120 RETURN OF THE ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



system wonltl be likely to procluee far more important results, 

 owing to the much greater simplicity of the meteorological 

 conditions, and the consequent probability that such observa- 

 tions would lead to a fuller understtinding of the laws 

 regulating the phenomenn. It is obvious that such a set of 

 observing stations on land would, co-operate most importantly 

 with any simultaneously conducted voyages of observation 

 outside the pack ice area, for investigation of the phenomena 

 of floating ice and oceanic currents and temperature, and 

 that such co-oper.ition would be mutual. It would extend 

 not only to the gathering in of the scientific harvest, but to 

 many points of practical convenience besides. I may also 

 remark that observations of ice and current seem likely to have 

 a bearing no less considerable than that of direct meteorological 

 phenomena upon the problems of our climate and weather, 

 problems of an importance highly practical as well as theo- 

 retical. It seems diflficult to resist the impression that the 

 rainfall of the southern half of Australia, of Tasmania and 

 New Zealand — not to mention South Africa and South 

 America — must in its seasonal variations be largely influenced 

 oy the movements of the Antarctic ice ; movements which 

 we already know have the effect of causing large alterations, 

 year by year, in the areas of open water — and perhaps, too, 

 in the temperature of the water — whence our rain is derived 

 by evaporation. If meteorological science, through such 

 observations as I have referred to, ever arrives at the point 

 when forecasts of our seasonal rainfall could be made 12, or 

 even six months in advance, it is difficult to over estimate the 

 pecuniary benefit that would accrue to the leading industries 

 of Australasia. 



I have left myself no time to do more than just mention 

 two of the most important of the other scientific domains cer- 

 tain to be extended by Antarctic research. These are Biology, 

 especially Marine Biology, and the science of Terrestrial 

 magnetism The former was one of the principal objects of 

 that great national undertaking, the cruise of the Challenger, 

 which may be said to have inaugurated a new province of 

 knowledge which has since been extended in a surprising 

 way by the efforts of all the leading countries of the world, 

 and which at the present time needs for its further develop- 

 ment — perhaps more than anything else — the pushing forward 

 of investigation into more southern regions. With regard to 

 Terrestrial magnetism, we may bear in mind that its study 

 formed the chief aim of the voyages of the Erebus and Terror, 

 voyages which most people think of mainly in connection 

 with geographical discoveries in the region from which Mr. 

 Borchgrevink and his companions have just returned, but in 

 which those discoveries formed only an incident. Although 

 appealing but slightly, if at all, to " the practical man," to 



