ANTARCTIC PROSPECTS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11413, 25 October 1902, Page 3

ANTARCTIC PROSPECTS.

REMARKS BY SIR THOMAS • HOLDIOH. LONDON, September 13. The British Association (has been, holding its meetings in Belfast this week, and the second day of the sitting is always de-\ voted 'to the reading of presidential addresses in the several sections, and to these the other papers read and the discussions on them ore subsidiary. In Section E—Geography—the President for the year is Colonel Sir Thomas 'Hdldich, and i in his presidential address he took a general view of the work done and to- be done, dwelling specially on the importance ( of thorough geographical surveys.' Referring, in the course of his' address, to "Antarctic Prospects," Sir Thomas Holdicu said that they naturally turned first' to the Polar regions, for,' they formed the special domain of modern initial exploration, 'iney were very; far yet from having elucidated'the great geographical problems of sea and land ttistribution. ' which lay hidden under the depths of. palaeocrystal ice. They only knew indeed from inference that at one end of the world there existed an unmapped sea, and at the other an unmapped continent, roilfcd the edges of which they were now taking their way. -VVaSib.tdje'XKseoverjfs investigations, which would be directed to V ictoria. Land—the land of the historic volcanoes Erebus and Terror — from the side of Tasmania and New Zealand} would be associated at least three other, expeditions, all aiming, at a final solution of the South Pole problem. From Bcsth America, Otto Nordenskiold's expedition has taken the shortest sea route past the South ShedanCSs to Graham's Land, and had already passed a winter amid the ice. From South America, again, the Scottish expedition under Bruce, would work ite way past the Sandwich Islands, skirting the Antarctic Cicle, some 50 deg. to the east of Nordenskiold, almost on the Greenwich meridian, and as nearly opposite as possible to the Discovery's attack from the other side of, the Pole; while between the two wouid be the German expedition of the Gauss, pushing southward about the meridian of 90 deg. E., a worthy rival in scientific equipment to the Discovery. And there was no branch of scientific enquiry which would be advanced by this international attack on the great unknown southern land of'"more interest than that ■which pertained to the history of the world's geography. Independently of securing a firmer outline to the vague definition of southern land areas of the present day, it was ther.e that- they hoped to find evidences of another distribution of i/hoee areas in primeval tunes. But while they were justified in expecting much from this great international movement,' they must still moderate their expectations. They must admit that in the field of oara! exploration they hod not the "same developments in mechanical and instrumental accessories which placed within reach tilie possibility of conducting land, expeditions on far more scientific and- exact methods than were possible to our" grandfathers. Better instruments of their class, no doubt, Were within reach, owing to the extraordinary accuracy of modern production'; .but better hands to hold them it,would.be impossible i>b find!" 'He had', only lately returned from a journey full of geographical interest which had carried hub over come of. tjhe tracks left mgsy yeani. ago' by a British scientific expedition to the SoutJi Seas, which would be ever associated in

the memory of all geographers with the names of Charles Darwin and H..M.S Beagle. With the wider scopes for gatheringi information- which wae afforded iv these days by the* growth of ctvilisatioa and the shooting out of its long tendrils into the waste places of Patagonia, it had been possible to verify some of 'the suggestions as to tbe structure aed geographical configuration of that eouthem continent, which were offered by the observations of Darwin, and to examine 'here* and there, in some detail, the results of recent locxl surveyors in testing the accuracy of tfes coast outljne and of the coast, sounding established by the Beagle. One of the great sins of omission in'modern exploration was that a failure to appreciate the efforts of preceding geographerst-tihe want of a- patient absorption of all ■ available previous knowledge before they attempted to add to the sum, of it.