xxvii WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
ground for thinking this was not the case. Later still, in 
1873, the possibility of laying submarine cables made it 
necessary to investigate the nature of the abyssal depths, 
and the Challenger proved that not only does life, and in 
quite high forms, exist there, but that there are fish which 
can see. It is now almost certain that there is a great oxi- 
dized northward-creeping current which flows out of the 
Antarctic Ocean and under the waters of the other great 
oceans of the world. 
It was the good fortune of Ross, at a time when the 
fringes of the great Antarctic continent were being dis- 
covered in comparatively low latitudes of 66° and there- 
abouts, sometimes not even within the Antarctic Circle, to 
find to the south of New Zealand a deep inlet in which he 
could sail to the high latitude of 78°. This inlet, which 
is now known as the Ross Sea, has formed the starting- 
place of all sledging parties which have approached the 
South Pole. I have dwelt upon this description of the 
lands he discovered because they will come very intimately 
into this history. I have also emphasized his importance 
in the history of Antarctic exploration because Ross having 
done what it was possible to do by sea, penetrating so far 
south and making such memorable discoveries, the next 
necessary step in Antarctic exploration was that another 
traveller should follow up his work on land. It 1s an amaz- 
ing thing that sixty years were allowed to elapse before 
that traveller appeared. When he appeared he was Scott. 
In the sixty years which elapsed between Ross and Scott 
the map of the Antarctic remained practically unaltered. 
Scott tackled the land, and Scott is the Father of Antarctic 
sledge travelling. 
This period of time saw a great increase in the inter- 
est taken in science both pure and applied, and it had 
been’ pointed out in 1893 that ‘“‘we knew more about the 
planet Mars than about a large area of our own globe.” 
The Challenger Expedition of 1874 had spent three weeks 
within the Antarctic Circle, and the specimens brought 
home by her from the depths of these cold seas had aroused 
curiosity. Meanwhile Borchgrevink (1897) landedat Cape 
