TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 663 



Antmxtic Prospects. 



To the Polar regions we naturally turn first, for they form the special domain 

 of modern initial exploration. We are Tery far yet from having elucidated the 

 great geographical problems of sea and land distribution which lie hidden under 

 the depths of palseocrystal ice. We only know indeed from inference that at one 

 end of the world there exists an unmapped sea, and at the other an unmapped 

 continent, round the edges of which we are even now feeling our way. When the 

 'Discovery' left Port Lyttelton, New Zealand, on December 24 last for the 

 South Polar regions, this was the quest which, in the modest language of her 

 originator, Sir Clements Markham, lay before her: 'To determine as far 

 as possible the nature and extent of the South Polar lands' and to 'conduct a 

 magnetic survey.' If we look at the unexplored area of these South Polar lands as 

 a whole and examine the plan of international geographical campaign which has 

 now been directed against them, we shall find, I think, that the present enterprise 

 is by far the most complete and systematic, as it is the most scientific, that has 

 yet been undertaken in the Far South. It is impossible but that great results 

 should be attaned from so complete an investment of the unknown continent. 



AVith the ' Discovery's ' investigations, which will be directed to Victoria Land — 

 the land of the historic volcanoes Erebus and Terror — from the side of Tasmania 

 and New Zealand, will be associated at least three other expeditions, all aiming 

 at a final solution of the South Pole problem. From South America Otto Nor- 

 denskiold's expedition has taken the shortest sea route past the South Shetlands 

 to Graham's Land, and has already passed a winter amidst the ice. From South 

 America, again, the Scottish expedition under Bruce will work its way past the 

 Sandwich Islands, skirting the Antarctic Circle, some fifty degrees to the east of 

 Nordenskiold, almost on the Greenwich meridian, and as nearly opposite as pos- 

 sible to the ' Diseovei-y's ' attack from the other side of the Pole; whilst between 

 the two will be the German expedition of the ' Gauss,' pushing southward about 

 the meridian of 90° E., a worthy rival in scientific equipment to our own ship 

 the * Discovery.' And there is no branch of scientific inquiry which will be ad- 

 vanced by this international attack on the great unknown southern land of more 

 interest than that which pertains to the history of the world's geogr:iphy. Inde- 

 pendently of securing a firmer outline to the vague definition of southern land 

 areas of the present day, it is there that we hope to find evidences of another 

 distribution of those areas in primeval times. Shall we be able to trace the 

 Patagonian formations, those recent basaltic lavas which overlie trees, beyond 

 that point in Graham's Land where we know that they occvir again, to the Aus- 

 tralian side of the Southern Pole? Shall we find that Erebus and Ten-or are but 

 the natural extension of that magnificent array of volcanic cones which overlook 

 the Pacific from the Patagonian Andes ? "Will the Miolania, the great turtle of 

 Patagonia — not unknown in Australia— complete with his bones another link iu 

 that chain of many evidences that Patagonia and Australia once met across the 

 extreme south ? You may say this is not geography. I hardly know whether 

 in these days it is still necessary to plead that between geography and natural 

 sciences, whether of geology, biology, or anthropology, the connection is so inti- 

 mate that in the actual field of research it is impossible to disconnect them. 

 Modern geography is but a development, and whilst the process of its evolution 

 is perhaps to be found in strictly geological fields, it has so modified and in- 

 fluenced the problems of life and the distribution of it throughout the world that 

 a collector of facts like myself finds it convenient to accept, for the mere sake 

 of simplicity, the science of geography as the best basis for divergent inquiries 

 into many other scientific fields, which can be differentiated at leisure by the 

 natural philosopher. 



Necessity for Study of Geographical History. 



But whilst we are justified in expecting much from this great international 

 movement we must still moderate our expectations. We must admit that in the 



