ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION. 213 



records by reaching the latitude of 78°. On his own lines Ross's work 

 was magnificent. His magnetic survey has not been equalled in 

 the Antarctic; his southern record was not passed until 1900; his dis- 

 covery of Victoria Land and Mounts Erebus and Terror were geo- 

 graphical results of high importance. But Eoss's range of interest 

 was narrow ; he did not land on the main land he discovered, and would 

 not let his doctor, McCormick; he advanced erroneous theories of 

 oceanic circulation, assigned wrong temperatures to the sea water, 

 owing to misunderstanding his thermometers; he told us practically 

 nothing of the geology of the Antarctic lands, for the few pebbles he 

 brought back were neglected until they were recently unearthed and 

 described by Mr. Prior. 



After the voyage of Eoss there was a long interval before- serious 

 work in the Antarctic was renewed. Sealers and whalers made minor 

 geographical discoveries, and the voyage of the 'Challenger' in 1874 

 showed that the Antarctic sea is full of scientific interest. But it was 

 not until 1885 and 1886 that the papers of Professor G-. Neumayer, 

 now of Hamburg, and formerly director of the Flagstaff Observatory 

 at Melbourne, and of Sir John Murray roused fresh interest in Antarctic 

 research. Since then the voyages of some Dundee and Norwegian 

 sealers, of the 'Antarctic' and 'Southern Cross' in Victoria Land and 

 the Eoss Sea, and of the 'Belgica' to the south of the Atlantic have 

 made important additions to our Antarctic knowledge. 



11. The Four Antarctic Expeditions. 



Now, in the year 1901, four expeditions are starting for the 

 Antarctic: an English expedition under Commander E. F. Scott, E. 

 N., in the 'Discovery,' with Mr. G. E. Murray, F.E.S., as head of the 

 civilian scientific stafl:; a German expedition under Professor E. von 

 Drygalski in the 'Gauss'; a Swedish expedition under Dr. Otto 

 Nordenskjold in the 'Antarctic/ and a Scotch expedition under Mr. 

 W. S. Bruce. 



The four expeditions will work as far as possible on a common plan, 

 but in different areas. The 'Discovery' will start from New Zealand 

 and go thence into the Eoss Sea, which will be its central field of work. 

 The German expedition will go south from Kerguelen to the western 

 end of Wilkes Land, geographically the least known part of the 

 Antarctic; its route will depend on the geography of the area, but the 

 idea is to work southwestward toward the Weddell Sea, south of the 

 Atlantic. The Swedish and Scotch expeditions both go to the South 

 Atlantic. 



The work of these expeditions will depend primarily on the geo- 

 graphical character of their fields of operation. The Antarctic area 

 includes three main geographical divisions, (1) Wilkes and Victoria 



