POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
SUMNER N. BLOSSOM, Editor
December,
1923
Will the ZR-1 Discover a Polar Paradise?
In the issue of POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for November, 1920, the prophesy was made that a "huge dirigible of the Zeppelin type will enable the explorer of the future to study the geography of the poles in a really scientific way." Now this promise is to be fulfilled in the projected transpolar flight of the new navy dirigible next summer. What will be the outcome?
Commander Green's entrancing picture of a balmy polar paradise represents, he says, simply a tremendous possibility of arctic aeronautic exploration. In this article he sets forth the facts as he has gathered them. Whether you agree with this theory or not, you will find it absorbingly fascinating.
By Lieutenant-Commander Fitzhugh Green, U.S.N.
In the proposed transpolar flight of the huge new
navy
dirigible, the ZR-1 (the Shenandoah), next summer, lies the
most
thrilling possibility that ever faced a single body of
explorers;
In the center of the unknown area of
the Polar Sea may be discovered
a vast continent heated by subterranean
fires, and inhabited by the descen-
dants of the last Norwegian colony of
Greenland!
So wild is the idea as to tax the most
gullible imagination. Yet it is
vividly encouraged and supported not only by
history and tradition,
but by the searching test of scientific
analysis.
Witness the astounding
facts:
Within the boundaries of the Polar Sea spreads
the greatest unexplored
area on the surface of the globe: 1,000,000 square
miles on which no human
eye has gazed! Look at the map on page 31. Most of
this enormous wilder-
ness lies on the Alaskan side of the Pole. On the
European side lies Iceland
at a point corresponding roughly to the center of
the unknown area oppo-
site it across the top of the world. This fact is
significant. Experts are in
nearly unanimous agreement that a new arctic land
will be found by the
ZR-1. Doctor Harris, the tidal expert in Washington, D.
C., long ago
declared that the data he had worked out from polar ocean
currents all
convinced him that the existence of a large land-mass near the
North Pole
is indisputable.