42 



ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION. 



By A. Matjlt. 

 (Bead April 9, 1894.; 



Antarctic exploration is no new subject for discussion at 

 the meetings of the Royal Society of Tasmania. Our founder 

 was the hero of Arctic research, and our records contain 

 papers by another of our distinguished Fellows — the facile 

 princeps of Antarctic explorers, Sir James Ross — of whose 

 expeditions Hobart was the base of operations. In later times 

 one of the best records of Antarctic exploration up to date is 

 contained in the paper read before us in 1886 by the late 

 Deputy Surveyor-General, Charles Sprent. That paper is so 

 complete a history of what had been done that I should not 

 have again called your attention to the subject but for the 

 additional information that has lately been obtained in 

 connection with voyaging among ice under conditions totally 

 different to those under which Ross achieved so much. The 

 information is derivable from papers that have been recently 

 read, and discussions that have taken place upon them at the 

 meetings of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal 

 Scottish Geographical Society. I need hardly say that the new 

 conditions under which voyaging among ice floes and bergs 

 is being done are those connected with the use of steam. 



Up to the present time no properly equipped and 

 constructed steam vessel has crossed the Antarctic circle. 

 The Challenger is the only steam vessel that has crossed the 

 circle ; and, as she was not intended for service in high 

 latitudes, she was wholly unprotected for ice work. But the 

 experience gained by 'the Dundee and Norwegian steam 

 whalers during the 1892-93 season in the neighbourhood of 

 Graham's Land and the South Shetlands, just north of the 

 Antarctic circle, show very clearly under how much more 

 favourable conditions Antarctic research can now be under- 

 taken than when Cook and Weddell and Ross penetrated 

 beyond the 70th parallel of south latitude. 



Here is Ross's account of how he had to encounter a storm 

 in the ice on January 19, 1842 :— -" At 9 p.m. the wind 

 suddenly freshened to a violent gale from the northward, 

 compelling us to reduce our sails to a close-reefed maintopsail 

 and storm staysails: the sea quickly rising to a fearful height, 

 breaking over the loftiest bergs, we were unable any longer to 

 hold our ground, but were driven into the heavy pack under 

 our lee. Soon after midnight our ships were involved in 

 an ocean of rolling fragments of ice, hard as floating rocks of 

 granite, which were dashed against them by the waves with 

 so much violence that their masts cjuivered as if they would 



