INTRODUCTION 



fishery in strong terms, no one stirred to take it up. 

 Polar enterprise was diverted to the lands within the 

 Arctic Circle by the tragedy of Franklin's fate and the 

 search expeditions. Efforts were made again and again 

 to reawaken interest in the south, notably by the great 

 American hydrographer Captain Maury and the eminent 

 .German meteorologist, Professor Georg von Neumaer, 

 but without effect. 



In 1875, H.M.S. Challenger, on her famous voyage 

 of scientific investigation with Captain George Nares, 

 B.N., as commander and Professor Wyville Thomson as 

 scientific director, made a dash south of Kerguelenland, 

 and on February 16 she had the distinction of being the 

 first vessel propelled by steam across the Antarctic Circle. 

 She went to 66° 40' South in longitude 78° 22' East, 

 and pushed eastward in a somewhat lower latitude to 

 within fifteen miles of Wilkes' Termination Land as 

 shown on the charts, but nothing resembling land could 

 be seen. The Challenger saw many icebergs, but being an 

 unprotected vessel and bent on other service she could 

 make no serious attempt to penetrate the pack; neverthe- 

 less, the researches made on board by sounding and dredg- 

 ing up many specimens of rocks proved beyond doubt that 

 land lay within the ice surrounding the Antarctic Circle 

 and that the land was not insular but a continent. 



In the same year a German company sent out the 

 steam whaler, Groriland, Captain Dallmann, to try 

 whether anything could be made of whaling or sealing in 

 the neighbourhood of the South Shetlands, and he went 

 probably to about 65° South in Bellingshausen Sea on 

 the coast of Graham Land. In the eighties of last cen- 

 tury Neumaer continued to urge the renewal of Ant- 

 arctic research in Germany, and Sir John Murray, raising 

 his powerful voice in Great Britain, sketched out a scheme 

 for a fully equipped naval expedition, but refused to have 



