THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 431 
Mr. Mossman remained at Omond House, Scotia Bay, 
Laurie Island, until February, 1905, when an Argentine 
vessel brought him back to Buenos Aires after spending 
two years in unbroken hourly observations in the desolate 
ice-swept island. 
The relation between the various expeditions as regards 
date and duration may be shown in the form of a synoptic 
diagram, but it must be remembered that it was only the 
expedition of the Discovery under Scott which wintered 
south of the Antarctic circle. 
The last expedition to which reference has to be made 
is that equipped by Dr. Jean Charcot in the Frangais, a 
vessel built at St. Malo in 1903 for the purpose of Arctic 
exploration. When it became apparent that Norden- 
skjold had been obliged to pass a second winter in the far 
south Charcot resolved to go to his relief and had reached 
Tierra del Fuego when the Argentine gunboat Uruguay 
returned with the rescued party. His original object 
having been attained by others, Dr. Charcot resolved to 
proceed on independent exploration, and so for the second 
time the French flag entered the seas about the South 
Shetlands. The Frangais proceeded southward through 
Gerlache Strait, solved the problem of the Bismarck 
Strait of Dallmann by proving it to be a bay, sighted 
Alexander I. Land but could not land upon it on account 
of the ice, and did an important service in charting the 
western coast of the islands of Palmer Archipelago. The 
work occupied the two Antarctic summers of 1903-04 and 
1904-05, the intervening winter of 1904 having been spent 
in the ice. Some anxiety was felt as to the fate of the 
French expedition when she did not return in February, 
1905, and this was increased when the Uruguay, after 
embarking Mr. Mossman at the South Orkneys, visited 
