The Scientific Advantages of an Antarctic Expedition. 437 



asks where and how the components of these great fields of ice had 

 their origin, how they arrived at and maintain their present position, 

 what are their rate of progress and courses, and what their influence 

 on the surrounding atmosphere and ocean. I believe I am right in 

 thinking that to none of these questions can a fuller answer be given 

 than that they originated over extensive areas of open water in a 

 higher latitude than they now occupy, that they are formed of frozen 

 ocean water and snow, and that winds and currents have brought 

 them to where we now find them. But of the position of the southern 

 open waters, with the exception of the comparatively small area east 

 of Victoria Land,* we know nothing, nor do we know anything of the 

 relative amount of snow and ice of which they are composed, or of 

 their age, or of the winds and currents that have carried them to a 

 lower latitude. 



The other great glacial feature of the Antarctic area is " the 

 Barrier,'' which Ross traced for 300 miles, in the 78th and 79th 

 degrees of S. latitude, maintaining throughout the character of an 

 inaccessible precipitous ice-cliff (the sea-front of a gigantic glacier) 

 of 150 — 200 feet in height. This stupendous glacier is no doubt one 

 parent of the huge table-topped ice-islands that infest the higher 

 latitudes of the Southern Ocean ; but, as in the case of the pack ice, 

 we do not know where the barrier has its origin, or anything further 

 about it, than that it in great part rests on the bottom of a compara- 

 tively shallow ocean. It probably abuts upon land, possibly upon an 

 Antarctic continent ; but to prove this was impossible on the occa- 

 sion of Boss's visit, for the height of the crow's nest above the surface 

 of the sea was not sufficient to enable him to overlook the upper 

 surface of the ice, nor do I see any other way of settling this im- 

 portant point except by the use of a captive balloon — an appliance 

 with which I hope any future expedition to the Antarctic regions 

 will be supplied. There were several occasions on which such an 

 implement might have been advantageously used by Ross when he 

 was coasting along the barrier; and there were more when it would 

 have greatly facilitated his navigation in the Pack. 



I have chosen the subject of the Antarctic ice as the theme for my 

 acknowledgment of the honour you have done me in asking me to 

 address this most important meeting, not only because it is one of 

 the very first of the phenomena that demand the study of the 

 explorer, but because it is the dominant feature in Antarctic naviga- 

 tion, where the ice is ever present, demanding, whether for being 



* I refer to the " pancake " ice, which in that area on several occasions formed 

 with great rapidity around Ross's ships, lat. 76° lo 78° S., in February, 1842, and 

 which arrested their progress. Such ice, avigmented by fm-tliL-r freezing of the 

 water and by snow, may be regarded as the genesis of fields that, when broken up 

 by gales, are carried to the north and contribute to the circumpolar pack. 



