864 Captain Rolert F. Scott [May 27, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 27, 1910. 



The Right Hon. Sir Henry Burton Buckley, B.C. M.A., 

 Yice-Bresident, in the Chair. 



Captain Robert F. Scott, C.Y.O. R.N. D.Sc. F.R.G.S. 



The Forthcoming Antarctic Expedition. 



In setting forth the plans of the coming Antarctic Expedition, I am 

 anxious to give such information as will enable those who have a close 

 or personal "interest in the enterprise to picture our doings during those 

 long months when we must necessarily be cut off from communication 

 with the world. At the same time I am too familiar with the un- 

 expected happenings on such a venture to suppose that plans can be 

 exactly or even closely followed, and I do not wish it to be supposed 

 that I have failed to contemplate the possibility of circumstances which 

 may upset some, if not all, calculations, and cause the results of the 

 expedition to be very different from those which I am now attempting 

 to foreshadow. 



There is, unfortunately, a sharp difference of opinion as to the 

 value of Bolar exploration, and as to the results of Folar expeditions. 

 The general public, whose knowledge of such matters is derived from 

 the sensational press, can count success only in degrees of latitude, 

 and hitherto it has been content to accept little more than bare asser- 

 tion in support of such claims. On the other hand, there have been 

 those better informed, and even eminent men, who have held or have 

 affected a contempt for all result but that which accrues from the 

 more advanced scientific study of the regions visited. 



Within these limits there is every shade of opinion as to the 

 relative value of the objects to be pursued, and beyond them there is, 

 and I fear will ever remain, the class which sees no good at all in 

 Bolar exploration. Excepting this last, I would express the opinion 

 that there is much to be said for all points of view. 



I submit that the effort to reach a spot on the surface of the globe 

 which has hitherto been untrodden by human feet, unseen by human 

 eyes, is in itself laudable ; and when the spot has been associated for 

 so long a time with the imaginative ambitious of the civilised world, 

 and when it possesses such a unique geographical position as a pole 

 of the Earth, there is something more tlian mere sentiment, something 

 more than an appeal to our sporting instinct in its attainment ; it 

 appeals to our national pride and the maintenance of great traditions, 

 and its quest becomes an outward visible sign that we are still a nation 



