STEAM WHALERS 369 
bourne societies were loath to give up an idea that had 
become popular in the colony, and having been snubbed 
by the mother-country they tried to enlist sympathy in 
scientific circles abroad. Negotiations for a joint Swed- 
ish and Australian Antarctic expedition were entered 
into, and rumours circulated that the great geographer 
Baron Nordenskiold, the victor of the North-East Pas- 
sage, would himself lead the expedition, while Baron 
Oscar Dickson, who had munificently supported the voy- 
age of the Vega around Asia, was understood to be ready 
to make the project financially possible. The name of 
Fridtjof Nansen, then famous for his crossing of Green- 
land, was also mentioned as a possible leader. But 
nothing came of the efforts, and rumours of a German- 
American expedition directed by Neumayer and financed 
by a German- American millionaire were justified no 
better by events. 
The renewal of Antarctic research came neither from 
the zeal of men of science, the fostering care of Govern- 
ments, nor the wealth of millionaires. It was due to 
plain business men, seafarers willing to undertake a 
speculative voyage like the merchant adventurers of 
old. 
Seventy years ago fleets of whalers still sailed from 
many ports along the east coast of England and Scotland 
to the Greenland Seas, and much of the Arctic work of 
the Royal Navy in the earlier decades of the nineteenth 
century was called forth by the necessity for watching 
over a considerable source of national wealth and suc- 
couring distressed crews. Twenty years ago the Green- 
land whale (the bowhead or right whale — Balcena mys- 
tic etis) had grown so scarce that the fleets had dwindled 
to a few steam-vessels sailing only from Peterhead and 
24 
