352 THE PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 



the destinies of the P^ast, 3^)11 will lind it ahiiost impossible to look at 

 the well turned out maps of to-day, wondering" where next it may be 

 possible to strike a new feature or unfold a new vista to geographical 

 enterprise, without something like a sigh. But it is with the world as 

 we find it mapped to-day that we have now to do, searching out the 

 position of such l)laiik spaces as still exist and considering the best 

 means of dealing with the vast area of its half -exploited surface so as 

 to obtain the best results for the time and labor spent on completing 

 our knowledge of it. 



ANTARCTIC PROSPECTS. 



To the polar regions we naturally turn first, for they form the 

 special domain of modern initial exploration. We are very far yet 

 from having elucidated the great geographical problems of sea and 

 land distribution which lie hidden under the depths of paleocrystal 

 ice. We only know, indeed, from inference that at one end of the 

 world there exists an unmapped sea and at the other an unmapped 

 continent, round the edges of which we are even now feeling our wa}". 

 When the Discovery left the New Zealand port of Chalmers on Decem- 

 ber 24 last for the South Polar regions, this was the quest which, in 

 the modest language of her originator, Sir Clements Markham, lay 

 before her: "To determine as far as possible the nature and extent of 

 the South Polar lands" and to "conduct a magnetic surve3\'" If we 

 look at the unexplored area of these South Polar lands as a whole and 

 examine the plan of international geographical campaign which has 

 now been directed against them, we shall find, T think, that the pres- 

 ent enterprise is 1)y far the most complete and systematic, as it is the 

 most scientific, that has j^et been undertaken in the far south. It is 

 impossible but that great results should be attained from so complete 

 an investment of the unknown continent. 



With the Discorerys investigations, which will he directed to Vic- 

 toria Land — the land of the historic volcanoes Erebus and Terroi' — 

 from the side of Tasmania and New Zealand, will ln' associated at least 

 three otlusr expeditions, all aiming at a hnal solution of the South 

 Pole problem. From South America Otto NorchMiskiold's expedi- 

 tion has taken the shortest sea route past the South Shetlands to 

 Grahams Ijaiul and has ali'eady ])assed a winter amid the ice. From 

 South America, again, the Scottish expedition under Bruce will work 

 its way past Sandwich Island, skirting the Antarctic Circle, some 

 50-' to the east of Nordenskiold, almost on the Greenwich meridian 

 and as nearly opposite as possil)le to the I)/',sc(j/'('ry's attack from the 

 other side of the pole, while between the two will be the German 

 expedition of the (rau-%s, pushing southward about (lie meridian of 

 IM)'^ E., a worthy rival in scientitic (MjuipnuMit to our own shi]), the 

 Discovery. And there is no bi-anch of scientitic inquiry which will be 



