RAISING OF THE SIEGE 439 
should revisit the lands discovered by Biscoe, Balleny, 
D’Urville and Wilkes, to see whether their sheathing of 
ice has retreated like the edge of Ross’s barrier, and to 
verify their positions. 
Wintering parties might well be maintained at the 
highest attainable latitudes on the Victoria Land and 
Graham Land sides, while summer excursions seem to be 
invited on the Great Barrier by means of light motor 
cars. These should not cost more and would weigh less 
than balloons and their equipment, the inutility of which 
was shown by the successful ascents from the Discovery 
and Gauss. If a motor car ran at the rate of only five 
miles an hour for a couple of days before it broke down, 
it would give a sledge party a depot far from their main 
base and allow of the inspection of a much greater area 
than could otherwise be examined. Nor is it now too 
much to hope that continuous communication might be 
kept up by means of wireless telegraphy. 
While it is important to study every kind of nat- 
ural phenomena minutely, we are inclined to lay more 
immediate stress on wiping the reproach of Terra Incog- 
nita from the surface of our little globe. We are not 
ashamed to say that we would make the effort to reach 
the pole the chief purpose of exploration, until it is 
achieved. The pole once attained with difficulty would 
afterwards be reached with ease, and all needful observa- 
tions of natural phenomena could be carried out there and 
on the way thither far better when the crude difficulties 
of travelling in unknown surroundings have been over- 
come, and when there is no unscientific hankering after 
record-breaking to distract attention from serious if 
monotonous work. We believe that the price of a battle- 
ship would conquer all the secrets of the South ; not with- 
