1132 REPORT—1885. 
10. The Portuguese Possessions in West Africa. By H. H. Jounston. 
11. North-west Australia. By J. G. BartHoLomew. 
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. Antarctic Research. 
By Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney, O.B., F.R.S., F.R.GS. 
The object of this paper was to draw attention to the neglect of the Antarctic 
region as a field for exploration. The author gave a summary of the work which 
has already been done by Cook, Bellingshausen, Weddell, Biscoe, Balleny, Wilkes, 
Dumont d’Urville, James Ross, and Nares (in the Challenger), and referred to 
a paper by Dr. Neumayer on the subject, the substance of which was repro- 
duced in ‘ Nature,’ vol. vii. The author concluded as follows :—‘ I have thus laid 
before you but a very imperfect description of these voyages; to give the details of 
the scientific results would occupy a separate paper. But I have endeavoured to 
demonstrate how large a field remains open for discovery. I think, from all we 
now know, we may infer that the South Pole is capped by an eternal glacier ; and, 
from the nature of the soundings obtained by Ross, it would appear that the 
great ice-wall along which the ships navigated was the termination of the glacier— 
the source from which the inexhaustible supply of icebergs and ice-islands are 
launched into the Southern Ocean, many of which drift to the low latitude of 
42°, The tact of finding the volcanoes of equal proportions to Etna or Mont 
Blanc creates a zest for further research regarding that awful region on which 
neither man nor quadruped ever existed. No man has ever wintered in the 
Antarctic zone. The great desideratum now before us requires that an expedition 
should pass a winter there, in order to compare the conditions and phenomena with 
our Arctic knowledge. The observations and data to be collected there through- 
out one year could not fail to produce matter of the deepest importance to all 
branches of science. I believe that such an achievement can be accowplished in 
these days with ships properly designed and fitted with the means of steam pro- 
pulsion ; nor is it chimerical to conceive a sledge party travelling over the glacier 
of Victoria Land towards the South Pole, after the example of Nordenskjéld in 
Greenland. 
‘ Another interesting matter requires investigation, from the fact that all the 
thermometers supplied for deep-sea temperatures to Ross were faulty in construc- 
tion, as they were then not adapted to register accurately beneath the weighty 
oceanic pressure. Moreover, another magnetic survey is most desirable, in order to 
determine what secular change has been made in the elements of terrestrial 
magnetism after an interval of forty years and more, when taken by Ross. In fact, 
there exists a wide field open for investigation in the unknown South Polar Sea. 
This paper will, I trust, be the prelude for others to follow in arousing geographers 
and this powerful Association in promoting further research by despatching another 
South Polar expedition, having for its object to secure a wintering station. No 
other nation is so capable of providing and carrying it out. Even in the Australian 
colonies there exists the spirit and the means for such a noble enterprise.’ And he 
also directs the public attention to the fact that the only scientific information yet 
procured in the South Polar region within the Antarctic circle is limited to the 
observations collected by the only expedition ever despatched from this nation 
expressly for scientific research. 
