The South Magnetic Pole.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6649, 13 September 1889, Page 1

The South Magnetic Pole.

(CaueU's Magazine.) The golden age of Antarctic discovery arrived when Captain, afterwards Sir James, Bobs was despatched from England in 1840, to fix the position of the south magnetic pole, and any other position he could discover on the way there. Before Boss could reach the scene of his labours, other explorers, English, French, and American, were busy forestalling him. Of these the first was the Englishman, Balleny, v»ho, sailing in Enderby's ship the Eliza Scotfc, discovered in 1839 the islands which bear his name, and which lie almost under the Antarctic Circle, and almost due south from New Zealand. Balleny could not land on the islands, but he made sure of their existence, and afterwards, Bailing far to the westward, he saw many more signs of land, and suspected the existence of much which he could not certainly vouch for. What Balleny thought he saw was probably much what the French expedition under Dumpnt d'Urville actually did see in the following year, several long lines of coast, which might be joined to one another, and might even run on to join Enderby Land in the west, and if bo might certainly be parts of the Antarctio continent that D'Urville was anxious to find. Not less anxious was Wilkes, the leader of the United States Exploring Expedition, who, only a month after the Frenchman, arrived within a degree or two of the Antarctic Circle, to the south, of New Zealand, and after seeing land where Balleny had certainly seen it before, began to fancy that he saw it also where none had seen it before, and, unfortunately, where no one has Been it since. For some days, indeed, Wilke3 doubted whether what he beheld were mountains or clouds, objecta which his crew watched eagerly, to see if with the setting of the sun they would change their colour. But after running westward along the edge of the pack for a fow days, ho made euro that he now saw land, and some what in inconseqnently assumed it for certain that what he had seen before wa3 land also. The discovery of an Antarctic Continent wa3 announced as a certainty : a very large land, with a barrier of ice before it, and a range of mountains upon it, wsb laid down on the map; and a copy of the map was handed by tbe rash but generous explorer to Ross, who left Tasmania in the autumn of the same year to look for the magnetic pole, with the two ships Erebuß and Terror, which afterwards bore Sir John Franklin to his fate at the other end of the world. Koss had co little doubt that the Antarctic continent was discovered already, that he seems to have been almost disappointed when his way to the magnetic pole was barred by an unknown land. Yet thi6 land, which lay South o£ the 70th parallel, and eastward of Balleny's Islaude, was the most southerly hitherto seen in the world, and on it rose mountains thousands of feet high, plain and mountain alike robed in stainless enow, except on the cliffs i by the shore, where the black rock came out. The coast ran almost due North and South, and along its eastern face Boss advanced steadily till he had gone further South than any before him. But he could find no landing-place on the mainland, so choked wa3 every inlet with snow and ice ; only on a small island where the adventurers able to touch Antarctic earth, a few men amongst thousands of screaming and biting penguins. Freeh mountains came constantly into view as they moved southward; at last one in latitude 77 degrees, over which what seemed a cloud of .enow was blowing : but when they came nearer they saw that the cloud was smoke, and gave the name of Mount Erebus to a giant volcano higher than Etna, which belches forth smoke and fire in a land where all things are frozen. Before Mount Erebus lies Cape Crozier, and round Cape Crozier, Bobs hoped to find a way to the westward, so as to reach the magnetic pole by the back of the new land he had found. But aa they approached they saw stretching from Cape Crozier "as far as the eye could discern to the eastward," a" low white line," the nature of which they did not understand till they came close enough to see the truth with their eyes. It was a wall of ice a hundred and fifty feet high, without break or slope, but one glittering perpendicular steep, through which, as Bow eaid, one might as easily pass as through the cliffs of Dover. Along tbia gleaming rampart Boss ran eastward for 250 miles, and in the succeeding year, 1842, for 200 more without coming to its end, on both of which occasions he reached the high latitude of 78 deg South, which has never since been approached by any man. Such iB the famous barrier of perpetual ice which guards, and perhaps will ever guard, the secrete of the great southern continent. Only in one place waa it possible for those on the mastheads to see what was on the top of it, and the surface appeared to be "an immense plain of frosted silver." That anywhere behind it there may lie an ice-free land with vegetation upon it, such as Nordenskjold sought vainly in Greenland, but such as Greely's party did actually find in Grinnell Land, it is easier to hope than to believe.