152 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



The Royal Society's Subscription to the Antarctic 

 Exploration Fund. 



Mr. Alexander Sutherland, on behalf of the Council, 

 moved, " That the sum of £100 be subscribed out of the 

 funds of the Royal Society to the Antarctic Exploration 

 Fund." He said he would like to enlist the sympathies 

 of the Members of the Royal Society in favour of this 

 movement. With one or two trifling exceptions, such as 

 Northern Burmah and the back portions of some rivers of 

 Brazil, every part of the world had been properly explored, 

 but that near the South Pole, and this made a big blank 

 indeed in the map of the world, and left it lamentably 

 deficient. He would enlist the sympathies of the Members 

 in the proposed scheme from a purely scientific point of 

 view, purely for the love of science. Whale and seal 

 fisheries might find a place, so to speak, in the tail of the 

 movement ; but if they had a divided interest in the matter, 

 he thought the issue less likely to be satisfactory. Science, 

 if properly carried out, never was barren of results, but 

 those which followed, had generally been found to be the 

 very opposite to those which had been expected. He would, 

 therefore suggest, that they should go on simply for the 

 love of science, and leave the beneficial results to follow in 

 what shape they would. They had the chance of securing 

 the services of Baron Nordenskiold, and it would be a very 

 culpable thing if Australia Avere to let it slip. If Sweden, a 

 nation certainly not superior to our own in resources, had 

 done so much in the way of this class of exploration, surely 

 it would be a slur on Australia, if it did not do the same 

 amount of work for a region that lay close at hand. A 

 number of scientific problems were awaiting solution in the 

 Antarctic region, and there were probably 4000 or 5000 

 miles of coast to explore. It had been said that the South 

 Pole must be buried under a mass of twent}^ miles of solid 

 ice. If this could be proven, he thought it would appeal to 

 anyone as being well worth the expenditure of a few 

 thousand pounds to place such a fact upon a safe basis. 

 There were also many other phenomena to study, and in 

 short, we in Australia should be missing a very great chance 

 of assisting in the scientific exploration of the world, if this 

 scheme were not taken up. We should be also missing the 

 opportunity of putting into the national pulse a strong beat 

 of national life ; because he did not think that anything 



