WORLDS OF ICE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21456, 1 April 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

WORLDS OF ICE

LURE OF THE SOUTH POLE .As long as some corner of (ho earth remains untrodden by the foot of men brave lives will be devoted to exploration and its attendant dangers. The grasping tentacles of commerce may demand the discovery and opening up of new regions rich in mineral and forest wealth; kings and queens may have sent staunch navigators to the four winds of heaven that annexation might add fresh glories to their realms, but the history of polar exploration is singularly freo from any motive other than the search of adventure by men whose lives, for the most part, have been spent among tho elaborate comforts of modern civilisation. The Rev. J. Gordon Hayes would have it that tho demands of science have largely accounted for the persistent exploration of the Antarctic during the last 30 years, but a study of his absorbing book, "The Conquest of the South Pole," suggests that men have been lured to that "land of silence" by a taste for dangerous living rather than tho less spectacular in-

cursions into . scientific investigation. For although all the expeditions carried large staffs of scientists, whose inquiry into the secrets of nature in those bleak regions was enormously valuable, Scott and his three intrepid companions gave their lives on a polar dash of pure homeric character; Shackleton performed deeds of heroic valour to succour an expedition whose purpose was to cross the Antarctic Continent; while Mawson's two companions in Adelie Land died on a sledge journey primarily of exploratory value. Every Britisher should know the story of Sir Douglas Mawson's lone journey over the icy wastes after the deaths of Lieutenant Ninnis and Dr. Merz in 1913. It is one of the epics of Antarctic discovery. So, too, is the amazing story of the wreck of the Enduranco in the pack ice after a drift of 281 days, of Shackleton's 16-days' voyage in an open boat through the mountainous seas of tho Antarctic to the rock-bound coast of South Georgia, of his struggle across mountain peaks and glaciers, together with two companions, to the whaling station on the other side of the island, and of the succour of the ship's crew after being marooned on an ice-shelf on Elephant Island for months. These extraordinary feats of bravery and endurance are not so familiar to the public as the story of Scott's death on the return journey from the polo and Byrd's flight over the icy continent; they should be, for history will enshrine them in our children's memories and for centuries to come.

The thrill of exploration can be sampled much nearer home however than venturing into tho dreary wastes of the Antarctic. and in " Alpine Days and Nights " W. T. Kirkpatrick, one of the most famous British mountaineers, relates in entertaining fashion the stories of somo of his most memorable climbs in the Swiss Alps. His recollections of the late Philip Hope, with whom tho majority of bis climbs were made, pay tributo to the memory of a great alpinist.

"The Conquest of the South Pole," by J. Gordon Hayes. (Thornton Butterworth, Limited.) "Alpine Days and Nights," by W. T. Kirkpatrick. (George Allen and Unwin, Limited.)