POLAR GEOGRAPHY BROWN" 375 



lation is Spitsbergen, and there manufactures may develop in rela- 

 tion to the gypsum and metallic ores. 



The Antai'ctic has no human problems comparable with those of 

 the Arctic. It is true that whaling has recently invaded the Ant- 

 arctic, with the vessels in the Ross Sea, not to mention the sub- 

 Antarctic whaling in South Georgian and Falkland waters. But 

 this can be little more than a passing phase. Already some species 

 of whales show signs of depletion of numbers, and unless whaling is 

 so rigorously shackled by regulations as to make it of little profit 

 compared with the risk it entails the industry must kill itself in a few 

 years' time. For the rest there is nothing of value in commerce in 

 the Antarctic — certainly nothing that it can possibly pay to exploit. 

 The stories of future Antarctic coal mines can be dismissed as a 

 dream without any solid foundation. It is fortunate. And those of 

 us who care for the wild waste spaces of the world are glad to think 

 of the Antarctic as free from invasion by our modern civilization 

 with its insistence on hurry and noise. We are glad to remember the 

 lonely places of the world and their matchless beauty, content to 

 know that to others they will bring the same fascination they did to 

 us in years gone by. 



