CHAPTER XX 
EARLY EXPEDITIONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
. . We ask 
To put forth just our strength, our human strength 
All starting fairly, all equipped alike, 
Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted.” 
— Robert Browning. 
E ACH of the recent expeditions has happily its own 
leader as its chronicler, and their volumes, not this 
chapter, are required to body forth the latest achieve- 
ments. We must refer to these great efforts in order to 
complete our story, showing how the triumphs of the 
twentieth century have sprung from the thought of the 
nineteenth, and how far they have extended the knowl- 
edge which inspired them. We endeavour accordingly 
to avoid detail and to supply only a skeleton to be com- 
pleted by the official narratives of the various expeditions. 
Some questions as to the renewal of South Polar 
research must at present be handled with restraint. When 
the plans for the various expeditions were being beaten 
into shape sparks flew about, not perhaps so hot as in the 
days when the American flotilla was being manned, or as 
in those when the verbosity of Dalrymple evoked the curt 
profanity of a free-spoken generation of Sea Lords; yet 
until these sparks are cold in memory they are best left 
unstirred. 
The action which followed the International Geograph- 
ical Congress in London in 1895 first took shape in an 
effort by the Royal Geographical Society, supported by 
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