The Past and Coming Transid and Arctic Explorations. 315 



by all who admire our laisser aller system), they insisted not only on 

 sending over astronomers, but on positively inviting English astron- 

 omers (finding we had made no arrangements for observhig the eclipse) 

 to sail with their expedition to inaccessible Mediterranean regions. 

 However, supposing that in 1882 the attractions of the transit, as 

 observable at home, should prevent the Americans from visiting the 

 southern hemisphere in great strength, the duty will fall on European 

 nations. Germany and France may then, as last December, occupy 

 three or four southern myths. But three or four will not be enough. 

 England will be almost bound to share in the work. 



Then arises the question, where is England to send her observers in 

 those southern seas ? Unless new islands can be discovered there, no 

 positions worthy of her ancient fame will remain for her to occupy, 

 save precisely those Antarctic islands which were described, in 1868, 

 by one naval authority after another, as accessible, tenable and suit- 

 able, but, unfortunately, by the same authorities, in 1873, a* 

 inaccessible, untenable and unsuitable. Assuming, as we may not 

 unreasonably do, that the latter description meant only that it would 

 cost more time, trouble and money to occupy these regions, than any 

 conceivable astronomical result could repay, we are brought back to 

 the considerations which were urged oy the Astronomer Eoyal, as 

 long ago as 1865, m order to bring schemes of Antarctic explorations 

 favorably before the notice of geographers and naval authorities. 

 With these considerations I shall conclude, merely remarking that 

 whatever force his views had when presented, they have greatly 

 increased force, now that an Arctic expedition is in progress, the value 

 of the results obtained by which, would be far more than doubled by 

 a successful Antarctic expedition following close upon the successful 

 is.sue of that which has lately set forth. "I have learned," he wrote 

 to the President of the Geographical Society, "through the public 

 papers, the tenor of late discussions at the Royal Geographical Society, 

 in reference to the proposal for an expedition towards the North Pole. 

 I gather from these, that the object proposed, as bearing on science, is 

 not so much specific as general ; that there is no single point of very 

 great importance to be obtained, but a number of co-ordinate objects 

 whose aggregate would be valuable. And, I conclude, that the field is 

 still open for a proposal which would give opportunity for the determina- 

 tion of various results, corre-pouding in kind and importance to those 

 of the proposed Northern Expediiion, though in a difterent locality, 

 and would also give information on a point of great importance to 

 astronomy, which must be sought within a few years, and which it is 

 desirable to obtain as early as possible. In the year 18F2, on Decern- 



