PLANS FOR REACHING THE SOUTH POLE 319 



less obstructed advance than hitherto will be possible after the 

 disappearance of this remarkable quantity of drift-ice, the next 

 few years will be especially favorable for the resumption of Ant- 

 arctic exploration. 



Apart from purely scientific reasons, an ambition to advance 

 German naval prestige is a prominent motive in the advocacy 

 of a national expedition. The following paragraph, quoted from 

 the Kolnische Zeitung, tends to show that the same logic that 

 prompted the purchase of the Caroline and Mariana islands 

 will be the most convincing argument for any vote by the Reich- 

 stag in favor of a large subsidy for the expedition : " For naval 

 supremacy are necessary not only men-of-war and a merchant 

 marine, but also an active participation in those scientific under- 

 takings which lead to man's conquest of the sea. Such enter- 

 prises we Germans formerly left to others. Then we not only 

 considered strategic points in distant seas unnecessary for our- 

 selves, but actually surrendered to foreign hands, one after an- 

 other, the approaches to our own harbors. Each course was 

 equally inglorious ; but about 1860 a desire arose for a personal 

 share in the exploration of the North Polar regions, and from 

 this feeling has grown the demand for a German fleet and the 

 renewal of the plan for a canal to the North sea and of other 

 similar projects. The honest conviction has come that all these 

 enterprises are mutually dependent and but parts of one whole. 

 To be strong at sea in the knowledge of readiness to fight, to be 

 strong at sea in the consciousness of a peaceful commerce that 

 carries our flag into every port, to be strong because of a scien- 

 tific and intellectual conquest of the sea, are the rights of a great 

 people working for one end — national development. Therefore 

 let us hope that the German Antarctic expedition will not only 

 add great honor to our scientists, but also bring new glory to 

 German valor at sea." 



The advantages, both from a geographic and general scientific 

 point of view, of a further exploration of the South Polar regions 

 have been so repeatedly set forth that it is hardly necessary to 

 enlarge upon them here. Briefly they maybe stated as: the 

 verification or disproof of the existence of a vast Antarctic con- 

 tinent ; the determination of the origin of the cold ocean currents 

 which have their rise in the south ; the study of the nature of 

 ice itself, of the differences between land-ice, sea-ice, river-ice, 

 etc ; and the investigation of the conditions of atmospheric press- 

 ure and temperature, of volcanic action, and of terrestrial mag- 

 netism within the Antarctic circle. 



