Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1889 — THE SOUTH POLE. [ARTICLE]

THE SOUTH POLE.

That New Hampshire farmer who permitted two eastern highwaymen to rob him of $9,000 is respectfully reminded that a few of those desirable western mortgages are still to be had. The Niagara whirlpool may turn out to bo simply a slightly turbulent mill—race. A young man with a cork jacket went through it unscathed. Who will be the first to shoot the falls in a canoe? ■ \\OKSV>THIESY.S MS liC'ffi w:l') leniently in Woodbury. N. J. The tint who recently, took Rev. Samuel Hudson’s team out of the stable got <>J with thirty-day Sentences for disorder-I ly conductAt the Vanderbilt ••barn }>:i“.y" in Newport not long ago, a polo pony w::introduced in the Virginia reel. Thn might suggest the introduction of a mustang in munny-mr.sk. ora pig-ln-as poke in the polka.

John Caki>W!l.i.ei;, an lowa welldigger, claims to have fotin.l at the bottom of one of his diggings a piece of rock on which the si .rstaihT strip xs are. distinctly formed. ' It is not. reportedwhether or not the ' finderhits counted the .stars, . the eleetctetens who gravely doubt that an electric current, no matter how strong, will kill a man, have gone out and taken hold of a live wire carrying a current of 1,000 volts to back their doubts. Talk is not only cheap, but reasonably safe. The editor of a weekly pipcE in Germany’ poked fun at Bismarck for h iving knuckled down to the Unit'd States in the Samoan affair, and . now the editor sits in jail on a year’s sentence and wonders if there is not such a thing as being altogether too funny for any thing. Tok years a Springfield, Muss., horse suffered from a sore shoulder. A veterinary surgeon made, a elo.-e examination of the shoulder and found a 25-cent silver piece deeply imbedded in the .flesh, How the coin got there-is ' a mystery. No driver ever suspected that the horse was carrying three bits. A Troy shirt m n predicts that in ’ less than ten years there, will boa gen- ■ eral return to the old-fashioned shirt I which buttor.eti in front, and from which at least one button was missing after every wash. If that were assured the average man would lay in a large . stock of shirts of the present style at once. The bishop of Marseilles has issued a formal protest against the circular issued by the French minister of justice, in which tho minister reminded the clergy that they are prohibited by law from taking part in elections. The bishop affirms the rights of priests to intervene in elections and other politi- . cal affairs. v't'.' . ' —3=^— ■■■ = The average white man who lives to be 70 years old has spent over a year of his life in shaving and two months on top pf that in getting his hair cut. This is where the Indian is along ways ahead. He hasn’t any whiskers, and they say he lets the coyotes chaw his hair off when it getsidcnrntohis toms* - Theodore Kamensky, the talented Russian sculptor, has become an instructor in the American artschool at New York. lie came to America because he thought his art would nourish more readily in the political atmosphere of a republic. Russia is not a land in which tho lowly are encouraged to hopeful effort. When Stone, of the New England Ax Company, turned out to be an embezzler and an absconder, the president of the company exclaimed: “Why. he has been with us for thirty years and has always been honest.” Thirty years of honesty is no proof in this day and age.. Even an Ohio man 92 years of age is under arrest for his first steali

An admirable benefit organiztion has come into existence nmonj teachers in Boston, providing against the impecunious or laborious old ago too often unavoidable in that hard-worked’ and ill-paid calling. The plan involves “the nay men t of an entrance fee of $3 and small annual assessments varying according to the salary received. The price of a swear word has been officially fixed in Chambersburg, Pa. A pugilist oaths hand running, and he was fined sixtyseven cents for each of those profane exclamations. This is rather a low price for an oath when it is remembered that some of the dams which broke away last spring cost thousands of dollars. If the preponderance of expert opinion goes for anything, wheat will showL* f4sieg -tendefley until the next crop is made. Here and . there a contrary view is expressed, but most of those who have male tho subject a study think that the old crop is much more nearly exhausted than was the former crop at the samo time last year and that Europe must buy more larrrelv.

What is Known About That Mysterious and Fascinating E?gion. ; Earning Mountains Shut in by Barriers of lee—Discoveries ‘by the DifferentExpe- ru" ditlons. ‘ Three expeditions to tho South Pole are under discus.-imi, -and have been mofe or less determined upon. England has one under consideration, the French scientists are urging their government to take up the matter, and the Germans of Hamburg, with Villard as their -American agent. have been curd■■.•mp.lm.iu .4 w-i'.wkkwg down a body of explorers to the mysterious regions of the Antarctic circle. I A general revival of interest in this I comiinr.ilively- m-glecled portion <>:' the globe seems to be promised, and the 11 me—seems to be at hand when the existence of a great antarctic conli-iT.-iit. -the— magnetic conditions of the. : .south and the relative flatness of the cifi't'i at that point will bj definitely settlcd. It was supposed by the old' geographers that in order to balance the continents of the north, the .Southern...ord Antarctic. Ocean ought to nave sound ’great continents likewise; ami. for two’’ hundred years or so. occasional woy-1 ages were made, in the hope of.discovering some such stretches of dry land. Juan Fernanda/, more than 300 years ago; readied: a,- plemwm-t, ts : now supposed to have been New land, but then he was 3,04) miles distant from the south pole. Twenty years later a Dutch -w ha lor Was driven, by a storm so far as the high Snowy islands, now known as the South tSlict- .. lands, pearly duo south of Cape Horn. About t]>e beginning of the following century Be Qturns, searching about for the southern continent, lighted upon BHeniim's Island arid the now Hebrides, and many other islands contimrqd to bo found in the vast southern sea bythe storm-driven mariners and hardy explorers steering straight ■ for sonre~~ thing new. It remained, however, for Capt. Cook to tic.it, penetrate the Antarctic circle, although all he did was

to sight the shore® of Sandwich Land, Great things had been expected from this vdyagcty and the report was so disappointing that the geographers thereupon removed from their maps the term oJ Terra Aiisti-.i 1 i.i. Navigators, however, coitinuefl still to believe in the.existence of this southern land, and in the beginning of the present century one of them discovered the4*tnith Orkneys. Then the governments of Europe and our own took a h nd hi the matter and sent out expeditions of discovery. 1 lie United States expedition was placed in charge of Lieut. Wilkes, his instructions being to pusltr as= far—sdutiu_M.A4iat§ifele Altogether the fleet of exploration was absent four years, during which much ocean was explored for the first time and a number of small islands set down on the charts. Wilkes claimed at first to have discovered an antarctic continent, but it was afterward found to be Adele Land. Then camo the expeditions under Sir James Ross, which left England in 1839 and .did not see it again until 18-13.* After passing the Cape of - Good Hope - Ross and his men remained for two months on Kerguelen’s Island—discovered in 1772 - then proceed to Tasmania and then pushed on for the south. He first sighted large, compact icebergs in latitude 63 q . four degrees farther south bringing him to the edge of the pack, a vast field of hummock ice extending over an unknown number of miles. The men were supplied with extra warm clothing, and preparations were made for dashing through the floe ice and hammocks at points where the more solid pack could bo avoided. Steering boldly but cautiously through huge masses of ice, and experiencing „altt2rmit^Joa^4urd,. suttshine, they at- 1 length espied" real til nd~in^th'e~^ : ni.pd ntr two magnificent ice-capped mountains, each extending 7.000 feet in hight, with glaciers filling in the intervening valleys. On dry land near these mountains, after many struggles. Sir James Ross hoisted the Britlisb Hag. and named the place Victoria Land, being then about 1,300 miles from the South Pole and 1,800 due south of New Zealand. Further inland other magnificent ice-covered mountains could be seen, soaring to tv hight of 12.000 or 14,000 feet, thus far exeeediag anything known in the Arctic regions. Still coasting the shore. Ross pushed farther sO’ifth until lie had reached the 76th degree of south latitude, the South Pole’ being then about 1,009 miles distant. The two loftiest mountains continued Well in sight all during this journey, and i were named after the ships Erebus and Terror. Erebus was esteemed to be 12,0’H.) feet■' high and was an active vblcanb, wbllW'TWhaM^vas'"either extinct or temperorarily quiet.—— (In one partie alar afternoon Mount Erebus was observed to emit smoke and flame. in unusual quantities, producing. a mosu.grand spectacle. A volum ' of de isd sin >ke was projected at each successive jet with great force in a verlic'e column ton hightof between 1.509 and 2.000 feet above the mouth nf the crater, wh n condemd-ng first at its upper part,' it descended in mist nd snow and- giyidruiUy I.disappeared. to be succeeded by another xploudid- oxhibi-tiott-of -the- same kind in about half ;m hour afterward. i The results of all these expeditions ! have now to lie considered. What do iwe know of the South Pole? In the Hirsi .place wmknow that aabady has I got within77lW in*"Bodmilesvof it. Ross | tptirhed the seventy-eighth parallel of Jimi ale. and in all probability no human being has ever made a nearer l approach to ifio South Pole, but tiiis is bless by 30'1 or t'O miles th in the ap- ! ptotmh whigh has been made to the I Norf h Pole. [, In the se ond place, the extent of a possible Antarctic continent has shrunk so by each succeeding ex-.-ploraxioft that it is certain that even 1 does such ;l continent exist, it cannot .be more than 1.6'30 or 1,800 miles in I measurement cither way. ' In the third place theseinlands, that Eave been discovered are of com para-

tively small extent, and there is little doubt That the great southern seaswhich lie within the triangulation of Cape' Horn, the Cape of Good Hope j and Tasmania-extend unbroken by tiny considerable archipelago ole it* up to the 65th degree of south latitude. I This vast expanse of deep ocean offers |a source of danger to ih<- explorer • which is unknown, in the high n<irt!> ' era latitudes. currents m.d ‘ winds have, to le borne that are of ' a power by no means easy, to cope I with. On one—occasion when Hoss ; was becalmed for a few hours. r the ' dead set of the ocean waves drafted 1 the ships toward a range of huge ’feebergs, against which the sea brok > wi'lt appalling violence. “Every eye ; was trunsliixed with the tremendous' spectacle, and destruel.ion r.ppjaretl inevitable.’" i The ships were thus driven eight\w>\wsxvw'W w'hV.in hat! a mile of the gigtrr.tic icebergs, when a gentle air began to stir and the peril i was averted; I In the next pl ace it has been di—-’ covered that the climat.s of tii; s 5 iern ocean is sometimes a . pec.uliariy ■ disagreeable one. In the ver./ utiddktj of t.ie Antarctic summer there ui!-;’ Lj^p.asidigL_:._4mia , eii.ts^-Xliick—fi>g,s 7 aiwl , gales to be encountered,' and this in no higher, latitude G«te'. in the next plucd tiic ice barrier that seems to shut, out exploration of the polar hinds is of a peculiarly for-. hi.ldigg de>c’<i)t;on. So far as it, has i been skii'te.;.! it is an inaccessible, uu- ■ brol.-. n wail of ice. That land does exist within this, cliff of frozen snow ~.tbxir!i.is.nlso,no-;doiibt. "The existenee-. of volca.hic peaks and chains of mount'dns of enormous liight show this: ■ bnteso- fai- as-rt has hexmTseeil"ttrnTtrnrrt J is covered with snow al all seasons;i'ito' human being has been met with be-' yotiii 5G -. of -Lat itudo; no vegetable growth, except lichens, has been seen beyOhd;oß°, and no land quadruped is known to c.’<i.->t beyond 66©, | Lastly it has been found that between ! the northern. and southern lights there 1 arc some striking points of difference that tend to prove pilferent magnetic conditions. The electrical display at, both poles oeeTirs simultaneously and ’ seems to- correspond on tm immense ’ SO'le with the discharges from the! pp;gsttivezTrod”JtbgiiUfvb poles of t biitiery, . Much more has been conjectured concerning this mysterious region, 1 but. the irbove is iuxtau.infi.of all that i- | actually known coneorning it. —Stiti ; Francisco Ghroniele.