BUBBLING OIL.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15274, 26 June 1923, Page 8

BUBBLING OIL.

PETROLEUM IN ARCTIC CIRCLE. Christian Leden, the Norwegian Arctic explorer, who has been on three exploring and ethnographic expeditions to Greenland, and who recently returned from a stay of more than three years among the Eskimos jf north-east Arctic Canada, declared in an address at the French Museum at New York that the unmapped regions of the Canadian North-cast, far within •the Arctic circle, contain immense deposits of metal ore and, tie believes, a great reservoir of petroleum. Hardly any of the Arctic islands in this region, lie said (reports the Christian Science Monitor), have ever been visited by, white men, but the Eskimos, who (iciest the smell of the white man’s fuel oil and readily detect its scent, tell of one island in particular where in some weather the oil bubbles all over the ground and its deposits and its pollution of the sea is such that Eskimo fishing boats give It a wide berth. Mr Leden, whose explorations have been assisted by the King and Queen of Norway, and by the University of Copenhagen, will make an ethnological vovage to Greenland this summer under Norwegian auspices to add to the social and racial data he has collected on Eskimo life, on which he is one of the greatest of present dayauthorities. Eskimo civilisation, he said, has a special interest to the world to-day in that to this people war is an unknown thing; there is not even a word of war in their language. Likewise, he said, there is not a word we could call an abusive word, and cooperative social life is so close that lying and stealing are almost unknown. His intimate study of the Eskimos has convinced him, Mr Leden said, that they have a common ancestry with the North American Indians, yet the Eskimos speak a common language over the vast territory from East Greenland to the Behring Sea, and display a tenacity and unity of primitive culture that is entirely own race quality. /'The Eskimos arc the most genuinely peaceful people I have ever met,’ he said. “They save their war for the inhospitable nature of their bleak land, but they would not have their countryotherwise and they will not even enter the northern timber line if they 'can help it. “With the natural handicaps of their climate, they have built up as advanced a human culture, I believe, as any race of men would have been able to do under these circumstances.” Mr Leden proposes to organise another expedition to Norlh-east Canada as soon as he has completed his present mission in Greenland.