FIRST ANTARCTIC NIGHT 395 
the south there is extensive land. The temperature of the 
air in the Antarctic summer south of 70 ° S. was found to 
average 29 0 F., not half a degree higher than was found 
by the Fram north of 84° N. ; the mean temperature for 
the year was found to be 15° F. while the mean for July, 
the coldest month, was —8° and that for February, the 
warmest month, 34 0 . 
Mr. Borchgrevink who had sailed before the mast on Mr. 
Bull’s Antarctic whaling expedition of 1894-95 had on his 
return to Europe tried hard to get up a trading expedition 
to proceed to Victoria Land in the hope of securing a re- 
munerative cargo, perhaps guano from Possession Island ; 
but the scheme fell through. In 1898 however he suc- 
ceeded in inducing Sir George Newnes to fit out a scien- 
tific expedition in a single ship, and the plans were made 
without requesting any official recognition. The ship 
was an old Norwegian whaler, the Pollux, similar in size 
to the Balaena, and she was provided with new engines 
of unusual power for the occasion, as well as with a new 
name, the Southern Cross. Mr. Borchgrevink was singu- 
larly fortunate in the selection of his staff. As captain of 
the ship he had Bernhard Jensen, whose interest in the Ant- 
arctic regions had led him to join the whaler Antarctic 
as second mate in 1894, although for many years he had 
commanded his own ship in the Arctic whaling trade. 
William Colbeck, a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval 
Reserve, and a first-rate navigator and sound surveyor, 
was chosen as magnetic observer, and Louis Bernacchi, a 
British subject of Tasmanian birth, who had been trained 
in the Melbourne Observatory, went as meteorologist. 
Mr. Bernacchi had been promised a berth on the Belgian 
expedition if the original intention to call at Melbourne 
had been carried out ; but as time passed and it became 
