48 THE ANTAECTIC VOYAGE : PEELIMINARIES 



empty pickle bottles were all we had, and rum as a pre- 

 servative from the ship's stores. 



The epic days of scientific exploration began when Banks 

 and his men joined Cook on his first voyage. To this epoch 

 still belong the voyages of Darwin in the Beagle and of 

 Hooker in the ErehiLS. But the expedition to the Antarctic, 

 which was to give Hooker his first great opportunity, was not 

 intended simply to be a search for new lands nor a mere * dash 

 to the Pole.' Geographical discovery was subsidiary to its 

 main scientific purpose — that of filling up the wide blanks 

 in the knowledge of terrestrial magnetism in the Southern 

 hemisphere, especially in the higher latitudes. 



Much had already been done in the Northern hemisphere 

 since Halley in 1701 drew up the first chart of the variations 

 of the compass, based upon the observations made during a 

 voyage of discovery sent out by the English Government. 

 Finally, thanks to Humboldt ,i a chain of magnetic obser- 

 vatories had been established in Germany and the Eussian 

 Empire in 1827, and extended by the famous physicist Gauss,^ 

 in 1834, all over Europe, where simultaneous observations were 

 constantly made. It was needful to perfect the charts not only 

 of variation, but of dip and magnetic intensity, elements which 

 were already known to be in a constant state of fluctua- 



^ Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was the leading naturalist 

 and traveller of his day. His books inspired Darwin with the desire to 

 travel. He spent five years in Spanish America from 1799 to 1804 ; the 

 arrangement and publication of his collections and notes took twenty years, 

 which he spent in Paris, where he had the assistance of Cuvier, Gay-Lussac, 

 and others. Then in 1829 he undertook an expedition through Russian Asia 

 for the Emperor Nicholas, which lasted nine months. 



His most famous work was Cosmos, a survey of the physical sciences and 

 their interrelation (1845-58). His great interest in geography and exploration 

 of the still unknown tracts of the world, the configuration of the country, 

 climate, the distribution of life, was an interest in which Hooker shared, and 

 which drew them together in Paris in 1845 ; for though he was then settled 

 at Berlin, he was frequently sent to Paris on political missions. 



2 J. K. F. Gauss (1777-1855), Professor of Mathematics and Director of 

 the Observatory at Gottingen, was a mathematician of singular brilliance, 

 equally distinguished in astronomical research, geodesy, and the problems 

 arising out of the earth's magnetic properties, inventing, among other instru- 

 ments, the declination needle. He was responsible for the foundation of the 

 Magnetic Association, in connection with whose work Ross's expedition was 

 sent out. 



