Golden Age, May 23, 1923
Download: PDF — Golden Age, May 23, 1923
r;
Contents of the Golden Age
Social and Educational
End of Florida Convict-Leasing System
■>38
Political—Domestic and Foreign
Rf.pohtk from Foreign Correspondents......
From JvnjJand ...............
From Canada ..... ........ .
5 15
AgricCLTi’jtE and Husbandry
IlAkO ROW Of TH V. I’AllMLKS .
Travel and Miscellany
Tint Emis or the Would Ainundsen the Ambitious . Stefausson the linthusiaMic Ilie MacMillan Expedilion The Aiirnrctic < 'ontha nt .
Ireland Belli" I mstroyed Where the Trouble Regan . A Century of Horrors . . 1’illtience of Home
:>i h IxTKitKSTrxr. emits . .
Washingron Wisdom
Religion and Philosophy
CfiimcHAtEN Themselves Block 1'rogbess I'UOTESTANT CHCKCHES IN Et'HOl'K JIYINK .
Messiah’s Kingdom Now Due . .
Christendom a Misnomlb . . .
Tin: Nabbow Way and <h hkk Ways
Christ’s Mission on Earth . . . .
Return of the. Redeemed . . . .
11'. JJeabt-Gaiito.n.......
Sri dies in “The Hauf of God” . . .
517 517
■18 5'22 523
.26
".28
r.::i
a; to
Publkhod every other Wednesday at IB Concord Street, Brooklyn, N’. Y.. TL S. A.. by WOOPWORTII. HVDGIX’OS & MARTIN*
Cap/ii tnrrs anrf Propritiors Address; IS Concord street, Jimoktifn. .V. r.. C. B. A. CLAYTON’ J. WOODWORTH . . . Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN . Business Manager Ct. E. STEWART .... Assistant Editor WM. E. IIlTxUN'tas . . Sec“y and Treas.
Fokeign Offices : British
Canciftian . . . . tibitUi African ,
Make Rrjiiraxces to TH!-: GOI.OEN AGB
34 Craven Terrace, Lancaster Gate, London W. 2
. 270 Hurulan Street IV.. Toronto, Ontario , . 425 Collins Street. Melbourne, AnMmlia . . 0 Leite Street, Cape Town, South Africa
F.ntsred &s second elate matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act o£ M ar th 3, 1S79
Velum* IV
^Golden Age
Brooklyn, N. Y„ Wednesday, May 23, 1923
The Ends of the World
Number M
NO, HEADER I This is not a religious article. We could make it one easily enough, however. We could take for a text 1 Corinthians 10:11: “They are written for our admoni-1 tion, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” We could show that the Apostle must be referring to “time-worlds,” because the Scriptures speak of “the world that was,” “the old world,” “this present evil world,” “the world to come,” and the “world without end,” all of which have to do with our earth; and we could .. ■ call attention to the fact that he uses the word “ends” and not “end,” a distinction which some people have never noticed.
But in this article we are about to discuss the literal ends of the literal world, not some convulsion or convulsions which are forever to dispose of this planet—for no such convulsions will ever take place—but the only ends which a whirling sphere can properly be said to have, the top end and the bottom end; in other words, the arctic and antarctic regions.
The reason for writing this article at this time is that the ice barriers at both ends of the world are melting, the ice fields about the antarctic continent are lessening; the Gulf Stream has recently torn a great hole one hundred and thirty miles deep into the arctic ice field, and the “scientists” who do not believe the Bible, and who therefore are unwise, are trying hard to establish the Darwinian theory, making monkeys of themselves in the effort to explain unscientifically what the Bible explains perfectly.
The true explanation of the polar ice-caps is very simple. When our first parents were placed in Eden, the earth was swathed in a band system of moisture similar to that which now envelops Saturn. Such a thing as rain was then unknown, “the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, . . . but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” (Genesis 2:5,6) This created a hothouse condition, in which the tern- 3 peratures in all parts of the earth were equalized, a condition extremely favorable to plant ;g and animal life, and the only possible explana-
tion of the abundant evidences of such life near the poles. ;
When this hothouse canopy was broken in the days of Noah, and descended upon the earth in a torrent of water for forty days, then the sun ■ began to shine directly upon the equatorial regions, making them exceedingly hot and withdrawing the heat from the poles, where* accordingly, the flood took the form of a snow- ’ storm, piling the snow mountain deep. Masfo- : dons, antelopes, and other habitants of southern climes have been found embedded in the ice of the polar regions with freshly eaten grass,' undigested, frozen stiff in their stomachs. Some-of these creatures were so well preserved, after 4,400 years in this gigantic ice-box, that the flesh was eaten when they were discovered. >
The Polar Ice is Thawing
J
'.3
Norway, in a report in the fall of 1922,
UNITED STATES Consul Ifft, of Bering, Xnru-av in a. ranort in th a full nf 19221 states that the Arctic ocean is so appreciably j warmer that seals are retiring to recesses of ' the polar ice-cap, far from the usual hunting : grounds, ice masses are disappearing, glaciers " are melting, and fish never before known so fax north are appearing in increasing quantities.
Doctor Hoel, geologist of the University of Norway, shortly before the publication of Consul Ifft’s report, returned from an expedition which went as far north as 81 degrees, 29 minutes. This in itself is farther north tlian any other explorer of the arctic regions had gone one hundred years ago. Doctor Hoel found that there was scarcely any ice in the region which he visited, that the Gulf Stream there was warm at a depth of two miles below the surface, and that well-known glaciers, formerly projecting great masses of ice into the sea, had disap-
peared, leaving moraines of earth and stones. The waters about Spitsbergen last summer were twenty-three degrees warmer than ever before known. (The coal mines of Spitzbergen, far above the arctic circle, are now producing coal for European markets.)
Vast shoals of whitefish formerly found in the waters about Spitzbergen have gone to colder waters. Herrings and smelts, never before seen so far north, have come with the warmer waters. In some localities the Eskimos are complaining that their clothing is too warm for them.
The Arctic ocean is a great basin, deepest at the pole. The warm waters of the Gulf Stream and the Japan Current are flowing into the basin north of Norway and through Bering Strait; and the cold water is flowing out of the basin on both sides of Greenland, down past Labrador, and back into the Atlantic at the east of Newfoundland. Explorers report from various points that the edge of the Arctic ocean has of late been remarkably free from ice, and it is evident the whole ocean is warming up. The waters of the Arctic ocean are extremely pure, shells being distinctly visible at great depth.
The actual shrinkage of the ice-belt in the Arctic is estimated as one hundred and thirty miles in twenty-five years. Thousands of observations, taken all over the northern part of the world, show that the whole climate, winter and summer, is one and three-tenths degrees warmer now than in 1897. The Swiss, Alaskan, and Himalayan glaciers are also shrinking, as well as those of Greenland.
The coldest part of the north is not at the north pole. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the central polar sea was sixty-three degrees below zero, while it has been seventy degrees below at points in North Dakota and nearly that in New York state. The greatest cold ever actually recognized on a thermometer was ninety-three degrees below zero, at Verkhoyansk, Siberia.
Thawing Assists Exploration
THE arctic circle is 8,640 miles long, more than a third as long as the equator, and is everywhere 1,408 miles from the north pole. Norway and Alaska each project three hundred miles into the Arctic ocean; Siberia about the same,
Bbookitk, N. t
except in one place where it projects about six-hundred miles; while Greenland and some 0$ : the islands to the north of Canada project nisife -hundred miles into it. This leaves the northpole, as far as known, in the center of an oceiub^ at least one thousand miles in diameter, and present one of the most difficult points on the earth’s surface to reach. <
During the period of arctic exploration two-hundred ships and four thousand lives haV4‘ been lost in arctic waters and $100,000,000 have-been expended on the voyages. The following is a list of the points farthest north reached by various explorers, and shows how slow was the progress until recent years, when the ice began
thaw out:
to
Date
Explorer and Expedition
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds of North Latitude
Mile* from Pole
Hudson
80° 23'
Phipps
80° 48'
Scoresby
81° 12' 42"
Parry
82° 50'
Markham and Parr
(Nares)
83° 20' 26"
Lockwood (Greeley) 83° 24'
Apr. 7,1895
Nansen
86° 14'
261 ■
Apr. 25, 1900
Cagni (Abruzzi)
86° 34'
Apr. 21, 1906
Peary
87° 6'
Apr. 6,1909
Peary
90°
After Peary’s seventh arctic expedition, in which he ventured far out upon the polar sea, -g and came within 201 miles of reaching the pole, □ it was freely predicted that no one would ever be able to reach it; for it was by the barest.J margin that he and his party regained the - j northern edge of Greenland. However, three years later he achieved the ambition of all ares- ’’J tie explorers for three hundred years, his suC- ’ cess being due to the fact that he had a practical plan, made the most elaborate preparations,' and accommodated himself to Eskimo conditions.
When within about one hundred miles of the pole Peary turned back Captain Barrett, of Newfoundland. For this act a swift retribution, followed. Another party, Dr. Frederick Cook, reaching civilization two weeks ahead of Pearys boldly announced that he had reached the pole by a lone one-man dash. This man, cornerej-by reporters, hired two old sea-captains t®. manufacture evidence for him. But he failed to pay them promptly, and they exposed his whole plan. Dr. Cook succeeded for a time in deceiving the Danish Government, and virtually the whole world. Peary died broken-hearted and unpopular; but there is no doubt that he really accomplished what thus far no other man has achieved. A statue at Washington has recently been unveiled in his honor.
Amundsen the Ambitious
ONE of the most ambitious and successful of all arctic and antarctic explorers is Captain Roald Amundsen. In 1903-1906 he sailed a vessel through the famous Northwest Passage from the south of Greenland to Nome, Alaska, a trip made for the first time by McClure in 1850-1853. On this trip he revisited the magnetic pole, 1,400 miles north of Winnipeg and 1,200 miles south of the north pole, discovered by Parry in 1820.
In 1910-1912 Captain Amundsen sailed in the “Fram” (the ship made famous by Nansen in his arctic expedition of 1895), went down to the antarctic, sailed clear around the antarctic continent, landed on the edge of Ross Sea, and made a sudden dash for the south pole, which he reached on December 14,1911, a month ahead of the ill-fated Scott expedition.
In 1918, following the route opened up by Nordenskiold in 1878-1879, Captain Amundsen traversed the Northeast Passage from the northern part of Norway to Nome, Alaska, where his ship, the Maude, arrived in 1920. Thus he has the unique distinction of having circumnavigated the antarctic continent and the arctic ocean, as well as having been the first to visit the south pole. It would seem that this would be sufficient to suit the ambitions of any man, but a look at his picture explains it all. He has the eagle-shaped nose that turns back at no obstacle and that is out to win or die!
The task that is now engaging Captain ‘Amundsen’s time and energies is the preparation for a flight by aeroplane from Point Barrow, Alaska, via the north pole, to West Spitz-bergen. This expedition is financed by the Norwegian Government. He has taken two planes with him; the flight, 1,950 miles, will begin some time this season. Experienced aviators and explorers think he has about one chance in six of escaping with his life, on account of the heavy fogs which hover above stretches of water at a low altitude, the roughness of the ice for landing purposes, and the A length of the flight. However, Amundsen is a careful man, always studying arrangements for . > supplies far ahead; he may possibly succeed. v
Meantime, the arctic is warming up more 's and more every year, wireless has made communication easy, the Northwest Passage has *
become a reality and will in time be a much- '
traveled route. Even now, if the necks of Melville and Boothia peninsulas were canalized,. ■ there would be almost a straight channel from t Hudson Strait to the north shore of Alaska; ~ and by the time the canals could be cut, the ' route could probably be used every summer for trade between England and North Pacific ocean 7 points, cutting down the present journey by ; several thousand miles. ’1
Stefansson the Enthusiastic
AN ENTHUSIAST respecting the countries
that lie to the north of the Canadian mainland is the explorer Vilhjalmar Stefansson, ' sent out in 1908 and again in 1913 by the Cana- i dian Government. The last time he went out, he was gone five years; and when he returned ; came back with maps of 100,000 square miles of land and sea hitherto marked “Unknown” on the maps. One of his discoveries was an island . almost as large as England that other explorers j had overlooked in their wanderings to and fro « over the top of the world. This island, Wrangell Island, seems to be well named; for when Ste-fansson returned, claiming the island on behalf of the British Empire, American government officials claimed the same island on the ground that it was taken possession of by American A official explorers in 1881.
Mr. Stefansson declares that the arctic re- 5 gions are in reality a boundless stock range, "5 capable of raising herds that will feed the world. This stock—the reindeer, caribou, and . musk ox—finds abundance of food on the tundras, or between them, and needs neither bams sg nor haystacks. He demonstrated his faith by £3 his works, his expedition having lived off the country, instead of taking along enough food ;f| to last until his return to the base from which - 3 he started. -
As to the snowfall, Mr. Stefansson states that in the northern part of Alaska and Canada -Ji along the edge of the Arctic ocean, the snowfall is so light that if one scattered one hundred walnuts on the ground in the autumn one would be able to count ninety of them sticking out of the snow at any time during the winter. This being the'case, if the Eskimos living in those parts really want to see some snow, they had better come down into the United States. During this last winter we have had five months of sleighing in New York state and parts of Pennsylvania, with the snow over the tops of the fences in many places. On April 1st, 1923, at Rome, N. Y., the temperature was eight degrees below zero. Some sixteen years ago, at Tamarack, in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, there was a snowfall of seventy-four feet. But nobody w’ishes the Eskimos such hard luck as to have to face’ sueh a snowstorm as that. Maybe they could not endure it. The reason why the Californians stand it is because they must.
As to the weather, Mr. Stefansson says that in the Klondike gold rush more prospectors died of summer sunstroke at Dawson than perished of winter cold; and that the coldest temperature ever recorded at Point Barrow, the northernmost point of Alaska, is fourteen degrees less than has been recorded at Havre, Montana, on the main line of the Great Northern Railway. He thinks the American School Geography the most widely read bit of fiction in the United States.
As to natural resources, Mr. Stefansson says that he found fertile valleys filled with all sorts of life at points far above the arctic circle. He mentions that on Banks Island, four hundred miles north of the arctic circle, he counted 250 specimens of vegetation; and that on the northern shore of Alaska, 200 miles north of the arctic circle, there were 750 specimens of vegetation, with a summer temperature occasionally running higher than 100 in the shade.
Mr. Stefansson reports discoveries of coal, oil, etc.; and on his return to Vancouver, B. C., incorporated in that city an Exploration and Development Company which will endeavor to realize on some of his discoveries. He thinks that within a decade or two the whole northern territory will be crossed and recrossed by a network of aviation routes, that great numbers of little-known and supposedly uninhabited islands will become the homes of prosperous, contented, and happy men and women.
The MacMillan Expedition J’S
TT DOES not fall to the lot of every arctie <3 -*■ explorer to be successful; and it is no dis-credit to Captain Donald B. MacMillan, who started out in 1921 to circumnavigate Baftin -.'J Land, that he failed to reach the Fury and 2 Hecla Strait, the narrow, and therefore fre- ; quently ice-bound, gate that has closed the Northwest Passage and closed life itself to so many brave explorers of the past.
But Captain MacMillan carried on for ten months an uninterrupted observation of terrestrial magnetism, took meteorological and tidal J observations, counted 121 days of sunlight and thirteen days of moonlight north of the arctic circle, and reported 770 varieties of flowTers in the same latitude. This is all well worth while. He was greatly impressed with the clearness of the arctic air, which often causes travelers to attempt to accomplish between breakfast and supper journeys which require three days. Mirages, also, are frequent, due to unequal strata of temperatures in the air.
Captain MacMillan found in Labrador the same terrible conditions among the Eskimos aa we have mentioned in a recent article on Alaska. Whole towns of Eskimos were wiped out by influenza and their bodies eaten by dogs. At Hebron the discoverers of the village fought x off the dogs w’ith firearms, knives, and oars, and put them to flight only after a desperate battle. In some towns there were survivors; in others not one person remained alive. In one instance a faithful pet dog defended a little child from the pack of wild dogs until the little one was . rescued.
The missionaries in this district buried 121 of these influenza victims in one hole thirty-two \ feet square and six feet deep. Dozens of others ' were taken to the edge of the ice and dropped _-3 into the sea. In one village the mangled remains. - A were gathered in one huge pile near the center \ of the village, oil was poured upon the pile, » matches were applied, and a huge funeral pyre closed the ghastly story. Captain MacMillan’s vl full story was known before his return to civi-lization, having been sent by wireless. ,<|
Arctic explorers have some weird experiences# 4m In the fall of 1919 fourteen sailors in an arotis expedition barely saved their lives when their ship was wrecked on a reef in Hudson Bay. They rowed fifty miles against time and through-
._• ■ XSM
619 -*
a heavy gale, reaching a returning fur-trading vessel just in time.
In the fall of 1921 an arctie explorer sailed into Nome from the frozen north and tried to enlist in the World War to fight on the side of France, not knowing that the war had then been over for more than three years. Captain Bernard of the latter city is planning an eastward trip through the Northwest Passage during the coming season.
Greenland—Iceland—Norway
THESE three countries are all connected, in the sense that they were settled by persons who speak the Danish language, descendants of the oldWikings. Greenland is oddly named; the largest island in the world (ten times larger than the State of Pennsylvania), granite in formation, it is covered with an ice-cap hundreds of feet deep, deposited at the time of the flood. (In summer Greenland does get green on the edges, in certain places.)
We know that Greenland’s ice-cap came suddenly; for there have been dug up there the fossil remains of palms, breadfruit trees, cinnamon trees, giant sequoias, climbing vines, poplars, willows, eucalyptus, and magnolias, showing that there was once a tropical climate where now is located one of the world’s greatest refrigerators. Near the eastern shore of Advent Bay, Greenland, there are coal deposits of great extent and superior quality. From its vast ice' sheet come the icebergs that float down into Baffin Bay and Davis Strait every spring.
This year, on account of the rapid warming of the Arctic ocean by the Gulf Stream, the Greenland climate has been the warmest known; and as early as the middle of March more bergs had broken loose and come sailing down into the track of Atlantic ocean-liners than have been known in any year since the Titanic went down in the spring of 1912, with a loss of 1,500 lives.
In the summer of 1922, in the thawing out of a mass of ice on the eastern coast of Greenland, a man was found, clad in armor of the eighth or ninth century, grasping a spear in one hand . and a shield in the other, and wearing a helmet. The body, which had doubtless been preserved in the ice for at least a thousand years, was embalmed and taken to Copenhagen, Denmark.
Iceland is also misnamed. Although it touches the arctic circle it has a warm, pleasant climate in summer, and is a healthful place of residency the year around. Europeans are finding it a pleasant summer resort and are visiting i,t in increasing numbers every year. The climate at sea level is about the same as that of Scotland. In some winter seasons the temperature at sea . level never falls to zero; and it is fifteen degrees below zero at New York city more fre- . 'I quently than it is at Reykjavik, the capital of y Iceland.
There are but two places in the world where f railways run to points north of the arctic circle. / One of these is a line which runs from a point t on the Gulf of Bothnia in Sweden to Afoten i fiord on the coast of Norway, a tourist line in : the summer and an ore line all the year. The t engineer blows his whistle as the train crosses A the arctic circle. The second line is about seven hundred miles long, straight north from Petrograd to Kola on the Arctic ocean; the last two hundred miles of this distance is north of the arctic circle. ;
Siberia and Canada
THIS subhead should logically be “Siberia,
Alaska and Canada”; but having so recently > discussed Alaska it cannot be treated here, more A than to say that there is now in operation in I Alaska, within 175 miles of the arctic circle, a flour mill which supplies local needs and obtains ■; its wheat from crops grown in the neighborhood, crops which mature in ninety days from ; the time they arc planted. ;;
Siberia, coldest spot in the north, is gradually thawing out. An interesting proof that this is so is that of the mammoth, uncovered near Khabarovsk, with flesh so fresh and well-preserved that the natives ate it. This flesh had remained frozen solid since the days of Noah, when the great snowstorm overtook the giant creature.
The soil in the vicinity of Toronto, Canada, shows the gradual warming up of the northern : regions since the flood. Several feet down there ; are the stumps of tropical trees, osage oranges, and pawpaws; above are the bones of musk oxen, now found a thousand miles to the north. > Northern Canada will yet be a great treasure 1 house. Without doubt it has great coal and oil J deposits in addition to those already discovered />j at Fort Norman and elsewhere. ' «
>-
Fort Norman is far down the Mackenzie river, in latitude 65 degrees north, very near to the arctic circle. Reports of oil discoveries there have caused a rush in that direction, with prospects of an air service to help out the transportation, now confined to many hundreds of miles navigation by slow river boats. Fort Norman is at the outlet of the Great Bear Lake. Look it up in the old geography.
Reports have several times drifted in to civilization of the discovery, somewhere to the west of Fort Norman, of a valley four miles wide fed by hot springs, which has a summer climate the year around. This valley it is claimed is very fertile and is swarming with geese, caribou, deer, and pheasants. Its development has been retarded by the World War, but is now about to be undertaken.
Before the flood there was timber all over the northern end of the world. Forests of fossil trees, with the stumps still standing, have been found in areas where now there is no timber, showing the great change which the flood produced. In the treeless areas there is tundra everywhere, a species of reindeer moss capable of supporting millions of these hardy creatures.
The plants peculiar to the frigid zone have roots which are as long and penetrate as far horizontally as in more temperate climates, but the dry winter winds stunt the limbs. In summer the surface thaws out to the depth of two or three feet, but beneath is said to be frozen to a depth of two hundred to three hundred feet.
Of flesh foods in the far north fat reindeer is said to be the best. Next to the fat reindeer is the wolf, whose meat is lean, streaked with fat and has the flavor of fine lamb. There are many kinds of fish-eating animals and birds in the arctic regions. The polar bear may truthfully be said to make his living more on the sea than on the land.
Notes on the Eskimos
SCATTERED the most widely of any peoples, and living in a climate which varies from intense cold in winter to intense heat in summer, the Eskimos manage to make the best of their environment. In the period of midwinter darkness they take long journeys to visit their friends, and on arrival have a good time singing, dancing, and story-telling. It is said that an Eskimo laughs as much in a month as a white man does in a year. In the summer the
long sunlight periods take away all sense ofi -j time; and the people eat when they are hungry -and sleep when they wish, without reference to what elsewhere are the hours of the night. ■ .
The Eskimos are said to be fragrant, espe- r cially in the summer time, but it is claimed that I this fragrance is not exactly that of new-mown \ hay. The reason may be that the only use the -Eskimos make of water is for drinking pur- « poses, it never seeming to have occurred to * them that water would be as good for the out- * side of their bodies as for the inside. This is ' not true of all Eskimo tribes, however; in some f districts they are now beginning to use soap in v small quantities. ;
The food of the Eskimos is almost entirely ; flesh food. In the north of Greenland the diet ’ has been exclusively meat for at least a thou- j sand years. About fifty percent of the food ha* "3 been eaten raw, and much of it in a putrid condition. Food experts who adhere strictly to * J vegetarian diet are advised to remain away J from North Greenland. \
Captain Joseph Bernard, of the John Wana* i makers Expedition to the Eskimos, who make* J his headquarters at Nome, Alaska, and is said '* to have covered more mileage in the arctic than ? any other man living, and who is about to 3 undertake an eastward trip through the famous Northwest Passage, has been making anthro- * pological collections among the Eskimos for ; twenty seasons. Three thousand of his speci- 1 mens have been forwarded to the University of /j Pennsylvania. He has found evidence which -f seems to prove conclusively that the Eskimos all came from northern Siberia.
He found the northern Alaskan Eskimo* ’ courageous and independent. During the influ- A enza epidemic, far down each trail a man was jJ stationed with a gun, who turned back every ” man, whether white or Eskimo, who tried to j enter the country, and thus kept the disease from invading the north coast. These north N; coast Eskimos have been under the influence of •=, Protestant missionaries; they are considered ’-J brave and trustworthy. They are reported as ' rapidly dying off, consumption making great inroads among them. -
According to “The New Standard Dictionary,’’ Robert E. Peary in "The North Pole,” page 49, gives the following bit of information regarding the origin of the Eskimos:
“There is a theory, first advanced by Sir Clements Markham . . . that the Eskimos are the remnants of an ancient Siberian tribe, the Onkilon . . . driven out . . . by the fierce waves of Tartar invasion in the Middle Ages. ... I am inclined to believe in the truth of this theory for the following reasons: Some of the Eskimos are of a distinctly Mongolian type, and they display many Oriental characteristics. . . . There is a strong resemblance between their stone houses and the ruins of the houses found in Siberia. As a general rule the Eskimos are short in stature, as are the Chinese and Japanese. . . . The women are short and plump. They all have powerful torsos, but their legs are rather slender."
Antarctic Exploration
MUCH more attention has been paid to the arctic than to the antarctic because the explorers of both regions have chiefly come from the north temperate zone, because of the efforts to find a northwest passage, because there is human life to the very edges of the Arctic ocean, and because there is in the arctic a much greater variety of bird and animal life.
In a general way the top of the world is an ocean, and the bottom of the world is a continent. From whatever direction ships approach the south pole, they encounter flocs of pack ice, flat-topped, with perpendicular walls, and often measuring many miles in width and length, and are stopped finally by ice capped land.
Access to the north pole was gained from the Atlantic ocean side of the pole, hut access to the south pole was gained from the Pacific side, and these seem to be the natural channels of approach. The Arctic ocean is open to the Atlantic and, except for Bering Strait, is closed to the Pacific. The Antarctic continent is at present seemingly unapproachable except from one direction; namely, from Ross Sea, which lies straight south of New Zealand.
In 1773 Captain Cook sailed out of Cape Town, and within the next three years sailed around Antarctica, touching the continent at four points, three of them within the antarctic circle; but apparently he was unable to effect a landing anywhere. In 1842 Captain Ross, the discoverer of Ross Sea, sailed about three hundred miles along the face of the continental icewall, but at that time it was everywhere so high and steep that a landing was deemed impossible. Since then conditions have made landings possible, and it was from the opposite ends of this throe-hundred-mile journey that the two •„ successful expeditions to the south pole set out. f Serious attempts to reach the south pole may ’
be said to have begun with Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition of 1907-1909, which reached within ninety-seven miles of the pole. Three magnificent efforts were his. He was with the ? successful but ill-fated Scott expedition in 1912; „ and he died and was buried on South Georgia : Island, the nearest approach to the antarctic continent on the Atlantic side, on his third exploration trip, at the close of the year 1921.
Amundsen and Scott
IN HIS discovery of the south pole Captain Roald Amundsen came into Ross Sea from k the west, via the Cape of Good Hope, in 1910, and left for the east, via Cape Horn, in 1912. . He started out from Europe with the avowed intention of, if possible, beating Captain Scott in reaching the south pole, the announcement ■ of the latter's intended trip having been already ? made. It was thus a race for the south pole, ; widely noted as such in the newspapers of the time. Captain Amundsen reached the south pole on December 14, .1911, remaining there four ; days. It is located on a plateau 10,260 feet above sea levo]. On the route from Ross Sea to and from the pole Captain Amundsen and party » v passed between two mountains each 16,000 feet in height, on a glacier which separated the two. On the way they experienced the terrible winds and bitterly cold weather for which the antarctic continent is famous.
Captain Scott's expedition was a success, in many respects a success of the highest kind; but he did not reach the pole until thirty days after Amundsen had departed. On his arrival at the pole he found the proof that Amundsen had been there. This was a very great disap- . pointment; for his expedition was even then < short of fuel oil, a thing upon which the life of every man in the party depended. There were five in the Scott party of discovery; they were frozen to death one by one on the return, trip, their bodies being found by the searching party six months later under command of Captain Atkinson.
The writer recently saw Captain Scott’s diary in the British Museum, the journal wherein he bravely but pathetically describes his disap- 'b pointment on reaching the pole, the deaths,of his companions, and finally the calm announcement that he, too, was about to freeze to death, his fuel having become exhausted and his hand no longer able to write because of the intense cold.
One of his party, showing the courage and the real greatness that marks the Scott trip as a success, when he knew that there was not fuel enough to provide for so many as the party contained, excused himself and deliberately "went out for a walk” with the temperature some fifty or sixty degrees below zero, knowing when he started out that he was going out to freeze to death, but in the hope that thereby some of the rest of the party might be able to fight their way back to the ship. His body was found also. On their way to the pole the Scott party passed Mount Markham, 15,100 feet high.
The Antarctic Continent
IT IS too early, by perhaps a hundred years or so, to give any description of the antarctic continent. The most that can be said about it is that its general outlines are now fairly well known. It is conjectured that Alexander Land, Victoria Land, Graham Land, Enderby Land, and other lands sighted by explorers, represent the borders of the continent; and that its area is approximately four million square miles, or about two thousand miles in diameter. The high mountain peaks and volcanoes, the names of several of which are known, and their heights measured, tend to establish the continental theory, although there are vast areas within the antarctic circle which have never been visited by man.
Climatic conditions there at present are extremely severe, although the ice is melting on each side of the continent at the rate of a mile a year; and when the Lord gets ready to turn some warm current against it, the rate of melting will be greatly increased. The antarctic continent will not be inhabited and developed until some time after the arctic regions, for the reason that its elevations are higher and that it has its winter at a time when the earth is three million miles farther from the sun than when it is winter at the north pole. The ice-covered land areas, the great ice-floes, and the heavy fogs all unite in producing extreme cold* Even in summer the mean temperature is slightly below freezing, so that, to all intents and purposes, there is now resting on the antarctic continent virtually all the snow that fell there at the time of the flood and that has fallen since. This must all melt before normal conditions will maintain, and may take several hundred years, or a hundred at least.
There are no human beings in Antarctica; a very few explorers have ever survived a winter there. There are numerous varieties of whales, thirteen species of seals, eleven species of fish, most of them new to science, great numbers of penguins, and eight other kinds of birds, with some insects, mosses, lichens, and grasses. The existence of land animals is doubted, although it seems to be implied in dispatches from the Cope expedition, now in the antarctic, regarding furs. It may be that the furs referred to are sealskins. The Cope dispatches refer to discoveries of oils and minerals, all of which coincides with our knowledge that at the time of the flood the whole earth was rich in vegetation.
We have often wondered why the so-called "scientists” waste their time and fill the newspapers wTith drivel as to how the earth a few ; million years ago was tipped around in such-a a way that the present equator was at the poles 1 and the poles were where our equator now is. How much more it would be to their credit if t these wise men would read, ponder and accept the sane, sensible explanation of the present condition of the polar regions as contained in the first chapter of the Sixth Volume of Pastor
Russell’s “Studies in the Scriptures.” They/1 must come to the truth eventually; and if even- * tually, why not now?
“Oh, a happy time is coining
By the prophets once foretold I
It is promised in the Bible;
It was sung by bards of old.
Lo, the morning light is breaking, And the day is drawing nigh.
Yes, a glorious time is coming soon; We shall hail it bye and bye.
"Oh, the happy time is coming When the cry of war shall cease, And the standard of the nations Be the olive branch of peace!
Underneath his vine and fig tree Man shall never be afraid,
In the glorious time that’s coming soon In its calm and quiet , shade."
Impressions of Britain—In Ten Parts (Fart X) 3
TWO days were set aside for a visit to the north of Ireland. The trip was looked forward to with great interest, partly because at that time it was supposed to be unsafe. The ship from Liverpool to Belfast was supposed to sail at 10:00 p. m., and reach destination next morning; but it was held up by fog, and did not get out of the Mersey until 5: 00 a. in.
“The Island of Sorrows” presented anything but a sorrowful appearance when the beautiful shores in the neighborhood of Donaghadee first came into view, about 1: 00 p. m. Though it was late in November, the hillsides were brilliantly green with the verdure for which the Emerald Isle is famous.
Ireland is more moist than Great Britain proper, and its temperature is still more moderate. Tn winter it rarely falls below 40 degrees
Fahrenheit, and in summer the hottest is about 62. The gardens produce until Christmas. In Belfast, on November 17th, sweet peas were growing in profusion out of doors, as were also thousands of young lettuce plants, unprotected. Chrysanthemums also grow’ out of doors, and open plumbing is exposed ■without any fear of freezing. The frequent and prolonged rains or mists sometimes cause the loss of harvests. On account of the fact that the changes in temperature are not extreme, some boys and girls go barefooted late in the year, possibly all winter (but their feet did look blue with cold).
Belfast the Militant
IRELAND is a garden spot of the earth. It does have some bogs, and it does have some mountains; but for all that, it is estimated that about four-fifths of the island are tillable, being mostly a rich, deep loam. It is particularly beautiful in the neighborhood of Belfast, needing only the proper administration of proper law’s to convert it into a paradise. An item of interest to a stranger is to see the one-horse market carts, hundreds of them, all painted the same rich salmon color. Apparently the farmers make it a rule to keep their carts freshly painted.
Residents of Belfast are grieved at the conditions which prevailed there last summer. They acknowledge that both Catholics and Pretestants are to blame for the reign of terror; and they are in fear of a recurrence of the murders, fires, and bombing outrages which were for weeks visited in swift succession, alter- ' 7 nately, by one side against the other. In No- *'s veinbcr the city had become quiet, although in . J that same month sixteen of the citizens were u publicly flogged for carrying concealed weapons.
The American was walking with a friend from the Post Office to the hall in which the lecture was to be given. It was shortly after dark; the rvay was down a rather dimly lighted street; h
half way down the block four men were stand- . <
ing in a group; on near approach they proved T to be armed guards, jealously watching for the .b least intrusion upon the peace of the city. ■ .
As the American approached the party, he suddenly remembered that it is not considered k healthy to have your hands in your pockets '~ when walking through & district that is under martial law. He removed his hands from his overcoat pockets; as he did so, the muzzle of one of the rifles instantly came down, merely to make sure. If there had been a weapon in the American’s hands, he would probably have been ■ turned into a colander in less than a minute.
The next day the American was riding through the streets iu an automobile. The party overtook a squad of four soldiers patrolling one of the main thoroughfares in a motor lorry. There -were four pairs of sharp eyes scrutinizing everything within sight. The automobile overtook the lorry and passed it. The American had his hands crossed in his lap. One of the guns came down so as to make sure there was nothing hidden under the crossed hands.
Ulster a Storm Center
OUR readers all know that Ulster is one of the storm centers of the world. It is a Protestant stronghold in v’hat is, taken as a whole, the most pronouncedly Roman Catholic country of northern Europe. Chalked on a ■wall near the city in letters two feet high were the words, “No Surrender.” Asked what it meant, a citizen replied that it is Ulster’s battlecry; it will never surrender to Roman Catholic domination, no matter what happens.
The Ilister people are aggressive and determined in a manner and to a degree not found and not required elsewhere. Pastor Russell’s ancestors came from Ulster; more than half of all the American presidents have had Ulster ancestry; the Mayflower -was built in Ulster.
Tradition has it that the first invaders from Scotland agreed that whoever would be first ashore should be made king. As the beach was neared, a man of iron nerve drew his broadaxe, cut his left hand off and threw it ashore before any man could land. He was given the rulership which he coveted. The incident is characteristic of Ulster. If looking for trouble and in doubt where to find it, our advice is that you go to Ulster and try to start something.
•u
A sample of Ulster’s nervous condition may be seen in the experiences of a Unitarian who was distributing tracts in Belfast, in October, in front of a Presbyterian church door. Now it happens that the Presbyterian church is the backbone of Protestantism in Ulster, and any attack upon its teachings is likely to be construed in the nature of an attack upon Protestantism, and therefore upon militant Ulster itself. Although the man stoutly denied that he had given provocation or made himself objectionable in any way he was knocked down, kicked while down, and seriously injured by those whom he was trying to reach with his message.
In the same city only a few weeks previously a group of armed men entered a cooper shop. Each employe was asked the simple question, “Catholic or Protestant?” Four answered “Protestant,” and were shot and killed instantly in their tracks. Every such attack was repaid by something in kind.
Winston Churchill, Colonial Secretary of the British Empire, charged that the disorders in Ulster wTere due to the organization there of two divisions of the Irish Republican army and the continuous efforts of these men to break down the Ulster government and bring it under Dublin rule.
Ireland Being Destroyed
THE perplexing and distressing political and religious problems of Ireland are destroying it. Even Belfast, the largest and most prosperous city, feels the strain to a great degree. Belfast has the largest linen mill in the world, the largest shipyards (all the ships of the White Star line are built there), the largest tobacco factory, and in two other respects is said to stand at the front of the world’s cities.
But Ireland as a whole is on the down grade. In 1841 the population was 8,196,597. Seventy years later it was reduced to about half, or only 4,390,219. In 1860 there were twice as many boats and twice as many hands engaged in the fishing industries of Ireland as there were fifty years later. In 1868 there were 4,000 employed in the cotton industry; forty years later the number thus employed was but 800.
Where have all these people gone? Come over to America, and we will show you. They are here by the millions; and through their peculiar training in politics and religion, obtained in Ireland itself, they are running the country, even though greatly in the minority. It is estimated that the Irish population of the United States, including those with Irish grandparents and great-grandparents, is nearly double that of the mother country.
The thing that has brought Ireland to where it is, is misrule-—the attempt to force the political and religious ideals of one people upon another. And in this instance the attempt at coercion was made upon a people that are singularly hard to coerce. Oddly enough, the natives of Ulster do not like the English; and still more oddly, they have no more use for Americans than they have for the English.
It is not generally known that as early as the sixth century Ireland was recognized as the seat of Western learning, from which missionaries of the Christian faith were sent out all over Europe. For three centuries thereafter the Irish were considered the wisest men in Europe. The Irish people know these things; they know that their kings were once wise and powerful men, and that the people were happy and contented, a thing they have not been since the only English pope, Adrian IV, sat on the Papal throne.
To be sure, Ireland had some troubles during those centuries. What country had not? But it was unusually free from the struggles in which the rest of Europe was embroiled. There was an invasion of Ireland by the Norwegians and Danes toward the close of the eighth century, but the Irish people absorbed their invaders— made Irishmen of them. The Norwegians were . distinguished as Findgaill (white strangers), .*3 and the Danes as Dubgaill (black strangers), names which survive in Fingall and MacDou- '■•'"S gall or MacDowell. The prefix "Mac” means j “son of” and the prefix "O” means "grandson of.* 4
I*.
isv
?'
k
Where the Trouble Began
THE troubles of Ireland began when Nicholas Breakspear of St. Albans, England, was elected to the popedom. He entered into a political deal with Henry II of England, whereby the latter was authorized to invade Ireland and take possession of it, although it was at the time a wholly Catholic country. The invasion itself took place in 1155; and there began the long period of confiscation of lands, and the attempt to wrest from an entire people their hereditary rights, w’hich has marked Ireland's history for centuries.
In the reign of Edward III, 1327-1377 A. D., the Kilkenny Act was passed, forbidding intermarriage between English and Irish, forbidding the use of the Irish language, and forbidding the assumption of Irish names by persons of English blood. This Act inevitably led to great bitterness of feeling.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the greater part of the island still remained uncon-quered by the English; but in 1603 the work begun four hundred and fifty years earlier was completed, and within the next twenty-five years 1,400,000 acres of Irish land were taken away from their owners and distributed among English colonists. The hatred engendered by these robberies is in the blood of the Irish people to this day. One of the black spots of history is the rapacity and greed exercised by those in power, be they governments or individuals. A sense of justice for others in weaker stations of life has been sadly wanting.
In 1649 the island revolted from British rule; and Cromwell, the lord lieutenant of the territory, with great cruelty subdued it in nine months. All the possessions of Catholics "were confiscated, 20,000 Irish were sold as slaves in America and the West Indies, and 40,000 more found relief from slavery only by enlisting in the service of foreign rulers
Forty years later, in the reign of William III and his successor, laws were enacted making it a crime for Catholics to teach or to have their children taught by Catholics, or even to send them abroad where they would be educated in Catholic schools. These laws, which remained in force for a hundred years, resulted in great illiteracy among the Catholics and intensified their hatred of English rule.
A Century of Horrors
rpHROUGrHOUT the century succeeding the < reign of William III, oppression followed
oppression. All Irish, regardless of faith, were ,’4 required to pay tithes for the support of the Church of England; penal laws were passed < against those who professed the Catholic religion ; priests were forbidden to travel outside of the county in which they lived; no Catholic could hold office, or acquire landed property, or “-j marry a Protestant. The absentee landlords lived in England. They toiled not, neither did they spin. If a tenant made improvements they raised his rent; if he refused to pay he was evicted. The natural result of these unjust practices and law's w'as that secret societies were formed and an underground method of ' devising ways and means to get along was put into effect, which is ruining the country at this very day. During the American Revolution, and from that time until now, the Irish have been allowed to own landed property, to erect schools, and to observe their own religion. J
With the progressive enlightenment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the laws affecting Ireland have become less rigorous in ’ some respects; and yet some very unjust regulations have been made. For example, at the behest of English woolen manufacturers a law was passed forbidding the sale of Irish woolens abroad and their sale in England only upon the ' ’ payment of an excessive duty. The direct object and effect of this law was the killing of -the Irish woolen trade.
The organic “union’’ of Ireland with England ■ w'as accomplished by chicanery. In the year 1800 a bribery fund of $8,000,000 was used in buying up the rotten boroughs which had a r majority of seats in the Irish House of Com-mens. On May 26th of that year the Act providing for the legislative union of the two 4 countries was passed; and the Irish parliament thus legislated itself out of existence.
In the year 1903 a great and earnest attempt w’as made to undo wrongs which had been per- / petuated for centuries. A fund of $500,000,000 --
was provided, from -which loans were made to farmers at a low rate of interest, enabling them „ to purchase their farms. This law also required ; the absentee landlords to sell at a reasonable 1 price. Surely a step in the right direction, but '-2 prompted by self-preservation.
The Secret Government
WITH the close of the World War the campaign for self-determination of peoples which spread all over the world reached Ireland, also; and there was a revival of the government by secret societies which has prevailed to a greater or less extent throughout the centuries of British occupation. All of our readers are familiar with the Sinn Fein movement and the outcome.
A number of assassinations, laid at the door of the Sinn Fein, caused the British government in the summer of 1920 to make the fatal mistake of issuing instructions tantamount to granting the British troops then in Ireland leave to take the law into their own hands. The ' campaign of lawlessness thus begun has not ceased, even though British authority in Southern Ireland is a thing of the past.
The two years from the summer of 1920 to the summer of 1922 were terrible years in Ireland. The Irish people were fighting for liberty by the peculiar methods of ambush and assassination in which they have been trained by the conditions under which they have lived for hundreds of years. The money was supplied from America, where bonds to the amount of $9,000,000 for the formation of an Irish Republic were sold openly while America and England were at peace. At length the situation became so intolerable to the British Government that its policy of force was abandoned.
Some time in the early summer Lloyd George summoned the Irish chieftains to London, and there entered into an agreement with the leader of the Irish army, Michael Collins, that Ireland should remain within the empire but be a free country like Canada. The matter was put to a vote of the Irish people, and by a large majority they approved the compact.
But a branch of the secret government refused to approve the treaty or to be bound by it; and since then the Irish government has been forced to fight for its own existence against some of the men who helped bring it into being. Mr. De Valera, the original head of the proposed Irish Republic, is the leader of the irreconcilables. In the meantime, the situation has become complicated by the out-and-out recognition of the Collins government by the Papacy and the threat to send to hell all who adhere to De Valera.
A Reign of Terror
MR. DE VALERA and his friends have seemed determined to celebrate their proposed advent in hell by having an “'orthodox” one here in advance. In July men supposed to belong to his faction ambushed a funeral party, killing one man and imprisoning eight others.
About the same time they seized and destroyed the great wireless station at Clifdcn. It is not known what possible motive could have inspired such an act of vandalism. Shortly afterward the Kerry cable offices were raided, and the cables put out of commission. Near Tralee a -work train was captured, the crew was taken off, a full head of steam was turned on, and the train at sixty miles an hour was allowed to run until it dashed into a station and wrecked itself, and the station as well. This is not warfare; it is not patriotism; it does not show common sense; it is anarchy.
The new government has had a stormy time. Its president, Arthur Griffith, died on August 12th; and only ten days later Michael Collins, the military head of the nation, was ambushed and killed at Bandon, County Cork. Organized murders have been common. In the latter part of October three lads between sixteen and eighteen years of age were found riddled with bullets in a disused quarry outside of Dublin. The murdering of boys is not -war.
Newspapers in some sections have been compelled to close down entirely, fearing to publish information of any kind. Emigration continues to take out of the country a people that dare not even use their own roads or "work their own fields. Experience, capacity, industry, and ability have become discouraged.
% fc -*■>
■S
I
£
.-»S
-$8
j?
■i
Influence of Rome
THE Roman Catholic church seems to be losing its hold on Ireland. De Valera’s forces have been in open defiance of the Pope’s expressed wishes. In Dublin, in October, a company of one hundred Catholic women and girls hissed Cardinal Logue, Archbishop Byrne, and a score of other bishops at a reception at the Mansion House. Nothing of the kind ever happened before. At this writing, 'the church is using all its influence with De Valera and his followers to induce them to discontinue their campaign of brigandage and to accept the Collins government. Reports seem to indicate some
<£
possibility of its success. If successful, the church’s hold upon the people will likely be strengthened; but if the De Valera campaign goes on and gains headway and finally overturns the government, the church will be in a bad way indeed.
In 1901 the religious census of Ireland was:
Roman Catholics..................—..........3,310,028
Protestant Episcopal ------------------------------ 57 9,385
Presbyterians .......... 443.494
Methodists............. 61,255
Other Faiths.................................. 50,703
Jews ............ - 3,7 69
In the six counties that go to make up the present Ulster government it is estimated that out of a total population of 1,250,000 the total number of Roman Catholics is 407,000.
Wherever the Roman Catholic church has a foothold, it lays claim to great power over those who remain in subjection to it. An illustration was furnished recently in Liverpool: The Reverend J. I. McKinley, a Roman Catholic priest of that city, upon receiving from his parishioners a gift of 500 guineas ($2,500) in cash, a set of cloth-of-gold vestments, a gold watch and a gold cross, made the statement, “1 used to tell the police during riots that with one little finger we could control more than they could with all their forces.” Apparently he thought that the rioters were nearly all Catholics; possibly so.
The Return to America
BOARDING the ship at Liverpool for the return journey to America, the traveler carried in his hands two packages, on each of which an “official” pasted an ugly red label marked, “Inspected and Passed.” As he did not do a particle of inspecting the traveler wondered what was back of it. His wonder increased when he found that two packages which a friend had carried aboard for him did not have the label. He inquired of the ship steward, and was informed that there was no cause for anxiety, that the pasting of the ugly labels means nothing at all, not one thing. It merely provides a job for one of Uncle Sam’s political henchmen; but it brings the country into contempt. Probably if the matter is looked up, it will be found that that label-paster gets a fine salary, his whole duty consisting of smearing labels on baggage which would look much better
J
without them. Why the United States should go so far out of its way to make itself ridiculous in the eyes of people who travel is a hard thing to comprehend.
The return journey, second class, afforded an opportunity to get acquainted with some very .. | fine people. One of these, an unusually witty ? and widely-read native of Manchester, England, -j will be long remembered. Acknowledging that. ? his countrymen, like Americans, are often mis- t understood, he quoted from some scamp of an . author who has unjustly said:
“Everybody loves an Irishman, but nobody respects , him; everybody respects a Scotchman, but nobody loves 7 him ; and when, you find somebody that nobody either ; loves or respects, mark him well. He is an Englishman.”
Just before the boat cast off into the Mersey 7 an aviator, advertising a popular magazine, . performed the splendid feat of writing the ■ name of the magazine in letters hundreds of feet high across the face of the sky. The writ- ' ing which was in smoke was perfectly legible— ■
exceedingly well written, in fact. All the letters • \ of the word “Answers” were perfectly formed.
The day before the boat reached New York a ' splendid specimen of whale was leaping and -■ rushing around in the ocean about a mile away^ being plainly visible for several minutes. On * some of his leaps he showed fully two-thirds of . his length out of the water; and as whales grow to be sixty to seventy-five feet long, and this was evidently of full size, it was a sight worth j seeing.
Shortly before arrival at New York there was an entertainment given by the passengers, the proceeds of which go to the seamen’s fund. The star singer, a young Scotchman, did very well with his first part on the program. When the time came for his second appearance, he could not be found at first. Finally he was located in the barroom, where he had gone to gather more courage. The result was a scream. He sang, “I stood on the bridge at midnight”; but you knew instinctively that if he did, it was only because he was hanging on to something. The ship swayed, but the singer swayed more. The audience began to laugh softly; and the maudlin singer began to weep. But he kept on singing with a time and a tune all his own. The pianist struggled bxavcly through the first verse, but was doubled up with laughter thereafter, hitting a key now and then just to show
■S.
’•2
that she had no hard feelings, but with no possible way of knowing how to accompany a man who was crying and singing and drawling out his screams all at once.
As the ship came up the harbor, late in the evening, docking at 11: 00 p. m., New York presented a beautiful sight. The young Irishmen, of whom there were about fifty on board, were overjoyed and tramped the deck in a solid company singing loudly together some of their old-country songs and manifesting their joy in every possible way at being so near America, the paradise of the Irish race—as well as other nationalities reared in a measure of slavery.
…