sets about his work much as would the promoter of some new industry. Let us say he is an American and proposes to fly from New York to Berlin by way of the pole. First comes a critical analysis of the project. He assumes he needs an airship, two rescue ships, one on each side of the Polar Sea, a party of scientists and assistants and plenty of food and equipment. He estimates the rough total cost at $1,000,000. It is hard enough to get people to buy gilt-edge securities that pay six per cent, but it is immensely more difficult to get them to invest in an enterprise that not only will pay no dividends, but may end with a lot of end with a lot of unexpected bills. The sales technique, however, is the same in both cases. The leader works out a "sales" thesis something along this line: 1. A New York-Berlin air route has commercial and diplomatic possibilities; thus its opening should appeal both to government and bankers. 2. Endurance of air-craft can be tested no better than by such a long and varied flight; thus it should appeal to aviation. 3. Observations in meteorology, oceanography, ornithology, can be made en route; this should appeal to scientific bodies. The canny leader then approaches the key-men in each field. He readily wins support of the army or navy by referring to the publicity value of his project. Some high-minded capitalist, who also doesn't object to the distinguished publicity, comes next. His name is to appear on the expedition's letter-head, and new land may be named after him. The names of capitalists are already scattered over arctic, South American and African maps. Aëronautical and scientific bodies depend on publicity for their nourishment. The leader finds them at once responsive to his scheme. If they cannot contribute, they lend prestige. Through them eminent scientific colleagues are secured. Now the leader is in a position to make some public announcement of his enterprise. "New York to Berlin Over Frozen Pole" blaze the banners of the next day's press. The lid is off. Like throwing a handful of grain into a chicken yard, the leader has invited the parasitic fowl of the publicity world to come scuttling his way. Bidding begins. The leader's agent here takes charge. It wouldn't be dignified for the leader to bargain; also it wouldn't be good business strategy. In ten days he signs contracts with a newspaper syndicate, a magazine editor, a lecture bureau, a book publishing house and a film corporation. Advertising contracts are more tricky and must be very carefully handled. Makers of a well-known cigarette are said to have offered $25,000 last summer to have one of the transatlantic planes named after their brand. Everything from fuel oil to gum-drops is supplied free, if the leader will later acknowledge that he found the articles useful in his voyage. Soon the assets and liabilities begin to show some signs of balancing. Of course the leader has protected himself by signing his companions up not to lecture or write about their exploits without his per mission. But this is only fair. If half of the million dollars must be repaid, the leader has to reserve all channels of potential profit for himself. Then comes the day of departure. By this time the various firms who have invested heavily in the venture, have organized and made sure that all phases of the expedition are well advertised. Such stress is laid on the proposed scientific work that the scientists become embarrassed. Indeed, the leader himself is somewhat overwhelmed by the tidal wave of tumult that rises to a crescendo as he waves his hand in farewell. But all this will sell his films, lengthen his lecture booking and raise the price on his radio reports. Thus our modern explorer need think little of his digestion, save as it may be damaged by incessant banqueting; or of his heart, except that it must stand the test imposed on it by merciless journalists, promoters and directors of public relations. He finds himself the administrator of a huge business enterprise. Pure physical courage and indifference to incidental hardships, such as canned food and cold fingers, are taken for granted. They are trifles as compared with the terrific responsibility he owes to his scores of backers. expedition, while less picturesque and dramatic, is far more to be admired than his predecessor. He must not only have calm nerves and great endurance, but must be a shrewd business man, a canny politician and an adroit manager. Even then he gambles largely. The modern leader still dies. Scott perished. But even worse, he goes bankrupt. Stefansson is said to have lost on his last venture all he had saved in a lifetime. 23 In a sense there is nothing left to explore, unless it be the upper reaches of the air. Both poles have been "found" more than once, continents have been delineated and virtually all the high peaks have been scaled. It is not likely that any startling discovery of human, animal or vegetable species remains to be made. Is the continuation of exploration therefore just a commercial milking of a gullible public? Certainly there is a continuation. Byrd and Ellsworth are actively planning further arctic work, MacMillan went again to Labrador this year and Beebe worked in the Caribbean. Major Forbes-Leith plans to enter the fastnesses of eastern Persia after the wild Persian ass, Commander Dyott is at this writing just back from the River of Doubt, Nansen heads a central European committee to send a huge dirigible from Germany across the pole and Roy Andrews is chafing at the bit while Chinese turmoil holds up his search for relics of ancient man. James Clark is home from Tibet and Hurley, Mawson, Wilkins, Davis, Putnam and a score of others are assiduMoreover, the leader of a modern ously preparing for excursions out This is not a cynical picture. It is a new phase of an old game. The covered wagon traveler who needed only a little extra axle-grease could in the same way be compared with the traveler of to-day who must remember tickets, money, safetyrazor, trunk keys, baggage checks, pajamas, fountain-pen and checkbook when about to set forth on a railway journey. beyond the fringes of civilization. Certainly the exploring business is not dead even if the explorer as a type, seems to have passed out. But what is there left to do? How about this: Seven eighths of the earth's surface has never been gazed on by human eye! A brash statement, but it loses color when it is qualified to mean that surface under water. The bottom of the sea is the greatest field left for the explorer. It sounds unexciting when one pictures the cold sunless depths of the ocean, yet William Beebe has just crossed the threshold of this, the world's last mystery, to speak after the meretricious fashion of the publicist. He used his diving helmet along coastal shallows. Already off Haiti he has shot fish with air rifle and gamboled with man-eating sharks in their native haunts. He has peered into dark ravines and sketched strange foliage haunted by stranger creatures. Further out he will use a "self-contained diving suit"; one that doesn't have to be dangled at the end of a long hose. He hasn't gone far with this part of his equipment because deep-sea exploration has hardly come to life. Jules Verne in his "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" probably gives a more accurate picture than Beebe, of the way our explorers will fare forth in a few years amid the undiscovered monsters of the deep. For great depths, 5000 to 10,000 feet, Beebe will have himself lowered in a massive steel cylinder designed to withstand enormous pressure. This cylinder is being built by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Some hint of what he will find has already been brought up during his entertaining "Arcturus" cruise. He declares that creatures in those strata carry their own illumination. It is an electric-lighted world. Vertically above the Beebe locale, lies still another about which man knows little. This is the upper layer of the atmosphere. True our telescopes have penetrated millions of light years out into space, but the clear blue sky immediately overhead is full of interest for mankind. Sir Alan Cobham points out that flight at an altitude around 50,000 feet will enable a plane to attain speed bordering on 1000 miles an hour. This means crossing the continent between breakfast and lunch, crossing either ocean between lunch and dinner and circumnavigating the globe in a day. Perhaps we cannot picture man ever rising above 50,000 feet, but certainly we shall have "soundings" taken far beyond that figure within the next few years. Macready's work above 30,000 feet, lends some hope that these wild dreams may one day be realized. He has flown comfortably above Dayton, Ohio, in temperatures 80° below zero, in an air so rare that but a few moments of it causes the aviator to lose consciousness. The writer was in charge of test work at the Naval Proving Ground, Indian Head, Maryland, when Professor Robert Goddard, of Clark University, was investigating the ballistics of his upper-air rocket. Goddard is not, as so many suppose, a fanatical dreamer. He is a calm fact-facing realist. He is applying theoretical forces of ejected gases to a body capable of carrying recording instruments to high levels, and his principles are those of the Fourth of July sky-rocket. His fuel is gas, alcohol or high explosive. His goal is anything from 50,000 feet to the moon itself. He has made progress and physicists say he has initiated a series of experiments that must succeed. There are still further fields of this semi-speculative sort that are less sensational and therefore less emphasized in the press. The earth's interior is still a gorgeous riddle. In the first quarter of the twentieth century it was considered solid, but before that it was thought to be molten liquid. Now many thinkers are veering back to the liquid idea, qualifying their views by saying that the liquid is under terrific pressure. A hole in the ground deep enough to add measurably to our knowledge of the earth's crust, would cost a minimum of $70,000,000. This was the figure put upon the project after conference between a physicist and an eminent engineer not long ago. At this figure the facts might not warrant the expenditure. Majority of mineral deposits are laid down by water sedimentation, therefore the greater the depth, the less chance of rich results. As a matter of fact we have scarcely begun exploration of the outer crust. The first oil-well in the United States, 1859, was sixty-nine feet deep. A few years ago a well 5000 feet deep was a curiosity-drillers this year have gone down 8000 feet. The Standard Oil Company reports the case of Ventura, California, in which vertical exploration bore rich fruit. At 2215 feet fair oil flow was accepted as final. A year ago further exploration brought in a gusher at 5150 feet. To-day drillers in the neighborhood are uncovering oil levels as far down as 6000 feet. 23 We must not stray too far from our theme: that the explorer as a type has passed, but his prototype remains. What is the best use to which civilization can put these gifted and inspired individuals-these men who would be Columbuses and Magellans, Scotts and Pearys, had they lived in the age of pure exploration? It is all very well to dress up atmospheric strata, to bait the aviator and seismographs to entice the human mole, but we suspect they must prove flat fare to the born adventurer-reminds one of moulding dog-biscuit in the shape of bones to win the dog. No, there has got to be something more tangible; something that can be dramatized into a very definite struggle. There are signs that this something has already been sensed by a discerning few. It has to do with the present enormous increase of the world population. The Malthusian theory is losing ground before assaults of pacifists and hygienists. Life is being extended and war is daily less likely, despite the piercing cries of our jingoes. Since 1920 the population of the United States has increased about 13,000,000. This increase by itself is greater than the entire population of Canada, and while Europe is still in her post-war birth-rate depression, her figures are rapidly coming back to normal. Moreover, she hasn't the emigration outlet to us she had before. It won't be over fifty years, some statisticians claim, before we reach the 200,000,000 mark. Here then is a germ for innumerable exploring expeditions: pioneering voyages between population centers to establish better communication lines, and voyages out into the waste spaces to begin developing sources of food and raw supplies for the world's swarming humanity. This year's New York to Paris flight is a good sample of the former. The 1927 United States Geological Survey's expedition to Alaska, is a sample of the latter. Both are looked on in some quarters as fruitless, yet both satisfy the exploring instinct that will never die; and both cater to the problem of swollen populations. The British are especially active along this line. They have always had young men of an exploring turn of mind and England is astute enough to see the value of turning such youths to useful expansion work for the Empire. The British Air Ministry has put through a plan for construction of a huge dirigible that will connect her colonies by air. This airship will be 720 feet long and have an air speed of seventy miles an hour, with a gas capacity of about 5,000,000 feet, or more than twice the size of the Shenandoah. The range of this ship will be on the order of 9000 miles at her economical cruising speed, and she will be able to carry one hundred passengers with baggage. Mooringmasts have already been erected at Cairo and Delhi. Mammoth sheds for "dry docking" are also being built at the same places. These details give a picture of gigantic enterprise that must whet the appetite of the explorer. The whole thing is in the nature of a grand experiment. Pioneering flights by plane to date over the same course, can almost be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Pilots on such a ship going out into air territory largely unknown, are justly comparable to early explorers of the unknown seas. Recently a Spanish aviator winged his way from Europe to South America over the rough trade-wind belt. He was the pioneering agent, indirectly at least, of the great Colon Company of Spain which has just been backed by the Spanish Government, with an appropriation of $5,000,000. This company has ordered from the German Zeppelin Company, a dirigible three times the size of our Los Angeles, for service on the route. Our House of Representatives has voted $200,000 to commence work on a new American dirigible of a capacity exceeding 6,000,000 cubic feet (the Shenandoah was 2,100,000 cubic feet). Navigating this craft over long traverses on all points of the compass, will be work for the explorer. Indeed, the viking craft of Leif Erickson were in some ways safer and more enduring than our flimsy-engined balloons. It may seem a little far-fetched to try to divert propensity for exploring to commercializing desert land, but there is much in common between the tasks, if they are not identical. The total land area of the United States is 1903 million acres and only 800 million acres of this are considered arable. Scientific exploration of our swamp and desert areas under the direction of capable administrative leaders can be justly classed for thrill and profit with polar flights and African adventures. Russia, |