364 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



accept it. And after all, high endeavor in the strenuous field of 

 polar exploration has a value of its own, even if that value be not 

 scientific. It is, however, unfortunate that in recent years more than 

 one expedition has been successful in raising funds, and others have 

 attempted to do so, for programs that were little else than spectacu- 

 lar and bore the smallest prospect of useful work. This is to be 

 deplored because it diverts funds from earnest work and sometime^ 

 even brings discredit on polar exploration. Every serious worker in 

 polar research must regret the entry in the field, from time to time, 

 of men who have few qualifications for the task and see in it merely 

 an opening for spectacular notoriety or a measure of financial gain 

 by means of dramatic cinematograph films and newspaper articles. 



I have tried to show that even if pioneer journeys have not endexi, 

 exploration is entering on a new phase, that of fixed stations of at 

 least a year's duration and preferably longer, where detailed re- 

 searches in meteorology, biology, and other branches of science can 

 be pursued. Many years ago Denmark led the way with such a 

 station at Disko in Greenland. Norway has at least one permanent 

 meteorological station in Spitsbergen, but the only permanent station 

 in the Antarctic regions is the Argentine Observatory at the South 

 Orkneys, founded in 1903 by W. S. Bruce, unless we look upon the 

 temporary marine laboratory of the Falkland Islands government at 

 South Georgia as an Antarctic station. There is room for more, and 

 it is to be hoped that some day there will be at least an oceanographi- 

 cal laboratory in the Arctic land, only a few days' sail from our 

 shores, western Spitsbergen. 



Meanwhile, we welcome the stimulus to real polar research afforded 

 by the Polar Research Institute at Cambridge and the new interest in 

 polar exploration evinced by the recent successful Cambridge expe- 

 dition to east Greenland and no less valuable Oxford expedition in 

 Northeast Land two years earlier. Such expeditions fill in details 

 that were overlooked in the age of pioneer journeys when the 

 scientific problems awaiting solution were not formulated. They can 

 in one season accomplish as much as the older expeditions did in a 

 year. We may look for useful work from the Cambridge expedition 

 now engaged in the survey of the little-lmown Edge Island, Spits- 

 bergen. Nor must we forget that for some years now the Royal 

 Canadian Mounted Police in their patrols between their far-flung 

 Arctic posts have been quietly conducting useiul explorations. The 

 excellent work of the Danes in Greenland should also be noted, and 

 especially the exhaustive work on the Eskimo which K. Rasmussen 

 has extended westward to Bering Strait. Norway also is filling in 

 the details omitted by earlier explorers in Spitsbergen and publish- 

 ing a series of valuable monographs on that country. 



