110 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



Among those who have interested themselves more par- 

 ticularly with this question is Dr. Neumayer, who has brought 

 it to the consideration of the 'Academy of Science of Vienna 

 and the Academy of Science of Pesth ; and there is now some 

 reason to believe that the Austro-IIungarian empire will take 

 up the subject at an early day, and dispatch an expedition, 

 both for the purpose of scientific discovery and also for ascer- 

 taining whether an astronomical station for the observation 

 of the phenomenon referred to can be obtained. In addition 

 to the points already selected namely, Kerguelen Land and 

 Auckland Islands a third is especially desirable in the very 

 region where there is the most probability of penetrating to 

 a high latitude. 



For a number of years scientific inquiry was quite rife to- 

 ward and in the antarctic circle, discovery following discov- 

 ery in quite rapid succession. The most brilliant period was 

 that extending from 1838 to 1843, when three great national 

 expeditions, under the command of Admiral D'Urville for 

 France, Sir James Ross for England, and Captain Wilkes for 

 the United'States, prosecuted their researches. It is hardly 

 necessary to attempt a summary of what was accomplished 

 by those intrepid navigators, or to discuss the question as to 

 whether the lands discovered by Captain "VVilkes were conti- 

 nental or insular. One discovery of great moment, by Sir 

 James Ross, was that of active volcanoes in South Victoria 

 Land having a height of 12,000 feet, access to which was 

 barred by a wall of solid ice 200 feet in height, along which 

 he sailed for hundreds of miles without finding an opportuni- 

 ty to penetrate farther into the interior. Since 1843, with 

 the single exception of the voyage of the Pagoda, under Cap- 

 tain Moore, in 1845, little, if any thing, has been done to ex- 

 tend the area of research beyond the critical collation of log- 

 books of sailors with a view to determine the precise nature 

 of the ocean currents and the temperature of the sea, from 

 which, however, important generalizations have been derived. 



Of late years, as already stated, renewed attention has been 

 directed toward the antarctic lands, largely in consequence 

 of the publications of the Meteorological Institute of the 

 Netherlands, in which it is shown that the current of warm 

 water which comes from the Straits of Mozambique, and is 

 known further south as the Agulhas Stream, does not, as orig- 



