Antarctic Ownership

Explorers are flag planters. But Explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd in his flight across unexplored Antarctica to the South Pole last week dropped no emblems of U. S. sovereignty (see page 64). Domain over the ice-locked continent at Earth's bleak nadir seemed likely to be determined not by fur-clad flag-planters but by silk-hatted diplomats.

When the Byrd Expedition embarked more than a year ago, the British Government forwarded to the U. S. State Department a note expressing polite interest in the U. S. venture, but at the same time carefully detailing British claims to most of the Antarctic continent and surrounding archipelagoes.

Last month, after a year's delay, the State Department acknowledged receipt of the note, stated that there was no need for comment at this time. Implication of the U. S. note was that there would be time enough for Antarctic pie-cutting after the Byrd explorations were completed.

The Antarctic continent is a pie-shaped disk 5,000,000 sq. mi. in area, circled by a white crust of mountains 10,000 ft. high. It may contain valuable minerals or oil. Great Britain has a generally recognized claim to two segments of the pie. British Explorers James Clark Ross (1902), Robert Falcon Scott, (1902), Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1919) claimed their discoveries in the name of the British sovereign.

Norway, because of the Pole-discovering expedition of the late great Roald Amundsen (1911) and the establishment of whaling posts, would have a potent voice at any diplomatic gathering to discuss South Polar sovereignty.

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