Maech 11, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



343 



they now occupied, that they were formed 

 of frozen ocean water and snowflakes, and 

 that winds and currents had brought 

 them to where we now found them was 

 certain. But of the position of the South- 

 ern, open waters, with the exception of the 

 comparatively diminutive sea east of Vic- 

 toria Land, we knew nothing, nor did we 

 know anything of the relative amount of 

 snow and ice of which they were composed, 

 or of their age, or of the winds and currents, 

 that had carried them to a lower latitude. 

 The other great glacial feature of the Ant- 

 arctic area was ' the ice Barrier' which Eoss 

 traversed for 300 miles in the 78th and 79th 

 degrees of south latitude, maintaining 

 throughout the character of an iuaccessible 

 precipitous ice-cliff (the sea front of a gigan- 

 tic glacier) of 150 ft. to 200 ft. in height. 

 This stupendous glacier was, no doubt, one 

 parent of the huge table-topped ice-island 

 that infested the higher latitudes of the 

 southern ocean ; but, as in the case of the 

 pack-ice, we did not know where the barrier 

 had its origin, or anything further about it 

 than that it rested in great part upon a 

 comparatively shallow ocean-bottom. It 

 probably abutted upon land, possibly upon 

 an Antarctic continent. He did not see any 

 other method of settling this important 

 point, except by the use of a captive balloon 

 — an implement with which he hoped any 

 future Antarctic expedition might be sup- 

 plied. He chose the subject of the Antarc- 

 tic pack-ice as his theme not only because 

 it was one of the very first of the phenomena 

 that demanded the study of the explorer, 

 but because it was the dominant feature in 

 Antarctic navigation. The Antarctic fauna 

 and flora were most important, for the 

 South Polar Ocean swarmed with animal 

 and vegetable life. So prolific was the 

 Antarctic Ocean that the naturalist need 

 never be idle, no, not even for one of the 

 twenty-four hours of daylight throughout 

 the Antarctic summer ; and he looked to the 



results of a comparison of the oceanic life 

 of the Arctic and Antarctic regions as the 

 heralding of an epoch in the history of 

 biology. 



Dr. Hansen said that Great Britain was 

 undoubtedly the country to undertake a 

 great Antarctic expedition, for which the 

 whole scientific world was now waiting im- 

 patiently. He confined his remarks to the 

 portance of a land expedition. He was 

 not at all sure whether the Antarctic land 

 was a continent, and not a great group of 

 islands. At all events there must be one 

 or several ice-caps, and the exploration of 

 these would yield scientific information of 

 the greatest value. Geologists were look- 

 ing to the Antarctic for full light to be 

 thrown on the glacial epoch. It might be 

 difiicult to get on the Antarctic inland ice, 

 but not at all impossible. The surface was 

 probably smoother than in Greenland. 

 Observations on the thickness of the ice 

 would yield valuable results. On the other 

 matters referred to by Dr. Murray he was 

 confident that a properly equipped Antarctic 

 expedition would yield excellent results. 

 He pointed out the important influence in 

 meteorology which this enormous ice-sheet 

 must have on the climatology of the whole 

 world. If Great Britain sent out such an 

 expedition, he was sure that Norway would 

 be willing to send out an expedition for co- 

 operation upon the land. We know the 

 conditions of polar exploration now so 

 much better that we could much more 

 readily lay our plans for investigating a 

 region which had such a vast influence on 

 the ocean which England was proud to rule. 



Dr. Neumayer, Director of the Hamburg 

 Observatory, said he considered it his duty 

 to attend that meeting in order to show the 

 value he placed on British Antarctic re- 

 search in the past. He spoke of the urgent 

 need which the science of terrestrial mag- 

 netism had of continuous observations in 

 the Antarctic area, if possible simulta- 



