WHITHER ANTARCTICA?

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4193, 7 June 1939, Page 7

WHITHER ANTARCTICA?

GERMANY’S INTEREST. Germany’s second expedition to the Antarctic regions provokes new speculation as to what the future of this great ice-capped territory, larger in extent than the continent of Europe and unique in its isolation, holds in the political and economic march of civilisation. A message from Berlin on April 13 reported the return to Cuxhaven of the Schwantenland expedition, which, it was expected, would be followed by a claim by Germany bn 230,000 square miles of Antarctica, hitherto claimed by Norway. Their very remoteness from the centres of civilisation delayed exploration of the Antarctic regions until comparatively modern times. Captain James Cook made the first important voyage south in his expedition of 1772-75. In crossing the Antarctic circle for the first time, and visiting and naming South Georgia and the Sandwich group, Cook delimitied the southern boundaries of the three great oceans. He crossed the Antarctic circle in January, 1773. Probably no other voyage, not even excepting Magellan’s has done so much to remove “false lands” from the world map. Bellingshausen’s Russian expedition on January 22,. 1821, sighted the first land ever seen within the Antarctic circle and named Peter Island. Captain Raold Amundsen, as first mate of the Belgica in the de Gerlache Belgian expedition, shared the honour of spending the winter in Antarctica during 1898. Subsequent quests in the Antarctic, in .which Ross, Scott, Shackleton, Hawson, Wilkins and Byrd have made history, are so well known that this great undeveloped land, with its ocean depth up to 4000 fathoms; its albatrosses, petrels, penguins, and squa gulls has familiar aspects in heroic adventure which, perhaps, reached their climax in 1911, when Amundsen forestalled Scott in an historic race for the South Pole. DROPPING SWASTIKA FLAGS. In the cabled report of the Schwatenland expedition, it was stated that German aeroplanes were reported to lave dropped Swastika flags every sixteen miles in their flight over the territory, and to have photographed 135,000 square miles. The territory claimed “constitutes a geographically separate land mass, bounded by an icefield and rising to 12,000 feet.” There is no mention of glycerine, which plays such a part in the manufacture of explosives. But it may be remembered that the destruction of whales was particularly rapid during the world war, when whale oil was of considerable importance as a source of glycerine. In the 1915-16 season 11,792 whales were killed. Simultaneously with the “Discovery” expedition of 1901-04, and in full co-operation with it as regards meteorology and magnetic observations, it may be remembered that the German Government equipped an expedition in the “Gauss,” which was specially built for the voyage. This expedition was under the charge of Professor Erich von Drygalski. A supplementary expedition set up a station for simultaneous observations on Kerguelen’s Island. The “Gauss” spent a winter in the Antarctica. Land of considerable extent was seen to the south, and named Kaiser Wilhelm 11. Land, the most conspicuous feature of which was an island of bare, black rock, elevated to a height of 1000 feet, which was named Gaussberg. Gaussberg was then described as a volcanic cone mainly composed of leucitebasalt, but. its slopes strewn with erratics, presumably transported from the south, and these include gneiss, mica-chist and quartzite, apparently Archaean. Writing in November, 1937 (“Literary Digest”), of the fertile lands of the Antarctic, Rear-Admiral Byrd said: “Candidly, at this moment the Antarctic is sleeping, as far as we can calculate its value to civilisation. But no one can tell how long it will remain sleeping. Immense beds of coal were hinted at by Shackleton’s discoveries; Scott found copper. There was iron in the ‘red mountain’ that “Shackleton claimed in search of a highway leading to the Pole. Economic minerals were found by Mawson’s party at Adelie Land, and Scott’s northern party, under the command ol Professor T. Edgeworth David, found titanium at Depot Island, a place he described as ‘truly a most wonderful place geologically, and a perfect Elysium for the mineralogist.’ These, to be sure, are remote possibilities. There is-much richer ore to be mined in terra incognita.”

COMMERCIAL ASPECTS.

Since no mineral product and no vegetable product of present value have been discovered in the Antarctic regions, whaling has represented the commercial aspect of greatest concern. In this respect Norway has been to the fore. Early in her history the Vikings began to hunt the mammals off the coast of Norway. Before the end of the eighteenth century there were whalers in the Falkland Islands, and these hardy seamen greatly extended our knowledge of the Antarctic islands south of America. The Enderby brothers are recalled. When the whales were killed off, the Norwegian and Scotch whalers voyaged to the Weddell and Ross seas during 1892-1894.

It was in 1923-24 that the late Captain Carl A. Larsen extended his Antarctic whaling enterprise, which was begun in 1904, to the Ross Sea. Throughout this undertaking whalers have escaped disaster in the ice packs. The Sir James Clarke Ross, a factory ship in the Ross Sea, of 12,450 tons register, is supplemented by three land stations, 85 whale catchers and 24 floating factories. One factory ship in the Norwegian enterprise is stated to be of 22,000 tons displacement. In the Antarctic in recent years 20,000 whales are estimated to have been killed. Suarez, in his report to the League of Nations in 1925, gave as his opinion that there were not more than 12,000 whales surviving. In 1937 it was stated the annual value of whaling products in Antarctica exceeded £3,000,000. POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE. Resources of the southern region have been limited to the products of the sea, since there are no land animals or flourishing plants. Of these the most striking are the various species of penguins. But the blubbercoated skin of the penguin has no commercial value. Nor are the seals of the fur-bearing kind, though it is said the elephant seal has been observed off the coast of Victoria Land. The whales remained for exploitation. Until the rise of the whaling industry the Antarctic could be said to have had no political significance. But since the beginning of the century the territorial waters of the continent, if not the land itself, have acquired an economic value. As will be seen from the map, two sections are now portions of the British Commonwealth. Success of the whaling industry in its present development has been due to the inventive genius and persistence of one man, Svend Foyn, of Tons berg, Norway. Foyn, who invented the grenade harpoon, began as a sealer in the Arctic. This very remarkable pioneer evolved the modern practice of whaling in its intense development. Ninety per cent, of Norway’s income from whaling came in recent years from the Antarctic. The whaling fleet is manned by crews of capable Norwegians. Many of them are men of enormous physical strength. They are courageous, men with the will to resist the onset of blizzard or extreme cold, enduring long hours of the heaviest toil for months on end and under the most exacting and dangerous conditions. But, their courage and stamina apart, it cannot be denied that the present death rate of whales in these waters waters exceeds the economic limit. The Norwegians are pardonably proud of the fact that almost all whaling stations the world over today are managed by, and the whales are caught by, their nationals. In the early stages of whaling the Dutch predominated over the English in whale fishery, when, in 1650, the Dutch whalers followed the disappearing coastal whales along the ice ftiore constantly than the British ships. Observations made by voyagers of the Muscovy company in 1557 had developed the English trade in whaling. Britain was also first in. the Pacific and predominated for a time in the Indian Ocean, when ships would be away for three and more years at a time, having to be provisioned accordingly. Since then the “catchers” have grown in power and speed. Of about 200 tons, about 130 feet long, they travel from the Cape of Good Hope to South Georgia if necessary. The Svea Foyn gun (or harpoon grenade)

was first used near the Norwegiar coast on small boats, and the whales, being taken near shore, were towed back to harbour for flensing and the extraction of the oil. The harpoon weighs over 100 lbs, and is four feet in length. A cap contains an explosive and a time fuse which sets off the charge three seconds after striking. PRODUCTS OF THE WHALE. Oil, of course, is the chief product of modern whaling—oil and its constituents. A large Blue whale will yield nearly 28 tons of oil. In Japan the whale is a source of food supply. The meat is marketed, and delicacies, which command high prices, are stated to consist of the toughest parts of the mammal. On Norwegian stations the meat is utilised fresh. Cut into blocks, it is refrigerated for shipment, and is sold in domestic markets at about half the price of fresh beef. Only the best meat is used, but in a 50-foot whale this will yield two tons and a half. Whalebone, though less valuable and in the whale now hunted less abundant, is still useful, that from the Fin whale being used mainly for brushes. Ambergris, which is used as a fixative in perfumes, is found in a small percentage of sperm whales, and is a pathological product. Whale meat is used as a constituent for cattle, and chicken fodder, while guano has general utility as manure. The problem of the perpetuation of the whale is receiving increased attention. While there is one school of thought which declares that the mammal will soon be extinct, there is an other school (of audit) which argues that the high costs involved in speedy mass-production methods employed will inevitably check whaling and thus save the species from extinction. However, the whale himself is a peculiar monster. Whales breed slowly. The female gives birth to its young (one only, as a rule) probably once in two years at most. It

is said that the discovery of the Greenland whale saved the Biscay whale from extinction. Meanwhile the figures mount. The Norwegians took 51,400 barrels of oil in the 1904 season, and in 1927 their output of oil amounted to 704,000 barrels.