PROFESSOR DAVID INTERVIEWED.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12184, 27 March 1909, Page 5

PROFESSOR DAVID INTERVIEWED.

INTERESTING SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE.

PLATEAU 10,50G0 FEET HIGH

MANY COAL SEAMS FOUND

(Per Press Association). CHRISTCHURCH, March 25. / Professor David, interviewed, said; there can now be little doubt that the J barrier is formed party of glacial ice j and partly of snow. This view as to I its origin is indeed highly probable: through the discovery by Lieutenant ] Shackleton and his party of a vast glacier 50 miles wide and I*2o miles long j descending from an elevated inland I plateau over 10,000 feet above^sea level, j This glacier is probably one of many! which go to feed the Great Barrier. The great glacier described by the southern j party is fed from snows near the South j Pole and, by its forward movement, 1 presses up the surface of the barrier for j 20 miles from the shore line or inland j edge into a series of long pressure ridges , like a continuation of large waves in the 1 ocean. Important evidence was found ; by Mr. Macintosh and the depot laying [ party as to the actual seaward movement of the barrier caused by the pres"sure of the inland glacier further south. It was found that the Discovery's depot "A," near Minna Bluff, had travelled two geographical miles to the east-nor-east in a period of six years and "two months. It was also by the same party that eight feet two inches of i snow had fallen during the same interval of time at the present siglitt of depot "A." This may be considered to be a fair average estimate of the snow fall for the barrier in this latitude. It is ■ obvious, therefore, that as the head of j the barrier is approximately 300 or 400 miles south of its seaward front there is time for many hundreds of feet of thickness of snow to accumulate on the surface of the slowly moving glacial ice before it traverses the above distance in order to reach the sea front, from which . icebergs are from time to time broken; off. Observations by the expedition and j sounding round the typical icebergs by Captain Evans showed that-'the bergs most typical and common in the 1 Antarctic —the large tabular berg—grounded in what subsequently-proved to ( be 13 fathoms of water. '"This to show that probably most of the bergs launched from the great ice barrier are, in their upper portions at all events, if not throughout, formed of snow rather i than from glacier ice. Glacier ice on which snow was originally deposited has probably been dissolved away in the sea water on which the barrier floats, probably for many scores of miles before its northern limit is reached. One of the most important geological results of the expedition is to prove that the Antarctic region from Ross Sea to the South Pole is a great continental area in the nature of a high plateau, its northern extremity near Cape North being from 60C0 to 7000 feet above, the sea level, over 7000 feet near, the magnetic^lpole,! over 80G0 feet where it was traversed by Captain Scott's expedition, and about 10,500 feet at the furthermost point reached by,. Lieutenant Shackleton and party (oo'deg. 23 mm. south), j This plateau continues across to the South Pole for some distance and pro- f bably extends onwards in the direction ,;■ of South America towards Coates Ijand, ; discovered by Bruce. The discovery ot' coal measures and of thick measures of lime stone as far as 80 deg. south is obviously of extreme interest,»as showing ! the former mild climate close to tlie^ South Pole, for both lime stone and coal j occur only under such conditions.' This j coal measure and lime stone formations extend in an almost uninterrupted sheet, from 85 deg. south acrpss. tp the magnetic pole —a distance-of. over 1;, 100 miles. Under the coal and sandstone formation is widely spread a foundation of very old rocky granites, nices, schists,, and coarse crystaiine marbl. Mineral monazite, from which thdrum is commercially extracted for incandescent gas mantles, is so common in places that it is one of local rock, forming a mineral like black bica in granite. This mineral was discovered by Mr. Douglas Mawson ; at several spots along the coast on the ' west side of Ross Sea. Professor David said that the ringed Penguin found atj Cape Royds probably came all the tre-~| mendous distance from , Graham's Land ( and was the only bird of-the s"brt seen at this particular spot. The speaker also stated that the results of the meteorological observations were being worked up, and it was hoped they Avould prove eminently useful, both, to New Zealand and to Australia, solving many important questions as to the bearing.xof Antarctic conditions upon the weather in these latitudes. The observations would bo worked up here by the local and >. expedition scientists,, and they would be' enabled to compare a series of .obserya-j tions taken simultaneously over a periods of fifteen months in the south polar [ regions and here, and to ascertain the' effept of the tremendous blizzards experienced in the south upon the weather conditions df Australasia! 'At Cape Royds the northern party, Lieutenant Shackleton's party and the ship all took observations. Their situation at Cape Royds was most favourable for studying \ the effects of upper air currents. A most interesting feature in this respect was the fact that they were enabled to watch the clouds of smoke moving over the top-^of Mount Erebus.