ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13384, 6 April 1912, Page 5

ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

THE RIVALS

AMUNDSEN'S ACTIONS VINDI-

CATED

Sydnsy, April 4

Professor David, presiding at Captain Amundsen's lecture, said that it had been published, that Captain Amundsen did not give Captain Scott notice that he was it competitor for the Pole; but it was clearly understood that he sent a message from Medeira, which Captain Scott received in New Zealand, that the Frani was going to the Antarctic. Here was a fair field and it was anybody's. Pole. Amundsen's doings wero fair and square and aboveboard, there- being nothing unsportsmanlike. Everything between Captains Scott and Amundsen was concluded in a spirit of high, noble and friendly rivalry. Scott would reach the Pole, and when ho returns his first action, they might be sure, would be to send hearty congratulations to the champion who has beaten him.

Professor David says that Captain Amundsen's statement that there is a patch of calm 260 miles in diameter near the Polo proves the theoretical prediction of the meteorologists, and indicates a wind blowing straight down instead of horizontally. He considers Captain Scott's coal discoveries highly important, and in conjunction with Sir Ernest Shackleton's discovery, proves that the coal bearing strata is continuous over an enormous area. It is not unlikely that this is the largest unworked coalfield in the world.