406 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



named in the old voyages. " Thus the discoveries in the 

 South Sea would be complete." Cook had sketched the 

 outline of his second voyage. 

 Banks Banks, in more free and easy style, reached the same 



doubts conclusion. The Endeavour had. he claimed, sailed over 



the reason 

 about the three-quarters of the continent of "the theoretical 



thetwo ng f continent-makers." " As for the reason about the balanc- 

 poles," ing of the two poles, which always seemed to me a most 



childish argument, we have already shorn off so much 

 of the supposed counter-balance in land, that, by their 

 own account, the South Pole would already be too light, 

 unless what we have left should be made of very ponderous 

 materials." Had the despised "continent-makers" read' 

 the records of recent Antarctic exploration, they would 

 have been able to make, if not a good, at least a plausible 

 reply to Banks's taunt. " A gigantic table-land, as 

 extensive as Europe and Australia put together, and 

 with an average height of 6,000 feet, is surely," they might 

 have urged, " a pretty ponderous makeweight. Our 

 only mistake was that we built our continent too flat, and 

 therefore too extensive. Exploration has proved, as we 

 always said it would, the soundness of our theory that 

 there must be a weighty continent in the South." Thus 

 the continent-makers might plausibly have argued ; and 

 yet, it seems, their argument would have been ill-based. 

 A continent, and even a mountainous continent, say our 

 modern geologists, is not a particularly weighty affair. 

 The Himalayas rise to heaven, not because they are heavy 

 but because they are light mere handfuls of dust when 

 compared with the metal stuffs which drag down the 

 ocean-bed. There is due weight in the South, but it lies 

 under water. 1 



Banks, however, was still "continent-monger" enough 

 to believe firmly in the existence of a Southern continent, 

 though much smaller than that imagined by the theorists. 

 There was the ice South of Cape Horn, and ice means 



1 These statements are based on information kindly given me by my 

 friends, Professor T. W. E. David and Professor L. A. Cotton. See 

 note, p. 95. 



