NANSEN’S EXPEDITION
Digging the Fram out of the ice.
Copyright by Wilse Studio.
AMUNDSEN IN POLAR COSTUME
Discoverer of the South Pole.
THE POLAR REGIONS—A COMPARISON
After the foregoing condensed résumé of Arctic and Antarctic exploration and discovery, I feel sure the reader will be interested in noting some of the striking contrasts between the two Poles and their surroundings. These contrasts are as great as the Poles are far apart. The North Pole is situated in an ocean of some fifteen hundred miles’ diameter, surrounded by land. The South Pole is situated in a continent of some twenty-five hundred miles’ diameter, surrounded by water. At the North Pole, Peary stood upon the frozen surface of an ocean more than two miles in depth. At the South Pole, Amundsen and Scott stood upon the surface of a great elevated snow plateau more than two miles above sea level. The lands that surround the North Polar Ocean have comparatively abundant life, musk oxen, reindeer, polar bears, wolves, foxes, arctic hares, ermines, and lemmings, together with insects and flowers, being found less than five hundred miles from the Pole. On the great South Polar continent no form of animal life is found.
From “On the Polar Star,” by the Duke of the Abruzzi. Copyright, Dodd, Mead & Co.