CENTURY OF DISCOVERY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17434, 5 December 1930, Page 2

CENTURY OF DISCOVERY

PRINCE’S TRIBUTE TO R G S '’: 'ji- >v * - ’ * THRILLS OF EXPLORATION . LONDON, Oct. 30. Ihe Prince of Wales*» himself amon* the most widely travelled of men, pre“ sided last evening over a company which included many explorers of world fame.. The occasion was the centenary din-ner-of the Royal Geographical Society, field in the Connaught Rooms. Proposing the toast of the society, his Royal Highness said—

“The history of the society is closely linked with the romance of most of the great British explorations of the past century. In these days of conducted tours to the sources of the Nile and journeys in the great luxury of wagonslits to Jerusalem, and even of flights over the most inaccessible parts of the Dark Continent, when very little of the earth’s surface remains unmapped, wo are apt to forget the time when vast stretches of territory were a complete blank, and when people travelled in the greatest possible discomfort and.greatest possible dangers and hardships. “I have travelled a great deal. I have travelled under most comfortable conditions and I have plso flown for a considerable number of miles. With the more fortunate of us 1 have had the opportunity to stray off the beaten track in some of the more remote parts of the world in quests for sports and photography.

And when we have been off the beaten •track for a lew days and even weeks we have been able to understand a little of what the great explorers of the past have endured. (Hear, hear.) If I may Vise a colloquial saying, we take off our hats to them. (Renewed cheers.)

“As a traveller myself, 1 can picture nothing more thrilling than an expedition of discovery in totally unknown country. “I may divide exploration into two categories. First, exploration originated for scientific reasons. 1 am. unfortunately, not a great scientist, hut I know of the wonderful work which this society has done. HELPING EXPLORERS. “Exploration also has a great practical value, and there have been great regions that we, as Britishers, and also foreign countries, have been able to develop and provide opportunities for people who would not have had them if explorers had stayed at home. “So we must be grateful to the great explorers and to the Geographical Society for helping these explorers. “The society has always helped ex ,plovers. It has supported exploration and it is supporting exploration to-day. Those days of opening out great expanses of unknown regions of the world are passed. “Now the R.G.S. is concentrating on the mapping and the geographical side, and what could he a_,more interesting or fascinating study than yours?”