THE LAST UNKNOWN
The last great unknown, the Antarctic continent, is being explored. The map on the front cover of this issue will allow you to follow the flights of the Wilkins and Byrd expeditions as they are reported in the daily press. Upon the base map prepared by the American Geographical Society there have been spotted the base camps of the two expeditions. The dotted area in Graham Land shows the approximate extent of snow and ice expanse explored by Wilkins and Eielson on their first flight of December 20, when they discovered that Graham Land is a series of islands and not a part of the continent. Capt. Sir George Hubert Wilkins and his party are based at Deception Island off the coast of Graham Land. Commander Richard E. Byrd and his party are to be based at the Bay of Wales, the point on the Antarctic continent from which Amundsen began his trip to the first attainment of the South Pole.
ROCK BLISTERS FORMED CONTINENTS
Immense blisters of molten rock, 30 to 100 miles below the surface of the earth, several hundred miles across and sometimes a million cubic miles in volume, taking several million years to form and burst, are the cause of continents forming on the earth, Prof. Bailey Willis of Stanford University postulated in his address as president of the Geological Society of America.
The compression of the interior of the earth by gravity is the source of heat that melts the rock to form these fluid masses, Prof. Willis explained in announcing this new idea of continental origin and development. Concentrations of the heat generated by the immense pressures, at places amounting to over twenty million pounds per square inch, occur under the surface layers of the earth and create the great blisters of molten material, to which Prof. Willis gives the name "asthenoliths."