50 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
into the ocean, one south of Cape Circumcision, the other 
south of the mythical Davis Land. 
Buffon performed a notable service to Antarctic re- 
search by inducing M. Charles de Brosses, president of 
the Parlement of Dijon to compile his “ Histoire des 
Navigations aux Ter res Australes," published in 1756. 
This work passed in review the details of all the 
voyages of exploration to the south so far as the records 
known at the time permitted, and the compiler strongly 
urged the continuance of voyages of discovery. “ For 
a king this would be an enterprise more glorious than 
a war or a victory/' he exclaimed. “ Thank God/' said 
King Edward VII. in bidding farewell to the expedition 
on board the Discovery, nearly a century and a half 
later, “ this is no warlike expedition." De Brosses con- 
tinued : “ The most celebrated of modern sovereigns will 
be he who gives his name to the Southern World. This 
enterprise can only be carried out by a king or by a State ; 
it is beyond the resources of an individual or of a com- 
pany, for a company seeks before everything profit and 
immediate profit." He went on to point out that explora- 
tion ought to be carried out for its own sake ; the result- 
ing advantages would appear later. 
De Brosses discussed the question of the southern ice, 
the difficulties which it presented, however, he believed 
would be found to diminish as one got further south, 
and he strongly upheld the existence of a habitable and 
colonisable continent in the unknown Southern Ocean. 
The arguments of De Brosses, the tradition of De 
Gonneville’s voyage, and the poetical narrations of Quiros 
did not fail to fire the ambition of French explorers, 
who were also stimulated by the very laudable desire to 
anticipate the discoveries likely to be made by the British 
