | and spent three and a. hall years ii lhe polar regions. In PM I. with hi; mate, McMillan and two Eskinuies lie sledged more than llldil miles nr loss Ellesmere Land, and out into tin Polar Sen. in search of land, wide! tidal experts declare must exist ii this million square miles ot uuexphn ■ed area. In P.tL"). after their relic ship had become icebound in Smit! Sound. Lieutenant-Commander Green and two other members of the exped ilion. sledged south lor lite month along the uninhabited portion ol th Greenland coast to the Danish color ies. Arriving in New ’I ork by way u

Copenhagen, lie joined the American Atlantic Elect on regular duty. Later be became King Lieutenant to Admiral Ungers, who was in command of the United States battleships attached to tho British Grand Fleet in European "waters. Ho is now aide to Admiral Williams, president of tlm Naval War College at Newport. Id. l.e in tenant-Commander Green s eiedon t inis are undoiiiando. He believes in the steam-heated Polar euntincnl, and Im believes that the descendants

of the lost Norsemen are there, lie thinks the area of Z.R.I Land will be found to be at bast oO.Uf.'J square

\ few year:, ago. in a particularly open season, oil American wholer. Captain Keenan, who is regarded as absolutely dependable, reported that ho lud seen land uorl li-east of Point Barrow, whilst Peary sighted distant ,leaks mirth-west from Cop.' Thomas. Unless their eyesight deceived them. Z.ld Laud thus seems located, as a reality, on the opposite side, ol the Polo to Iceland. This land would lie approximately bisected by a straight line drawn through the North Pole trunt I’oiul Barrow . in Alaska. to Norway, on the European side ot the Pole. Dr Harris, the tidal- expert in Washington. D.C.. deehir. d long sine e that the data of polar oeean euiTonlwhieh he had worked out had convinced him of the existence oi an undiscovered large land moss near the North Pole. Other tidal experts, in both Europe and America, have eiinie to the same conclusion.

NA'l'i RAI.I.Y-WARMKR U'KI.AXi) , KLofnnsson’s illumination. -1 ;i1 1 ■ mt-111 ' when in Sydney have quite remove t he pardonable popular i in pr i • i<»! i i dies.- |.;|i t s thill there i- m■ > l• 1 11 1 ■ • hi denial ire in Xortli Ro'nr regions. 5 i "" il may s.i iil h* siirprisoil to learn tin !l at Disco, ill Greenland. erehi.l-. warn ' cd I'V l lie natural la>L snrines. Idossoi ulit nl' doors all through the hille sunl-ss winter Healths. Ileal irm the nether world delies the cold. It i.‘ however, tin- condition nl’ Iceland i I■;! i ticnhir which (rentes a eonsidornbl presumpt i* i! i that /.R.l I.aid. ii reality, is a suhterrimean-hcat ed lam ; 'l ie- A merit an aeroplane wovld-llicr were fiinl - astonished when they land etl ill It -land last year to di-cove nothing i n toll • rill >i_v cold there. 110 sprint's a tit I boiling mutt are hnuitl n cvcrv part tit' leelatul, and there is evet now nroiecteil a scheme lo heat tin whole island by liarncssing its inninner aide steaming geysers. leehnid’s col ' left itiii ol volcanoes is indeed nnsiir passed in the world. Within its t ins limits there are 107 major craters, ant several thousand minor ones. Tin greatest lava flows, however, do mil come from conventional craters. hul from fissures in the level land, indicatin'; flint subterranean lires smonldei henenth the suri'aee. What is the result? The mean annual temperature of Greenland. which is in the same latitude is minus lo I’., hul the mean mill uml temperature of Iceland is phis dip. During the summer averages run up to fit IP., which even Australians would consider quite cosy. Por 200 years Iceland was isolated from P.urojie, for the same reasons that Oreonlaiiflic Norsemen were deserted, hut. despite its Art-lie situation, the peace the health, and the prosperity of its inhabitants were sustained hy its natural warmth arising limn thermal acl-i-ity. Til K I.OSi XOIiSKMKX. Xow consider history and the hskimo ! tradition. Ir is a historic tact that! Ki-ic the lied discovered Greenland in. tls.'j A.n. He I)rout;ht hack to Xorwiil glowing tales of grassy thirds, lone n lit summer days, game-infested hills. | ice-pans groaning under their hurdt-H j of fat seals, bays teeming with ii>h. j A Xorwegian colony in (Irecnlaiul re- j suited immediately, and prospered greatly. Princely were the contribu-J lions of the Vikings to the ill-tated i crusades. The last ship to reach X"ur- j way tmm her llourishing Arelie coolnvj arrived in lilt) A.D. It brought to j Xonvay a rich cargo, and stories ot happy thriving Norsemen, hack north. | ■' Then,” as l.ieiiteimnt-Commniuler j Green says. ” suddenly, as in Wl I. h.u- j rope heettme a shambles. Plague and war swept civilisation. Pestilential ;

disease ran a ghastly race with a horde of human murderers. Greenland led! out of the minds of man. Even the sea route was forgotten.” Dark ages

passed, and Greenland was rediscovered. But the report Hans Egede ‘ brought back in 1721 was tragic. Ihe * Norwegian colony, variously estimated ] as between 10,000 and 100,000 people, t bad totally disappeared, and their ties I eeiidants, if any. \ It is impossible to believe that the i deserted Norsemen of three centuries I before had been destroyed by the Es- < kimos, who are the most peaceful an i .- friendly people on the earth. they < could not have starved, for there is i food ill plenty in Greenland. They could not have sailed away, tor they had no ships. Pestilence might have , removed the whole population, but it is not likely, for germs do not thrive in the Polar regions. “With my own eyes 1 have seen their ruined homes.” says Lieutenant-Commander Green. What, then, became of the vanished Norsemen 'i Here we come to the Eskimo tradition, file Eskimos says. “The white swarmed suddenly to the north.” Their Norse homeland had become a myth, and so. the Eskimo legend puts it. “ they packed, and singing songs, departed ” over the ice. The Eskimos declare that they “went in the direction of the coastal trade route, north.” towards a wonderland the natives had known for ages, but never approached, because their wise me:i warned them that it was a land j of Evil Spirits. This land, according to the tradition, "is warm, is clothed in summer verdure the year round, and is populated by Tat caribou and musk ox.” U that Z. R .-I .-Land, and ate t,,0 vanished Norsemen then’. Plainly, this story, however, romantic. cannot be hastily dismissed as romance. Only Polar expiorai ion can de- ’ eide Ibe issue. The possibilities of 1 Z.!!.-1.-Land cannot be denied. II the lost Norsemen went there, under what conditions are their descendants living! to dav? They are of a sturdy white stock. isolated from what we call the 1 civilised world tor < ell lories. Mill we find barbarian- or a people who will sav s we are barbarians ? What will their s culture lie like, and what will they - think of ours ? Will we bud a society - in Z. H.-l .-Land based upon the general economic conditions we call capitalism, 1 or a society based upon the general s cunmiiiiial relationships we call Commini ism ? Those *n*o in tores tin.is sjioeu- - altions. but it is well to remember e that nothing may he lolind at all, lor !i there may be no Z. R.-I .-Land, and no a descendants ot the lost, Norsemen. SCIENCE AND STRATEGY, f Admittedly a little more than science

and a " search for ihe lost Norsemen” is involved in any trans-polar Right at present. A prael ;eabit* air ionic Irom Alaska to Norway would bring Alaska into its own, and cut the distance to European and Asiatic capitals Imm 11. non to Odin miles. Kurt her. any

land near the North Pole is strategically important under the modern conditions, and if uninhabited, Amundsen might legitimately consider that the landscape would he considerably improved bv the attractive* colours ol the Norwegian Elag.