STEAM WHALERS 
37i 
only a single ship ; and the promoters declined to run the 
risk of sending out a solitary vessel to such unfrequented 
seas. The money was accordingly returned, an admirably 
thought out scheme abandoned, and the services of a 
singularly competent polar navigator were lost. 
So far this chapter may have proved dull reading; it 
has certainly been an unpleasant chapter to write. A 
record of fair promise nipped, not in the bud, but just 
before fruition, not once, but again and again, and the 
labours of colonial enthusiasts, the foremost men of 
science, naval officers, and whaling skippers equally 
wasted. Fortunately things took a turn for the better. 
The continual coming of appeals for renewing Antarctic 
research had wearied the public into a sort of semi-con- 
sciousness that the exploration of the southern ice was 
in the air, and little surprise was occasioned when it 
became known in 1892 that a whaling firm in Dundee had 
resolved to send ships to the Antarctic in the hope of 
finding a profitable hunting ground there. 
On returning from the Arctic regions in the late sum- 
mer of 1892 four vessels of the Dundee fleet were rapidly 
equipped for the long voyage to the south. The well- 
known Arctic explorer, Mr. Leigh Smith, whose famous 
wintering in Franz Josef Land was only an incident in 
his polar experiences, took a keen interest in the voyage 
and secured the appointment to two of the larger ships 
of surgeons who were specially interested in scientific 
investigations. The Royal Geographical Society and the 
Meteorological Office were also induced to equip the 
ships with instruments for navigation of a much finer 
description than those usually carried by whalers, and 
with a complete meteorological outfit. 
The ships were typical whalers of small size, immensely 
