UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF ANTARCTIC 

 EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH 



Sir Douglas Mawson 



Geographical knowledge concerning the Antarctic is yet ex- 

 ceedingly fragmentary — far more so than those unfamiliar with the 

 subject are likely to realize. This impression of geographical ac- 

 complishment and of geographical exploration and achievement 

 around the south pole has resulted from the publication during recent 

 years of maps incorporating not only the limited extent of known 

 coast line but actually outlining a hypothetical continent. The latter 

 has been arrived at by joining up the already discovered isolated 

 areas by a somewhat indefinite boundary where in the opinion of the 

 particular author the margin of the land is likely to be situated. 



The charting of the coast line of the south polar lands has now 

 been accomplished through less than 150 degrees of longitude. But 

 much of this is, as yet, only roughly located on the map. Therefore, 

 the land still remains to be outlined through considerably more than 

 half the circumference of the globe in those latitudes. 



The completion of this work, merely in a broad and general fashion, 

 must be of prime importance in the further unraveling of the problems 

 of the Antarctic. In the achievement of this fundamental proposi- 

 tion the labors of many successive expeditions will be required. 



Probable Continentality of Antarctic Land Mass 



By degrees, the probable existence in that region of a land of con- 

 tinental proportions, largely overridden by ice, has come to be fairly 

 generally recognized by geographers. This agreement did not exist 

 some few years ago when I published^ sketches suggesting the exist- 

 ence of a continuous mass of land and land ice in the polar area. For, 

 in private communications, several leading geographers of the time 

 held that, on the contrary, the area would be more likely to prove an 

 archipelago of islands, separated by arms of the sea, as is the case in 

 the North American sector of the Arctic. Such ideas, based on the 

 scrappy distribution of coast line on the map as known at that date, 

 were readily entertained by those whose polar experience had been 



'Douglas Mawson: The Australasian Antarctic Expedition, Geogr. Journ., Vol. 37, 1911, pp. 

 609-620, with two maps: (i) South Polar regions, with the Antarctic Continent drawn to illustrate the 

 probable topography as deduced from present available data, i : 40,000,000, facing p. 700; (2) Supposed 

 Antarctic Continent: Alternative configuration to that shown on the general map, i: 50,000,000, on 

 p. 613. 



