Abstract
AT the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on Monday evening Dr. John Murray, of the Challenger Expedition, read a paper on the renewal of Antarctic exploration. He sketched the history of voyages to the far south, and of the notions which prevailed as to the nature of the South Polar region from the earliest time down to the present day. He showed that while the huge southern continent believed in by the geographers of past ages had been vastly diminished by increased knowledge, the probability is that around the South Pole a land area of about 4,000,000 square miles actually exists. He indicated the present state of our knowledge of the region, which is extremely meagre, and then went on to show that until this knowledge was greatly increased many problems in science must remain unsolved. Until we had a complete and continued series of observations in the Antarctic area the meteorology of the globe could not be understood. Important problems in geology, in biology, in physics, in oceanography, demanded the renewal of research on an adequate scale in the South Polar area. Dr. Murray concluded as follows:—
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Antarctic Exploration. Nature 49, 112–113 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/049112a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/049112a0