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Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 21, 2 January 1907, Page 2

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Vtiie .unknown. the Sou tli Polar /K.'//' \' ir/'//’-^■^ rt ’* uankind from ‘'^i uh'k, and in the new “Story of Kxplorby Hugh Robert Mill °* liu ‘ y orious attempts WMJKach what our forefathers eal'led Australis Incognita" is given such guise as to make it more in||S||i toresting than the most fascinating novel. Explaining why. for so many hundreds of years, little or no effect wrft s made to sail southward along H ' the coa6t of Africa, Mr. Mill says: mm "It in scarcely possible in the 20th B century for us to understand the horror of the unknown ocean which ■ haunted the seafarers of the MediterK ranean even so late as the beginning ■ of the fifteenth century. It was genw erally believed, for instance, that as 'the Torrid Zone was approached, the sea became covered with darkness, the waves rose to mountain height, the wind dropped calm, the water itmbt Self cvapruTTtv 2"iiito saline n’id in which dwelt monsters of indescribable size and variety. Blackest horror of all, the huge, hand of tha devil himself would be thrust up above the boiling sea, groping for wandering ships." THE FIRST VOYAGE SOUTH. In 1487, however, Bartholomew Diaz determined^to brave these dangers. “He set sail with three ships, crossed the whole breadth of the Torrid Zone, and his crew, first among sailors, realized that a second Temperate Zone lay beyond." Driven further and further south by storms, the weather grew bitterly cold, and his men were assailed by, a new terror. They weft they imagined, driving towards a South Frigid Zone, a region of eternal ice, where existence would be impossible and all chances of escape cut off. So the inevitable mutiny broke out, and Diaz was compelled to return to Spain. But he had shattered the cherished belief of the centuries, for he hud proved not only was the Torrid Zone not impassable, but that beyond it r were temperate lands where there were ~~ living people—“those very Antipodes to believe in whom had for centuries been the rankest heresy." FIRST TO PIERCE THE “PACK."

Comparatively shortly after these •vents, intrepid navigators began to push further and further south, and some of them were carried—usually much against their will—to the very edge of the Antarctic pack ice. but it was not until Ross, in tho “Erebus” and “Terror," set sail on his famous expedition, that any attempt was made to penetrate the “pack," in i order to find out, if possible, I what lay beyond. Ross ran his two tinv ships into the ice on New Year's Day, 1841, tho height, of course, of the southern summer. “Tho setting sun took seventeen and a half minutes to sink from sight as it skimmed along the southern horizon, and commenced to rise again immediately afterwards.’' For eight whole days the ships fought their way south, the I Ice pack seeming to stretch interminably so far as the eye could reach. t'But at 5 a m. on January 9th. they kn out into open sea to the south, felt a particle of ice was to be seen.” ■ A LAND OF DESOLATION. B'lt was”—writes Mr. Mill—“an Epoch in tho history of discovery ; Jhe magic wall from before which every previous explorer had hud to turn back in despair had sullen into

fragments the first determined effort to break through it. The oppor- -* tunity opening before the triumphant ships was one of those that occur but once or twice in tho course of ages. It was impossible to predict how much might lie beyond that unbroken expanse of clear sea." What

was found was, as all the world knows now, a land of utter desolation. Everywhere the snowline descended to the water’s edge. The /‘Great Southern Continent” upon which such hopes had been built, proved to be not only quite uninhabited, but utterly uninhabitable. No land mamma/1 was found there. No trace of vegetation even. Instead were vast ice-cliffs, hundreds of feet high, fringing the shore for hundreds of miles, and behind and overlooking these range, upon range of mountains r towering 12,000 to 14,000 feet in the air. One of tho loftiest peaks seemed to be wreathed in whirling snowdrift, but as the ships approached nearer it was seen to bo emitting dense volumes of smoke £hot with flames. Wonder .of wonders ! A "burning mountain" was almost the first thing encountered by tho first men who had ever broken in upon the icy solitudes of Antarctica. THE FIRST ANTARCTIC NIGHT. The disappointment caused by Ross’s report of the uninhabitability of the lands he had discovered seems to have discouraged further exploration in high southern latitudes. At all events, very little more was done for half a century,. Then thero came a recrudescence of interest, and in 3.698 the“Belgica,” with a small expedition on board, steamed towards the Pole with the intention of permitting her to be frozen in during the winter months. It was a hazardous experiment, and was not undertaken without grave misgivings., The misgivings were justified. On May 15th the sun finally set at noon, and for seventy days thereafter black darkness reigned. /The 'Belgica' drifted aimlessly about, clasped in the ever-writhing and rending but unrelenting ice. The darkness entered into the soul of the ship's company. All suffered from impaired circulation and deranged digestion, the heart seemed to lose its regulating power, while the complexion became deathly pale, almost greenish.” Lieutenant Banco died before mid-winter, and most of the others were in a sorry state ere the sun returned, and the vessel was enabled to at length break free. A HAZARDOUS EXPERIMENT. § till, it had been proved possible for men to exist through a South Polar' winter, and even to move about end work in a temperature as low as 46 degress below zero Fahren- ■ heit. Otbera followed in the footsteps of tus piontsr, amongst than being Dr. Otto Nordensjold, in tho

sen did—and winter amongst the fife with five companions, while the ‘Antarctic* attempted to return to civilization. Their experience was a trying one, for during six whole months the little party were practically confined to their house, a strong timber structure built in Sweden. With the return of summer, Nordensjold started to explore the neighbouring coast line, “and while pursuing his way along the ice he suddenly encountered two beings, from whom the dogs fled howling, and the Header with difficulty realised them as human." They were Dr. J. Gunnar Anucrsson and Lieutenant Duse, who had left the ship “Antarctic” during the previous summer (when she had got into difficulties) and had attempted to journey across to Nordensjold’s camp on foot. Winter, however, had overtaken them, and they had been obliged to build a snow hut wherein to take refuge, with seal flesh for food and seal blubber for fuel. How they lived through such an experience is marvellous. FACT STRANGER THAN FICTION. The united party at once returned to camp, and waited anxiously; “On November Bth, strangers were seen approaching. They proved to be Captain Irizar and one of the officers of the Argentine naval vessel ‘Uruguay,’ who had coma to offer the party a passage home, as no news of the Antarctic* had been received. That very night, by one of those coincidences so improbable that ( fiction would hardly dare to copy them from fact, Larsen, the captain of the ‘Antarctic.' appeared at the camp with five of his men. The ship had been crushed in tho ice, and sunk, and tho crew had wintered on Paulet Island, the third of the isolated parties into which the expedition had been broken up. At last, on November 10th, 1903 all were reunited on the and a week later Captain' JfcfzXr had tlu* pride and satisfaction of Completing in Tierra del Fuego one of the shortest and most brilliantly - successful relief expeditions in Polar history,.” In conclusion. Mr. Mill strongly advocates the organisation of another British expedition, to sail in 1909, and incidently throws out the interesting suggestion that motorcars might be used with advantage in a “dash for the Pole” across tho inland ice of Victoria Land,