2/4 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



ponding to the centre of one of the three great southern 

 oceans say to the south of Kerguelen Land and a 

 line of soundings should be carried north and south as 

 nearly as may be.' And it need hardly be said that 

 observations of meteorological and magnetic phenomena 

 in the southern seas will not be neglected. 



It will be seen that direct Antarctic exploration will 

 not be attempted. No effort will be made to penetrate 

 within the ice-barrier to which these instructions refer as 

 to some line of demarcation separating the known from 

 the unknown. Nor would it be easy, perhaps, to assign 

 any sufficient reason for the renewal, by a scientific ex- 

 pedition, of those arduous explorations in which Wilkes, 

 d'Urville, and (especially) the younger Eoss, discovered 

 all that is known about the Antarctic ice-barrier. There 

 was much, indeed, in the results obtained by Eoss to in- 

 vite curiosity on the one hand, and on the other to show 

 that the Antarctic regions can be penetrated successfully 

 in certain directions. It seems far from unlikely that 

 other openings exist by which the southern pole may be 

 approached, than that great bay, girt round by steep 

 and lofty rocks, where Eoss made his nearest approach 

 to the southern magnetic pole. I shall presently 

 indicate reasons for believing that the Antarctic as 

 well as the Arctic regions are occupied by an archi- 

 pelago ice-bound, indeed, during the greater part of 

 the year but nevertheless not altogether impenetrable 

 during the Antarctic summer. Yet there is little to 

 encourage any attempts to explore this region otherwise 

 than in ships specially constructed to encounter its 

 dangers. 



