The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22 1911. POLAR EXPLORATION

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 10, 22 December 1911, Page 4

The Stratford Eveni ng Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRID AY, DECEMBER 22 1911. POLAR EXPLORATION

],)ib 'Nansen, who. last month was i iLoiuloijj was, interviewed re-garding-i polar*■ exploration generally. Speaking of the two expeditions at present in the Antarctic and of the German expedition which is just about to set out, the explorer : expressed the opinion they would do excellent work, for there was a great unknown region in the South, with problems of great importance to science. He also stated that the importance of polar exploration was much greater than the man in the street commonly supposed. The ,physical conditions of the earth’s surface were of great importance to-hu-manity. Most people were interested' in thb weather .and liked to know a little about it beforehand if possible but the conditions of the atmosphere and the laws governing it must for over remain unknown to man unless lie knew something of the Arctic regions and indeed, of every portion of the earth’s surface. The atmosphere was just a layer of air, and the conditions of any part of it are not witli>ut their effect upon the rest. It was as if one studied an engine by conring the boiler only. Polar exploration, Dr. Nansen says, has immense bearings, not only on the weather, which is a transient thing, but upon tlie general climate of each country, upon terrestrial magnetism, ind so on. The first of the conditions necessary is that we should know what these regions are, or, at any "ate, the chief features in the distribution of land and sea. In the Arctic regions we know this already, Init not in the Antarctic. We know there is land, hut how great it is we do not know; we know there arc glaciers, but the extent of them wc ha Vo no idea of. These things can only he studied by going there. There may lie sea stretching, right across the Polar area. It may he those islands which we now call the Antarctic continent are separate groups of islands more or less united by glaciers. These ire features of very great importance when wo endeavour to understand the movements of ocean currents and oceanography generally, while from a meteorological point of view they are essential to the progress of our knowledge. During the course of further conversation, Dr. Nansen expressed tlie opinion that there was probably! i great future both for tlie aeroplane ind the airship in the Polar regions, lint it would lie folly to attempt aerial uivigation there until it is thoroughly mistered in regions where the conditions are hotter known, “in the meantime there are two chief means of polar travel. 'The one is by sledge, which is as old as mankind, and the other is by drifting with the ice across the Polar Sea in a ship. The Pram was the first to try this method voluntarily, though it had often been done involuntarily. That is tlie most thorough way of doing it.” Dr. Nansen held that there was nothing impossible in fix' idea that tlie Polar regions would one day ho inhabited by civilised beings. Tlie mines of Spitsbergen were being worked, ami Spitsbergen bad no advantage over any oilier part of tlie Arctic except that it was more accessible. If min-

orals wove found elsewhere in the Polar regions ' there was no reason v, liv, with improved means of eommuideation, they should not be worked also.