120 THE ANTARCTIC. 



Heard in November, 1853. The cause of the peculiar 

 and remarkable phenomenon that so many merchantmen 

 took their course through these desolate and isolated 

 waters just at that time is to be found in the fact that 

 the course to Eastern Australia and New Zealand lay 

 along the lower parallel, a course that led past the Heard 

 Islands. At a subsequent period it was abandoned owing 

 to the great dangers to be apprehended from icebergs. 



A lull, therefore, set in both in Antarctic discovery and 

 in the utilisation of the natural wealth of the Antarctic seas 

 till the summer of 1873-4, when a German navigator, 

 Captain Dallmann, with the ship Gronland, encouraged 

 and sent out by the German Society for Polar Naviga- 

 tion, again sought the waters of Bransfield Straits 

 and the neighbouring region. The charts of these seas 

 were considerably altered and modified by Dallmann's ex- 

 plorations, more especially in the western portions. He cir- 

 cumnavigated Trinity Land and proved its inconsiderable 

 extent to the south ; he also showed that Palmer Land is 

 separated from Graham's Land by a broad channel, the 

 Bismarck Straits, with the group of Kaiser Wilhelm 

 Islands at its western extremity. 



This renewed interest in the Antarctic regions was 

 entirely due to the indefatigable energy of George Neu- 

 mayer, now the eminent director of the German Naval 

 Observatory. With the assistance of King Maximilian 

 II. of Bavaria he made his second voyage to Australia 

 in 1856, in order to found and direct an observatory for 

 maritime meteorology and terrestro-magnetism, the Flag- 

 staff Observatory at Melbourne. Even at that time he 

 was entirely convinced of the absolute necessity for Ant- 

 arctic exploration, not only in the interests of universal 

 physiography, but more particularly in the development 

 of the two before-mentioned subsidiary sciences. Thus, 

 he, in 1864, began a long course of lectures, addresses 

 and scientific articles on Antarctic exploration, first in 



