Show IN THE POLAR SEAS The Coming Expedition of Baron Yon NbrdeiisMold SOCALLED ANTARCTIC CONTINENT Lieutenant Schwatkas Ideas of the Possibilities Possibil-ities of the Coming SearchVolcanoes Under the Snow 1 WASHINGTON Feb 27 1891Special correspondence of THE HERALDAt a meeting of the Royal Geographical society of Australia that took place at Melbourne last summer a report on the question of Antarctic exploration was submitted although l I though no practical action was then takenI + but such action seems to have more recently resulted from it and as usual the aims possibilities details and generalities of the proposed expedition are being widely discussed dis-cussed in the press The public interest thus aroused has been revived on its becoming known that the celebrated Arctic explorer Von Nordenski old is to take the command of this Antarctic expedition His old friend and patron of previous polar enterprises Baron Oscar Dickson has promised to supply all the funds needed for the undertaking over and above 5000 which the Australian colonies should contribute as an equivalent to the possible benefits likely to accrue from the exploration and which I believe they have agreed to do This expedition being therefore sufficiently suffi-ciently assured to have created widespread comment on its probabilities and possibilities possibili-ties it might be well to look at these from the light of an Arctic experience of a few years and which is sufficient to discuss it with a fair intelligence at least First then as to the commander a most important consideration in any expedition but preeminently prominent in a polar party I believe it can be truly said that this part however important can be fortunately fortu-nately disposed of in the brief but strong statement that no better commander could probably be found Baron Von Nordens kiolds past polar successes are such as ought to create a complete confidence that all that human intelligence tempered by a wide experience can do will certainly be done to make the enterprise a success As to the geographical results I think it can be said that probably nothing of any great practical value which is a polite way of saying there is no direct money in it will be accomplished beyond outlining some unknown coasts and rectifying a few immaterial im-material mistakes of previous explorers made in bad weather or under other disadvantageous disad-vantageous circumstances In the Arctic Parry of the royal navy sailed over the Croker mountains as mapped by Ross a few years before but Ross nephew turned around and sunk his lead in 60 fathoms of Antarctic water where the American Admiral Ad-miral Wilkes had jotted down a mountain a few seasons before Still later Nares again sailed over some mythical Antarctic coastlines coast-lines and probably Nordenskiold may go near the same places only to find mountain ranges where others had found ocean basins and climb high hills where others had harpooned huge whales The dense fog banks or water sky of the open lanes of water in the ice packs look singularly like mountain ranges at a distance while astronomical astro-nomical observations to determine position are often taken under such unfavorable circumstances of weather that a mountain bay or other geographical feature may slip 11 cog or two of latitude and longitude when mapped accordingly The socalled Antarctic Continent t which we see so often upon maps and globes has for a real outline only a disjointed or discontinuous coast line that may be the ocean facing sides of an archipelago connected con-nected with each other by a cement so to speak of ice or itmay belong to a true continent con-tinent burled beneath a huge ice cap that overspread it to a depth unequaled in any other part of the world There is the coast called Victoria Land of Sir James Clarke Ross British navy stretching roughly between the 160th meridians meri-dians east ana west There is no doubt as to this coast for he landed upon it acouple of times but made no extended land survey from it Admiral Wilkes traced 70 degrees of longitude from about the 100th meridian east to the 170th east but this coast line seems to have had bad luck for subsequent explorers could not find it Then the bold Frenchman DUrville followed a shoreline shore-line from 136 degrees to 142 degrees east longitude Enderbys and hemps Land are about the 67th parallel and between the 45th and GOth meridians east while south of Cape Horn is some indistinctly mapped land So there is no lack of material for Nordenskiold to investigate if the expedition expedi-tion is even fairly successful I have already hinted at the enormous icecap ice-cap which covers the Antarctic continent and alongside of which even the great mer deglace of Greenlandwhich the popular mind usually conceives to be the largest known glacial massis but a mere boreal bagatelle Calculations based on known glacial phenomena Vary between three and twelve miles for the depth of the centre of this great south polar ice can while the terminal fronts of the maps debouching on the coasts of the great southern sea by ice cliffs many hundreds of feet in depth as seen by Antarctic navigatorsare thrust forward at a rate of speed somewhere between 1000 and 1500 feet yearly The study of glacial physics can nowhere be studied with so much material at hand for the purpose and to such an advantage fas in the known and unknown ice fields and ice mountains of the Antarctic regions Nordenskiold is a technical tech-nical scientist and original investigator in just such spheres of research and his forthcoming expedition ought to be prolific of valuable results therein The geology of the region will no doubt be pivotal upon glacial functions Even the volcanoes of the region those mountains moun-tains belching forth lava smoke and fire according to our old time school geographies geograph-ies are singularly enough supposed to be built up as much by snow and ice in this region as they are by scorie lava and volcanic vol-canic ashes although at first glance one could hardly see how the two incongruous elements could possibly mix to form anything any-thing Sir James Clark Ross sailing by Victoria Land in his ships the Erebus and Terror saw two volcanoes far inlandwhich s r f t d ° ti e ry t 1 i t + i ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIOLD he named after his vessels and which he placed among the highest mountains of the world Mount Erebus was in a state of eruption although its sides were covered with snow and ice Mr G S Griffiths commenting on those very peculiar features says Volcanoes are built up as a contradistinguished contra-distinguished from other mountains which result from elevation or erosion They consist con-sist of debris piled around the vent Lava and ashes surround the crater in alternate layers But in this south polar region the t snowfall must be taken into account as well I as the ash deposit and the lava flow It may be thought that any volcanic ejecta would speedily melt the snow upon which I they fell but this doos not by any means necessarily follow Volcanic ash the most widespread and most abundant material ejected falls comparatively cold cakes and then forms one of the most effective nonconductors non-conductors known When such a layer a few inches thick is spread over snow even molten lava may flow over it without melting melt-ing the snow beneath This may seem to be incredible but it has been observed to occur In 1S2S Lyell saw on the banks of Etna a glacier sealed up under a crust of lava Now the Antarctic is the region of thick ribbed ice All exposed surfaces are quickly covered with snow Show fallsash falls and lava flows must have been heaping themselves up around the craters during unknown ages What has been the result These interesting ques tions can be studied round the south pole and perhaps nowhere else so well I have spoken of the Antarctic Continent in a somewhat skeptical way as if the few facts hardly warranted such a title given it but in connection with this it should be said that there are a number of things pointing to the probability of such continent a settlement set-tlement which would be of no mean value to science The evidences of the sciences therein may be more technical than of popular pop-ular interest but they point in the same general direction and from them is deduced the fact which absolutely involve the existence ex-istence of an extensive Antarctic landa land which must have been clothed with varied vegetation and have been alive with beasts birds and insects Mr Blandford the president of the Geological society of London in his annual address recently delivered de-livered tells us that a growing acquaintance I acquaint-ance with the biology of the world leads naturalists to a belief that the higher forms of terrestrial life originated during the Mesozoic period still further to the southward south-ward that is to say in the lost Antarctic Continent for the traces of which we desire to seek Notwithstanding the much heavier ice conditions and the natural inference there from that the climatic conditions are severer sever-er in tho Antarctic than the North Polar regions Maury is inclined to thinkfor complex meteorological reasons which are too long and too technical to describe here that the climate of the South Polar area Is milder than that of the north The relative difference between the two Polar climates will be greater than that between a Canadian I Cana-dian and an English winter Tho true character of the climate of this region is one of the problems awaiting solution says Griffiths of Australia and whatever its nature may be the area is so largo and so near us that its meteorology must have a dominant influence on the climate of Australia Aus-tralia and on this fact the value of knowledge knowl-edge of the weather of those parts must restThe general value of magnetic surveys I could not discuss at length here but assuming assum-ing their great value from the time and money devoted thereto by eminent scientists scien-tists and liberally disposed governments I would hero insert the conclusions of Captain Cap-tain Craik delivered to the British association associa-tion that Great advantage to the science of terrestrial maRnetism would be derived from a new magnetic survey of the southern south-ern hemisphere extending from the parallel of 40 degrees south as far towards the geographical geo-graphical pole as possible Much information might be obtained regarding re-garding the auroroe of the South Polar regions re-gions or the Aurora Australis But I know I am traveling on safe popular popu-lar ground when I can commend the undertaking under-taking from a commercial or practical standpoint In the way of possible commercial com-mercial returns there are many signs of a hopeful character while the certainties are reduced to the very important one of whale fisnery Two Scotch whalers who have studied the question from the practical side of personally seeing the rapid decadence of the North Polar whale fisheries say oWe think it is established beyond doubt that whales of a species similar to the right or Greenland whale found in high northern latitude exist in great numbers in the Antarctic Ant-arctic seas and that the establishment of a whale fishery within that area would be attended at-tended with successful ana profitable results re-sults On the other side too have tried to find some good authority against the general results re-sults but so far I have been able to en a a 1 I counter only those vague intangible generalities gener-alities which we hear waged so often Toy those people who cannot see beyond the diameter of a dollar in investigating any thing presented to them FREDERICK ScmvATKA |