The South Pole

Not so much for the parpóse of discovering new lnnds in the south ns to ibtnin informatiou coneerning the Sonth magnetie pole - a matter of much impornce, the. British Governnient ñtted out ;he Erebus and Terror, and placed thom mder James Rors, with Crozier ns his gecond in command. They left Englond in 1889, and did not see it again for four years. Wouderful it was to nee a raging volcano in such a región. A long stretch of j land was seen to be marked by ttvo magniflcent inountains; one of which, an active volcano, 12,000 feet high, received the name of Moiint ErebuR; while the othef, an eJittopt volcano of somewhnt less height, was nflllied after the companion ship Terror. An Untnistekable volcano wft Erebm Hnch a magnificent eombination of Vcilcanie fire and endless ice probably never befol'o Wet human eye, for Hoünt Hecla, in Iceland, Must be far inferior to it. Boes did not winter in tliat remote región; indeed, so far as is known, no human benig ever passed a winter among the Antiirctic iee. Ross spent three summers in liis exploration, while he housed his shipB for the intervening winters, either at Tasmanin, or the Falkland iland. Among the early explorers of the ïnystef jouw Houthern ocean were Juan Fernandez, Dirk Gerritz, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, Capt. Cook, Weddell, Duniont d'Urville and Wilkes. We ulight, bIbo, if their discoveries liad borne fich fruit, notiee more fully the expedition of Kerguelen, who difteovered the island named after him a little more than a centtiry ago; as also those of Smith, Powell, Palmer and Bellinghausen, fifty to sixty years ago, resnlting in the disoovery of South Shetland, Sonüi Orkuey, Palmer's Land and Aleiander Land. ' Those fitted out by Messrs. Enderby, the liberal and. energetic promoters of whale and sea fishing in the Southern ocean, are worthy. of brief record, for two vessels, placed by them under Capte. Bisooe and Balleny, sailed into regions which led to the discovery of Enderby Land, Balleny Land and Sabriua Land. One object of Sir James Ross' expetlition was, if possible, to reach the South magnetic pole - a different point from the South terrestrial pole. The great icy barrier prevented the realization of that hope. A few years ago Lie.ut. Moore, in the Pogoda, 'set off to make magnetic observations in the Antarctic circle that had not been visited ; he did so, and rendered great service to science, but did not get within 1,400 miles of the fcuitiiliziug xle. The reader will remember that two years ago the astronomers of the whole world were greatly interested in a transit of Venus, correct observations of which would, it was believed, alïord data for calciilating the true distance of the sun from Venus, from the earth, and from all other plonets. It was desirable to make the observations at mauy different spots, widely separated both in latitude and in longitude ; and one of the spots selected was Kerguelen's island, already mentioued, situated between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, but farther south than either. Afltronomers from England, Germany and the United States landed on the island and did good work there, but the roughness of the chínate was a great trial to them. Although farther from the South pole than any part of Eugland is from the North pole, the weather was nearly always stormy, and the tempei-ature verging on the freezing point, even in the summer of that liemisphere. What we know of the South pole, then, 1O eiiyiply tliin t TKtxt o onO lina (yt iwitK in 700 or 800 miles of it ; that icy barriers are met with quite eclipsiug anything known in the North Frigid zone ; that mountains have been seen (one shooting forti volcanic flames) loftier than any discovered by our northeru explorers ; that all the land is covered with snow at all seasons ; that no human being bas been met witli beyond fifty-six degrees of latitude; that no vegetable growth, except licliens, lias been seen beyond fifty-eight degrees of latitude, and that no land quadrnped is known to exist beyond sixty-six degrees of latitude.