president's address. 159 



this point. Though penguins exist in countless numbers they are 

 at present of no commercial value. Deposits of guano are not 

 likely to be of great extent. But it is impossible to speak with 

 confidence on the commercial aspects of such an expedition — the 

 unexpected may quite well happen in the way of discovery." 



With regard to the whales seen by Ross in the Antarctic ocean, 

 Sir William H. Flower said {(>p. cit. p. 34) : " The only right 

 whale which has hitherto been found in the south is the l)lack 

 whale, which, if it exists in sufficient numbers, is profitable, and 

 has yielded a great deal in former times, and was dififused pretty 

 nearly all around the Southern Hemisphere, l^eing once abundant 

 off the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and ISTew Zealand, and I 

 have no doubt is the species seen in Sir James Ross' expedition 

 further south." 



Dr. Murray thus sums up the work of a modern Antarctic 

 expedition : "To determine the nature and extent of the 

 Antarctic continent, to penetrate into the interior, to ascertain the 

 depth and nature of the ice-cap, to observe the character of the 

 underlying rocks and their fossils, to take magnetic and meteoro- 

 logical observations both at sea and on land, to observe the tem- 

 perature of the ocean at all depths and seasons of the j^ear, to 

 take pendulum observations on land, to bore through the deposits 

 on the floor of the ocean at certain points to ascertain the condi- 

 tion of the deeper layers, and to sound, trawl, dredge, and study 

 the character of marine organisms." 



Professor Neumayer says : " It is certain that without an 

 examination and a survey of the magnetic properties of the 

 Antarctic regions, it is utterly hopeless to strive, with prospects of 

 success, at the advancement of the theory of the earth's 

 magnetism." It is certain also that without a knowledge of the 

 geograph}^ and meteorology of the Antarctic regions no weather 

 predictions for any part of the globe, much less for the Southern 

 Hemisphere, can be considered absolutely reliable, however 

 wisely they may have been forecasted. 



All these expressions of opinion on the part of leaders of 

 modern scientific thought as to the desirability of an expedition 



