244 ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION. 



Australian colonies, fitted out with all the most modern 

 appliances which naval science can suggest, so as 

 to penetrate as far as possible towards the Southern 

 Pole; but, up to the time of writing these lines, the 

 proposition has taken no definite form, and nothing of 

 a practical nature has been done to carry out the 

 suggestion : probably in consequence of doubts expressed 

 by the naval authorities, as to whether any useful 

 results would be likely to accrue, sufficient to warrant 

 the risk and expense, which it is estimated would amount 

 to at least 15,000 before any attempt could be made 

 to penetrate into these stormy and inhospitable regions, 

 where all existing knowledge seems to warrant the 

 belief that the cold is more intense, and the climate 

 in every way more rigorous, than it is in corresponding 

 situations within the Northern Polar Zone : so imperfect 

 indeed is our knowledge of even this last-named region, 

 which has been the objective of innumerable expeditions 

 for centuries past, that the last edition of the Encyclopedia 

 Britannica has thought itself warranted in summing 

 up the results attained by them, for so far, in the 

 following terms: 



" Our ignorance of about three millions of square miles, within 

 the North Polar Circle, debars us from the possibility of con- 

 sidering the physical geography of the Polar regions as a 

 whole." * 



That being so, and our knowledge of the antarctic 

 regions being infinitely more scanty, we venture to think 

 we need make no further apology to our readers for 

 calling this section of our work " The Arctic Zone" with- 

 out special mention of the Southern Polar Regions. 



At the same time it is not a little remarkable from 



* Encycl. Brit., gth Edit., Vol. xix, p. 327. 



