NANSEN INTERVIEWED.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8096, 23 December 1897, Page 4

NANSEN INTERVIEWED.

HE THINKS ANDREE SAFE. In the course of an interview with an American reporter Nansen, the Arctic explorer, said : — "No one on earth can speak positively as to Andree's fate. But for my part I believe that he is all right ; that he will carry out his plans and be heard from after he has discovered the Polo. It is not true that Andree has not been heard from since he started. Most of the carrier pigeon stories were lies. But there was one killed at Spilzbergen which showed that Andree was well when the message was written. " I shall not attempt any more Arctic explorations. At least, not for the present. I do not believe in voyages of discovery unless you have something to discover. I never was a record breaker, and I have a perfect detestation of making voyages into the north in a mere spirit of recklessness. What is the use of going to the North Pole, anyway ? Wo know now what it is like." "And what is that?" " Nothing but a sea covered with ice. Just as this bay might be on a cold winter's day," was the quick reply. "There are more mysteries to be unravelled at the South Pole thau at the North." '" Do you expect to take an expedition into those regions ?" " Perhaps so, some time," said Dr Nansen with a smile. ■' My theory of Arctic currents no longer admits of discussion. The voyage of the Fram proved its correctness." " What do you think of Peary's meteorite?" "Why, it' wasn't a meteorite at all," Dr Nansen replied. "It was nothing in the world but one of those masses of telluric iron that Nordjenskold discovered some years before. I have studied this subject carefully, and I am positive the lump of metal Peary brought home was a product of the ground and not of the sky." This positive statement that the so-called meteorite is not a meteorite may bring about a clash between thrißc two eminent Arctic authorities. The whole object ot the last Peary expedition was to convey to this country the strange lump of metal that Peary asserts has laid embedded in Arctic ice for centuries.