INTRODUCTION 



Colbeck's survey showed that the Barrier had receded on 

 the whole some thirty miles to the south. Parts of the 

 Barrier were quite low, and Borchgrevink landed in 164° 

 West, the ship being laid alongside the ice as if it had 

 been a quay, and made a short journey on ski southward 

 over the surface on February 19, 1900, reaching 78° 50' 

 South, forty miles beyond Ross' farthest and six hundred 

 and seventy miles from the Pole, the nearest yet attained. 

 The sea was beginning to freeze and the Southern Cross 

 made haste for home. 



Following on various less weighty efforts set in motion 

 by the resolution of the International Geographical Con- 

 gress in 1895, all the eminent men of science who had 

 the renewal of Antarctic exploration at heart met in the 

 rooms of the Royal Society in London in February 1898, 

 when Sir John Murray read a stimulating paper. This 

 was followed by a discussion in which part was taken by 

 the veteran Antarctic explorer Sir Joseph Hooker, by 

 the most successful of Arctic explorers Dr. Fridtjof 

 Nansen, by Dr. von Neumaer, who had never ceased for 

 half a century to advocate renewed exploration, and by 

 Sir Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geograph- 

 ical Society. A joint Committee of the Royal Society 

 and the Royal Geographical Society undertook the equip- 

 ment of a British expedition and carried it through under 

 the constant stimulus and direction of Sir Clements Mark- 

 ham, while funds were subscribed by various wealthy in- 

 dividuals, by the Royal Geographical Society, and in 

 largest measure by Government. In Germany a national 

 expedition was got up at the same time under the com- 

 mand of Professor Erich von Drygalski to co-operate by 

 means of simultaneous magnetic and meteorological ob- 

 servations in a different quarter with the British expedi- 

 tion. For the present purpose it is enough to say that 

 the German expedition on board the Gauss descended on 



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