Antarctic Exploration

Southland Times, Issue 13280, 5 August 1895, Page 3

Antarctic Exploration

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l notice that the Geographical Society of London is advocating an expedition to the South Pole, and it seems a reproach to say man has never yet stood on the pivot on which the earth turns. One naturally asks the probability of [getting into high latitudes this coming summer. Owing to the severe winter now passing it is likely that polar winds are around us to an unusual degree, and that hot winds from low latitudes are circulating {pari passu) around the pole, preventing the free formation of ice. The benefits to be expected from reaching lat. 90deg. 8. canaot be great, as we have almost no land south of lat. 50. The Auckland Islands, a small triangular piece of America near the Horn, the Falkland Islands, and Kerquelen Island —supposed to have the most villanous climate on earth, indeed at all these places I have mentioned there is ruin, snow, storm, every second day at least, winter and summer. The Arctic expeditions were got up in the hope of finding a north-west passage to India; in the southern hemisphere there is no place to go to; only the prospect of whale and seal oil, articles not much thought of since mineral oils became so common : the ladies too have abandoned whalebone, Still there is no telling what discoveries may result to botony, zoology, meteorology, and j s ronomy, as well as magnetism. The finding of good coal near lat. 80 degs. took the wind out of our geologists, for coal means a temperate climate at some period, and the obliquity of the ecliptic cannot exceed 23 degs. 30 min. nor the sun reach a geater height at midsummer than 23 degs. 30 min. above the horizon—and that only for a week or so each year. The sea is the great source of life. Various kinds of sea plants grow, for water (to be a liquid) cannot be lower than 32 degs. and at the bottom it cannot be less than 40 degs F, thi being its point of greatest weight. Shellfish, etc., abound and it is propable that at sounding depth the temperature of a tropical and an aretic sea is not more than 10 or 15 degs. apart, though there must be very little light in arctic seas owing to the low altitude of the sun.—l am, &c., H. Levinge