THE MYSTERIOUS SOUTH POLE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1249, 6 February 1896, Page 9

THE MYSTERIOUS SOUTH POLE.

BORCHGREVINK'S VOYAGES. The recent meetings of the International J Geographical Congress have called forth a more than usual amount of attention, i This has been caused by the unexpected presence of a young Norwegian scientist, Mr C. E. Borchgrevink, who had just returned from a remarkable voyage in Southern Polar regions in the steam whaler Antarctic, and who at once offered an account of his travels to the Congress. . . . The first attempt to explore these regions of which history gives any record is one which was made in 1567. From time immemorial there has been a vague sort of belief in the existence of a great continent in the far South which was known as the Terra Australis Incognita. | What circumstances led to this belief it is difficult to determine. In later years the ground for maintaining it was the dredging up of granilites, mica-schists, sandstones, and other continental rocks. In the year mentioned, Alvaro Mendana was sent out by his uncle, Lope Garcia de Castro, the Governor of Peru, from Callao in search of it. Nothing of any moment came of this attempt. In June, 1598, Admiral Jacob Mahu commanded a small fleet which left Rotterdam for purposes of whale fishery. In the Straits of Magellan, a severe northerly gale separated the Good News, a yacht of 150 tons, from the others and carried her down to latitude 64deg. S., where her captain, Dirk Gerritz, sighted the land now known as the South Shetlands. To the Dutch therefore, belongs the honour of being the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. In 1605 another expedition left Callao under Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, and was rewarded by the discovery of the New Hebrides Group in April of the following yeai. Leaving the Cape early in January, 1773, with two vessels, the Resolution and Adventure, Captain Cook crossed the Circle on the 17th in 39deg 35min E., and got as far south as 67deg 15min, when he was completely blocked by ice and had to beat up for New Zealand. In December of the same year he again set out to find the mysterious continent. He bore south from New Zealand, crossed the Circle on December 20th in 147 deg 46min W., and reached 69deg 45min in lOSdeg 5 ruin W. Here he was blocked, but managed to get clear, and proceeded further south, until finally blocked in latitude 71deg 15min, longitude 106 deg 54min W. Ho then proceeded to sail round the Southern Ocean in a high latitude, but found no signs of the great continent, and he proved to the satisfaction of the world that if such land existed in fact, it must be far south of his course. In 1806 another discovery was effected by Captain Bristow, who sighted the Auckland Island. Tliis, again, though a long way south of New Zealand, is some distance north of the Circle.

The same remark must apply to the discovery of Campbell Island by Hazleburgh in 1810. The next important expedition was that under the French navigator, Dumont D'Urville, who sailed from Toulon on September 7th, 1837, and was absent three years. In command of the Astrolabe and La Zelee, he got into the ice on January 15th, 1888, and saw the mighty rampart of ice, 300 miles in length, which nature has built up to preserve her secrets. He visited the South Orkneys and New Shetlands, and discovered Joinville Islands and Louis Philippe's Land. Without any doubt, Sir James Ross bears the palm amongst our Arctic and Antarctic explorers. The expedition left Chatham in 1839 with two old converted bomb-vessels, the Erebus and Terror, and in the early part of 1840 thoroughly explored Kei'guelen. On the approach of winter Ross retired to Hobart. In November, 1840, he set off again, saw Auckland Island, crossed the Circle, and in January, 1841, discovered Victoria Land, the mighty unknown continent, upon which the young Norwegian, Borchgrevink, has been the first to set foot. The Antarctic, in which this young Norseman sailed, is a steam whaling barque of 226 tons. She left Christiania in September of 1893, and sailed from Melbourne on September 20th, 1894. On October 18th, while steering for the Royal Company Isles, the first flakes of snow fell on deck. On the same evening the Aurora Australis was seen in the form of a shining ellipse with an altitude of 35 degrees. The light seemed to come from the west and appeared to culminate every five minutes, when it disappeared entirely, only to reappear and increase to its former brilliancy, attaining an intensity greater than Mr Borchgrevink had ever experienced in the Aurora Borealis. Having visited Macquarie Island, they crossed over to Campbell Island, and on October 25th dropped anchor in North Harbour, but shifted their quarters to Perseverance Island on the following day. Here they rested for a little and then filled their tanks and made preparations for going south. On October 31st they started, and on November 6th encountered, in latitude 58deg 14min and longitude 162 deg Soniin E., a chain of icebergs some forty to sixty miles in extent —the highest being 600 ft—whilst the sea was studded in all directions with lesser bergs, which had been torn away from these monsters. Here it was that a disappointment awaited them, for they discovered that their propeller had got out of gear and they had to make the best of their way back to Port Chalmers for repairs, Where they arrived on November 18th, sailing Rgaiu 1$ \sn days, On December

7th they entered the pack ice and shot their first seal. Slowly working their way, they came across blue whales, petrels, penguins, and many other marine animals. They were surprised to notice that numbers of the seals had large scars and scratches upon their bodies, and inferred from this that they were subject to the attacks of an enemy furnished with formidable tusks.

On New Year's Eve, in their cheerless environment, they sang 1895 in at a latitude of 66deg 47min and longitude of 147 deg Bmin E. On January 16th they sighted Cape Adair. It lies in 71deg 23min and 169 deg 56min E., the coast of the "terra incognita"—Victoria Land — trending away to the south and west as far as eye could see. Mr Borchgrevink describes it as rising from dark bare rocks into peaks of perpetual ice of 12,000 feet above sea level, brightly illumined by the rays of the midnight sun. On February 23rd they landed on Cape Adair, being the first human creatures to set foot upon the continent. —Nautical Magazine.