JUNE 7, 1901.] 
have been made to prevent the injury 
which has occurred. 
In the autumn of 1899, Captain Tizard, 
F.R.S., and I were appointed as the repre- 
sentatives of the Council of the Royal 
Society on an Antarctic Executive Com- 
mittee of four, Sir Clements Markham 
(Chairman) and Sir R. Vesey Hamilton 
being the representatives of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society’s Council. Our functions 
were defined under various heads in a 
printed form previously agreed upon. No. 
2 instructed us to submit a program of 
the Expedition for approval to the Joint 
Antarctic Committee (consisting of sixteen” 
representatives of each Council), ‘‘ such a 
programme to include (a) A general plan 
- of the operations of the Expedition, includ- 
ing instructions to the Commander, so far 
as this can be laid down beforehand. (0) 
The composition of the executive and scien- 
tific staff to be employed, the duties, prep- 
aration and accommodation for, and pay 
of, the several members.”’ No. 4 instructed 
us “to make the appointments of the sev- 
eral members of the executive and scientific 
staff, subject to the final approval of the 
Joint Committee.”’? The word ‘civilian’ 
was nowhere employed. The four mem- 
bers of the Hxecutive Committee were 
placed on the Joint Committee and all Sub- 
Committees. 
Before the first meeting of the Executive 
Committee, Captain Tizard and I were seen 
by Professor Rucker, who informed us that 
one of the first points which the Council of 
the Royal Society desired us to raise was 
the relation in power and status between . 
the Commander and the Scientific Leader. 
In the German Expedition, which was to 
start about the same time, the Scientific 
Director had absolute power, and we were 
asked to consider the possibility of such an 
arrangement in the English Expedition. 
At one of our first meetings, I think the 
very first, I raised this question and sup- 
SCIENCE. 
891 
ported the German arrangement. The 
other three members, who were all naval 
experts, convinced me that English law re- 
quired the Captain to be supreme in all 
questions relating to the safety of his ship 
and crew. Since that time I have never 
disputed this point, but always maintained 
that the scientific chief should be head of 
the scientific work of all kinds, including 
the geographical, and that the Captain 
should be instructed to carry out his wishes, 
so far as they were consistent with the 
safety of ship and crew. 
We then considered the appointment of 
Scientific Leader and decided to nominate 
Professor J. W. Gregory, then of the Brit- 
ish Museum of Natural History. In sug- 
gesting his name to my colleagues, I was 
influenced by his proved success in organ- 
ization and in the management of men in 
a most difficult expedition (British Hast 
Africa in 1893), by the wide grasp of 
science which enabled him to bring back 
valuable observations and collections in So 
many departments. His ice experience in 
Spitzbergen and Alpine regions was also of 
the highest importance, together with the 
fact that his chief subject was geology, 
a science which pursued in the Antarctic 
Continent would almost certainly yield re- 
sults of especial significance. In addition 
to all these qualifications, Professor Greg- 
ory’s wide and varied knowledge of the 
earth rendered his opinion as to the lines 
of work which would be most likely to 
lead to marked success extremely valuable 
in such an expedition. No one was more 
competent to state the probable structure 
of the Antarctic Continent and its relation 
to that of the earth. This opinion of Pro- 
fessor Gregory’s qualifications for the posi- 
tion of scientific leader of an Antarctic ex- 
pedition is, I know, widely held among 
British scientific men. in their wide com- 
bination, and united as they are to tried 
capacity as a leader, they are unique, and 
