president's address SECTION E. 131 



reseaiches have to be conducted, while the greatest caution has to 

 be exercised to differentiate between those changes arising from 

 the spontaneous action of nature and the changes produced by 

 human agency. A knowledge of all these facts of science must 

 be acquired before we can boast that we know all about the globe 

 we inhabit. At present we are but standing on the threshold of 

 this great knowledge. The full accomplishment of the task will 

 be the heritage of future generations, "■ when fellow- workers from 

 all jDarts of the globe will meet to write the grand book embodying 

 the sum of human knowledge." Upon scientists in Australasia 

 devolves the duty of collecting some of the data for that book, and 

 I cannot therefore conclude without asking the members of the 

 Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science to mark 

 the large area of the earth's surface that lies so near at hand, and 

 which presents a virgin field for exploration and scientific investi- 

 gation, namely, the region encircling the Antarctic pole. 



It is now more than eight years since that leader among botanists. 

 Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, reawoke the mind of the scien- 

 tific world to the need for following up the discoveries of Captain 

 Jas. Clarke Ross, R.N., in the vicinity of Victoria Land; and simul- 

 taneously my attention was called to the important question of 

 Antai'ctic exploration by a lady present at this meeting, who, when 

 a girl, stood on the decks of the JErebiis and Terror on their return 

 to Hobart. Under that impulse,* the Councils of the Victorian 

 Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia and the 

 Royal Society of Victoria appointed an Antarctic Committee, to act 

 in conjunction with the societies in the other colonies, for the pur- 

 pose of raising a fund to fit out a scientific expedition, and to 

 arouse public attention, both in Australasia and Europe, to the 

 valuable sources of national wealth which such an expedition would 

 reveal by the discovery of whaling and sealing grounds in the 

 Antarctic seas. Nor has this committee (of which Commander 

 Pasco, R.N., F.R.G.S., is president, Mr. G. S. Griffiths is an 

 enthusiastic member, and the Rev. W. Potter. F.R.G.S., hon. 

 secretary) ever flagged in prosecuting the work assigned to it. In 

 compliance with an offer made to the committee by Barons Nor- 

 denskjold and Dickson, a Swedish-Australasian Scientific Antarctic 

 Exploring Expedition was projected, and several subscriptions to 

 the expedition fund were promised, notably one of £5,000 from the 

 great Sou^th Australian Maecenas. Owing, however, to the severe 

 commercial depression, already alluded to, only a very small portion 

 of the Australasian subscriptions were paid into the Antarctic Com- 

 mittee by the end of 1892, and consequently^ Barons Dickson and 

 Nordenskjold withdrew their offer of co-operation, and the project 

 of a purely scientific expedition has had to be abandoned, for the 



*The owners of the four vessels which foi-nied the Artarctic sealing fleet, at a meeting 

 held in Dundee vesterdav, agreed to form a limited liability company with a capital of 

 £60,000.— TAe Dundee Advertiser, Wednesday, July 5th, 1893. 



