THE EFFECT OF POLAR ICE ON THE WEATHER. 179 



practically for ever closed the Great Circle route. Some- 

 thing might be done by collating the experience of home- 

 ward-bound ships rounding the Horn, but they only enter 

 high latitudes when many degrees east of Australia ; but 

 should the present movement (1891) prove a success, and 

 Antarctic exploration become the fashion, and commercial 

 enterprise follow the right whale to his supposed habitat 

 in the Antarctic ice, would it be too much to expect that 

 a tender, or some fitting vessel of our colonial navy, (when 

 we have one), should, say twice a year, when visiting 

 Hobart (lat. 41| S.) take a dive further south for a few 

 degrees, and record, in tlie same months, and on the same 

 meridian, year by year, the limits where dangerous ice is 

 first met. Having previously fully cited the circumstances 

 under which Dumont d'CJrville, in January 1840, left Hobart, 

 and penetrated south for some 25 degrees, about 1750 miles, 

 coasted for 210 miles, and returned to Hobart in seven 

 weeks, meeting with no obstruction from land between 

 that port and the Antarctic Circle ; it might almost be said 

 that, in these days, with steam as an auxiliary, the voyage 

 would be reduced to Jess than a month's pleasure trip. 



Such records supplemented by all information on the 

 subject obtainable from mercantile and whaling vessels, 

 would be as valuable to future generations in these colonies 

 as a similar record for the past forty years, above referred 

 to, would have been to ourselves. 



Quoting again (still in 1891) from the leading article in 

 the Sydney Morning Herald, above mentioned: — 



"it may be at once admitted that such an enterprise is of the 

 kind that does not appeal very forcibly to that class of mind which 

 asks — what is to be the use of it ? regarding any proposal which 

 does not promise a direct return in pounds, shillings, and pence." 

 And speaking only as an amateur, not as an official mete- 

 orologist, my suggestion may elicit many cavils; but after 



