CHAPTER VI 



UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE FROZEN SOUTH 



Sir Edgeworth David's Discoveries in the Antarctic 



THE search for truth makes men embark on 

 strange quests. While one scientist works in his 

 laboratory, seeking to split the atom, another 

 may be risking his life journeying to the ends of the 

 earth in order to measure a mountain, or seeking some 

 scrap of knowledge which will help us to understand 

 why there are wet and dry seasons. To some, scientific 

 research means gazing through powerful microscopes 

 month after month, hunting with infinite patience for 

 the secret which eludes them. To others, their scientific 

 work means leaving civilization for long periods, and 

 pitting their strength against the forces of wild nature, 

 in the company of intrepid explorers, whose work would 

 be incomplete were not the scientist there to interpret 

 the secrets of the hitherto untrodden regions to which 

 they penetrate. 



Of all the explorer-scientists of our generation, one of 

 the greatest is undoubtedly Sir Edgeworth David, the 

 discoverer of the South Magnetic Pole, and the leader of 

 the first party to climb Mount Erebus, the highest peak 

 in the Antarctic. It was Sir Edgeworth David also who 

 collected and brought back much valuable information 

 about coal in the Antarctic, and about the effects of 

 climatic conditions there upon the weather experienced 

 in other regions of the earth. His too is the credit for 

 some remarkable calculations concerning the past of the 

 South Polar region and its future possibilities ; these, by the 

 way, reveal nightmare possibilities for the rest of the world. 



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