president's address. 
159 
this point. Though penguins exist in countless numbers they are 
at present of no commercial value. Deposits of guano are not 
likely to be of great extent. But it is impossible to speak with 
confidence on the commercial aspects of such an expedition — the 
unexpected may quite well happen in the way of discovery." 
With regard to the whales seen by Ross in the Antarctic ocean, 
Sir William H. Flower said (op. cit. p. 34): "The only right 
whale which has hitherto been found in the south is the black 
whale, which, if it exists in sufficient numbers, is profitable, and 
has yielded a great deal in former times, and was diffused pretty 
nearly all around the Southern Hemisphere, being once abundant 
off the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and New Zealand, and I 
have no doubt is the species seen in Sir James Ross' expedition 
further south." 
Dr. Murray thus sums up the work of a modern Antarctic 
expedition : "To determine the nature and extent of the 
Antarctic continent, to penetrate into the interior, to ascertain the 
depth and nature of the ice-cap, to observe the character of the 
underlying rocks and their fossils, to take magnetic and meteoro- 
logical observations both at sea and on land, to observe the tem- 
perature of the ocean at all depths and seasons of the year, to 
take pendulum observations on land, to bore through the deposits 
on the floor of the ocean at certain points to ascertain the condi- 
tion of the deeper layers, and to sound, trawl, dredge, and study 
the character of marine organisms." 
Professor Neumayer says : "It is certain that without an 
examination and a survey of the magnetic properties of the 
Antarctic regions, it is utterly hopeless to strive, with prospects of 
success, at the advancement of the theory of the earth's 
magnetism." It is certain also that without a knowledge of the 
geography and meteorology of the Antarctic regions no weather 
predictions for any part of the globe, much less for the Southern 
Hemisphere, can be considered absolutely reliable, however 
wisely they may have been forecasted. 
All these expressions of opinion on the part of leaders of 
modern scientific thought as to the desirability of an expedition 
