276 THE ANTARCTIC. 



Neumayer's endeavours to promote such an expedition 

 proved unavailing, and he had to rest content with 

 pressing home the necessity of south polar investiga- 

 tions in lectures, delivered first at Melbourne, and then 

 after his return home, in Germany ; unfortunately- to no 

 purpose, owing to a want of intelligent interest in these 

 problems, even amongst the educated classes ; unless, 

 indeed, the fact that the southward advance of the 

 Challenger followed the lines laid down by him be 

 regarded as a result of his labours. At last, in 1882 

 and 1883, a considerable step forward was made in 

 polar studies both North and South, when, thanks to 

 Neumayer's unwearied efforts, Weyprecht's proposal 

 was adopted, viz., to encircle both the Poles with a 

 system of permanent stations, at which, during at least 

 a year, the elements of terrestrial magnetism and of 

 meteorology should be synoptically and thoroughly inves- 

 tigated. It is true that, as has already been mentioned 

 before, the South Pole, in which Neumayer was specially 

 interested, had been treated very step-motherly. The 

 North Pole was surrounded by ten stations, all within 

 the Arctic circle, in addition to two stations north of 

 the sixtieth parallel, and six meteorological stations of 

 the second rank placed by Germany in Labrador. On 

 the other hand, in the Antarctic regions there were but 

 two stations erected, viz., the German in South Georgia 

 and the French in Tierra del Fuego, and even these 

 were the one io° and the other 12 north of the 

 Antarctic circle ; and, moreover, the utility of these 

 two stations was diminished by their being but 36° of 

 longitude asunder, when it would naturally have been 

 desirable that 180° should have intervened between 

 them. Nevertheless the station in South Georgia has 

 become specially important in geographical science, in- 

 dependent of the results in the domains of meteorology 

 and terrestrial magnetism ; so important, that Royal 



